Jimquisition: Rape vs. Murder

[Zydrate]

Finally, thank you. Now when people bring up the "But we murder lots!" fallacy, I can just link this video.

I especially loved the "Death is the equalizer" and "The other side is usually shooting at you" points.

 

[Terramax]

So Jim is saying that supposed self defense is what differentiates murder from rape? Well, that's a fair point in the real world, but that doesn't justify it in video games.

Video games, 99% of the time, allow us to kill for our own entertainment. It doesn't matter if you're playing the hero or villain. Either way, you paid for the enjoyment of killing something in a virtual world. We don't buy CoD and say 'if I come across an enemy, and he's firing at me, I'll fire back', but a case of 'I'm buying this product because I WANT to kill something'. Because it'll amuse me.

Rape, also, is a form of entertainment for the predator. Therefore, in videogames at least, I see them as one and the same.

Also, Jim feels that just because rape happens less often, it's less socially acceptable. This is possibly the most offensive aspect of this speech. That 'death' comes to us all eventually. However, there is a significant difference between 'death' in the natural sense, and 'murder', particularly meaningless death for pleasure.

And as for the psychological effects, no, death is not quick, for it haunts various other victims. A person dead is the trauma for a mother, father, siblings and friends. It can also be a burden for the killer.

Whilst I'm happy to agree that the two are different, trying to say that one is more justifiable than the other is ridiculous. Comparing apples to oranges.

 

[Eri]

You can't come back from being murdered.

You can, however, come back from being raped.

Life should be considered people's most prized possession.

I'm not gonna argue which makes a person worse for doing, but I will say I think anyone who would argue they'd rather be murdered than raped, is probably not in their right mind.

 

[soh45400]

I understand rape is bad, and that its not always obvious, however I disagree that men need to be reminded that fact. Do you need to be reminded not to murder or steal? No you and everyone else old enough to be responsible for their actions knows bad and good and does not need to be reminded what is what, you dont refer to people as potential rapists or murderers so dont treat them like they are.

Actually ... we ARE reminded not to steal and kill. From birth, we're raised to be told not to kill people, not to steal, to be honest and tell the truth. Nowhere are the boys set aside and told, "Now, you're going to have to not rape people." I understand that bringing up sexual issues -- especially concepts such as rape -- to young children is not going to whet the appetite of many parents, but the point remains that men really AREN'T told not to do it in any way. Parents don't tell their kids at any point, concerned more as they are with ensuring they don't smoke or do drugs.

In fact, there are PLENTY of organizations, poster campaigns, and commercials warning us not to smoke and do drugs. I'd say that's a great instance of society being told things it "doesn't need to learn" but having the lesson reinforced anyway. And I'd say that, "don't put the weird pill in your mouth that you know nothing about" is a FAR more obvious lesson than, "Here are the signs that maybe a woman doesn't want to sleep with you."

I agree completely with everything you have said but with one addition.
Those signs should be as tactful as you were in this video and not point fingers at ALL men and also tell men how to get over rejection and sexual repression because from whatever I have seen whenever rejection comes up in the media its usually women shown how to get over it.
Several countries just hang rapists(and rightly so) but don't offer any alternative or coping mechanism for anyone who might become one.

 

[Belated]

I agree with you a good bit on this one Jim, but let's get one thing straight: You absolutely misinterpreted Dave Chappelle. That joke was not about girls leading men to rape them. It was about girls leading men to flirt with them. There's a huge difference. Nothing personal, but that's Dave you're going after.

I'm glad you mentioned near the end that you still support a person's right to make their sick game, even if you don't agree with it. It's important that Free Speech stays absolutely neutral. And while games like Rapelay are sick, they do have a right to be created if someone so wishes to create them. And it was absolutely wrong for people to try to get the game banned [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapelay#Controversy] regardless of how offensive it is. Free speech must remain free for everyone, no matter what. Because of the incident surrounding Rapelay, I will certainly never donate money to "Equality Now", no matter how much good they do for other causes. As far as I'm concerned, they're an anti-free-speech movement. You can't try to ban somebody's speech and claim to be about "equality", no matter how badly you disagree with that speech, and no matter how offensive it is. As long as there are no real-life victims involved in the work, it should remain legal. But I digress.

Honestly, I'm still not sure you've sold me on rape being worse than murder. If you examine the crimes objectively, murder is still worse because it ends a person's life. Rape leaves them intact to live another day. And yes it may be traumatizing, but at least their body still functions. It's true that us spiritual people believe death is merely the beginning of something greater, but to atheists death is the absolute end to everything. Rape just FEELS worse than murder because of the way our culture treats the two. And although when you murder somebody in a video game, it's often a mutual combat situation, the same cannot be said for when you murder pedestrians in GTA who are running away from you. Murdering an innocent bystander is definitely worse than raping an innocent bystander. When you murder an innocent bystander, a life force leaves the body, a heart stops beating, several other bystanders lose a friend, and possibly a family member loses a relative. Rape doesn't take a person away from all the people who love him or her. And you can continue to live a happy life after you've been raped, even if it takes some healing.

 

[Stripes]

I understand rape is bad, and that its not always obvious, however I disagree that men need to be reminded that fact. Do you need to be reminded not to murder or steal? No you and everyone else old enough to be responsible for their actions knows bad and good and does not need to be reminded what is what, you dont refer to people as potential rapists or murderers so dont treat them like they are.

Actually ... we ARE reminded not to steal and kill. From birth, we're raised to be told not to kill people, not to steal, to be honest and tell the truth. Nowhere are the boys set aside and told, "Now, you're going to have to not rape people." I understand that bringing up sexual issues -- especially concepts such as rape -- to young children is not going to whet the appetite of many parents, but the point remains that men really AREN'T told not to do it in any way. Parents don't tell their kids at any point, concerned more as they are with ensuring they don't smoke or do drugs.

In fact, there are PLENTY of organizations, poster campaigns, and commercials warning us not to smoke and do drugs. I'd say that's a great instance of society being told things it "doesn't need to learn" but having the lesson reinforced anyway. And I'd say that, "don't put the weird pill in your mouth that you know nothing about" is a FAR more obvious lesson than, "Here are the signs that maybe a woman doesn't want to sleep with you."

No need for the caps, lets not get hostile. How many of those adverts are directed at you? For that matter, how many are directed at people who know better? People beyond 25? very few, if any. You teach a child not to do wrong when it doesn't know right from wrong, does anyone still need to remind you, are you capable of working out right from wrong even beyond what you were taught? Are there any poster campaigns telling us not to murder? Its basic stuff, dont rape, dont steal, dont kill. We do not need to be taught. If you go out of your way to tell guys dont rape anyone you are just saying they might, its insulting. Your clearly passionate about this, I respect that, but there's no need to get aggressive.

I am not getting aggressive. I am emphatic. I am not angry or upset with you at all. I am, in fact, enjoying the discussion.

Now, I get you saying it's insulting. The thing is though, if the worst thing society does to me as a privileged white male (and I agree with Lois CK when he says you really don't get a better starting hand than that) is remind me not to rape people, I think I can happily live with it. In a society where people are quick to imply a victim's fault in a rape, I dare say the reinforcement that the responsibility is the rapist's, not the victim's, is important.

Commercials like this actually do run in the UK, something I forgot to mention in the video. Often aimed at young, college-aged men, reminding them of the consequences of what they're doing, of how what may seem innocent to them looks terrible when viewed from an outsider's perspective. I think they are very useful reminders for the reasons I gave earlier. Sometimes, many times, rape is an insidious act, to the point where it risks being rationalized. While you may be totally immune to such rationalization, and while I may be, there are plenty who aren't.

Right, sorry its just when someone finds the caps lock it tends to suggest theyve hot the angry eyes on.

Anyway, I understand people need to be reminded what is and isnt rape, when they are getting their first few experiences with such situations, that doesnt mean all men need to be reminded not to rape, nor does it mean people in general need to be reminded not to rape. Most people wont realise what they are doing and might never realise they raped someone, there are probably people out there who have yet neither person realised it. There is a difference between knowingly and unknowingly doing something wrong, very few people will knowingly rape someone so dont need to be reminded not to. Besides the ones who would wont stop just because they got told not to.

 

[ADDLibrarian]

Jim, you have perfectly communicated my opinion as well on a controversial subject. Bravo on this episode. Thank God for you!

 

[Right Hook]

And let's not forget, there are instances where rape is so insidious that even the rapist might not realize what he's doing. There have been instances of a man having unwanted sex with a woman and not even figuring that it was unwanted. Or having sex with someone drunk, on drugs, or asleep, and thinking it's okay.

Exactly, no means no, it doesn't mean try again in 30 seconds. Anything other than a very emphatic yes means no because taking advantage of someone or tricking them is just as sleazy as outright forcing them.

 

[AxelxGabriel]

I disagree. If you ban rape and rape discussions and somehow remove it from life entirely, why not do the same for dentistry, dentists, everything to do with teeth? I mean, it's pretty traumatic, painful, everybody hates it... Or paper-cuts. Man, those hurt.
Death on the other hand is a final full stop, a big ending, there is nothing (as far as I know) beyond death. There are no chances to heal yourself emotionally and physically.

Tl;dr: Death-end, rape-pain, thus saying rape is NONO while death is ok is hypocrisy.

Again, Dentistry can be justified. You dont NEED to go to a dentist.

Rape is not. There is no justification for Rape, period.

it's called the cycle of abuse not that it justifies rape but if child is raped over x amount years by a predator then turns around and does the same because he or she never got help for the abuse then it goes in cycle that needs to addressed. No there is never a just cause for rape however given a person's weak state of mind and enduring amount of abuse he or she might of took it's understandable why the person would repeat the cycle, to make some-one hurt or feel bad as they do.

So I'm supposed to feel sorry for a guy who rapes today because he was raped 20 years ago? That is a piss poor excuse and it gets no sympathy from me.

 

[Alterego-X]

- I've read a lot of posts about rape in videogames. But at the end it's mostly a japanese thing, isn't it? I would like to understand why for the japanese rape is not an absolute tabu on a cultural level.

I guess it's mostly caused by Japanese culture's concept of honne and tatemae attitudes. These mean the two facets of someone's personality. "Honne" means inner desires, and "tatemae" means the public exterior.

While in most cultures, honne would be seen as the "real one", Japanese people expect and value the two equally. Appearing proper in public is important, but secretly being different from that is encouraged.

For example, in terms of sexuality, women are expected to publically appear virtous, but actually enjoy sex. So while western rape fantasies are limited to people who want to "punish" girls who were "acting like whores", in other words, to agressive people who want to hurt, in most Japanese rape scenes the victim being unwilling just makes her that much more honorable, but she will actually enjoy the act, so it's ok.

Also note, that this also often happen in shoujo manga too, written by women for girls. It's not just a misogynist fantasy, but something that the whole Japanese culture accepts and expects. Even in stories that aren't really about rape, a girlfriend is always portrayed as being relucant, and during sex, cry out "no, stop" instead of "fuck me harder", even while she obviously isn't trying to fend off the guy.

 

[Num1d1um]

I disagree. If you ban rape and rape discussions and somehow remove it from life entirely, why not do the same for dentistry, dentists, everything to do with teeth? I mean, it's pretty traumatic, painful, everybody hates it... Or paper-cuts. Man, those hurt.
Death on the other hand is a final full stop, a big ending, there is nothing (as far as I know) beyond death. There are no chances to heal yourself emotionally and physically.

Tl;dr: Death-end, rape-pain, thus saying rape is NONO while death is ok is hypocrisy.

Did you just compare being raped to paying a visit to the dentist? You shitting me?

 

[tmande2nd]

Its a very hard topic to breach.

Its kind of odd in a way too.
TVtropes has a trope called "Rape is a Special Kind of Evil"

You can be a villain who blows up a building full of people, but more people go ape-shit over a person who rapes a single person.

I can recall an old campaign I did in D/D.
The father antagonist is a typical crime boss who murders people, and oppresses an entire city.
His son is basically an arrogant brat who wastes money on gambling and easy women.

We learned he raped one woman, and suddenly my entire party wanted his blood.
Even more then the dad.

I tried saying "uhm...that is about the worst thing he did, that dad is far worse"
Then I got accused of supporting a rapist and yelled at.

Its like a berserk button with people.
I guess in fiction if you kill thousands of people you still are less monstrous then rapists.
I mean villains in comics can be disgusting, but its the ones who are rapists that everyone hates.

Even Dr. Doom hates rapists, and he is an insane megalomaniac.

 

[Dastardly]

we dont really need to be told

The fact that quite a few rapes happen seem to suggest otherwise.

And let's not forget, there are instances where rape is so insidious that even the rapist might not realize what he's doing. There have been instances of a man having unwanted sex with a woman and not even figuring that it was unwanted. Or having sex with someone drunk, on drugs, or asleep, and thinking it's okay.

Rape isn't always (often isn't) a violent back-alley thing like we see in movies. I think it would behoove society to make us all more aware of that, and understand that just because we're not forcing someone to do something at knifepoint, we still may be making someone do something they don't want to do, and that it could severely affect them emotionally.

I'm with you on this. I would say, however, that these could be reasons why we see more ads providing women tips for avoiding rapists, and not very many telling guys not to rape.

Of these people:

a. A woman who, statistically, maybe become a victim of rape.
b. A man who doesn't believe himself to be a rapist, or at risk of becoming one
c. A man who identifies himself as a rapist, or intends to become one by committing a rape

Which of them would actually pay any attention to an ad that references rape? Person B glances by and says, "Well, I'm not a rapist, so that's not for me," the same way I might look away from an ad selling denture cream. Person C isn't what we'd think of as rational, and there's no way someone like this is unaware of the wrongness of the act... so there's no way they're going to be swayed by being informed via billboard that it is wrong.

We might posit that Person B is still at risk of becoming a rapist, say after taking advantage (knowingly or not) of a drunken friend, or other similar circumstance, and that Person B might benefit from being forewarned about this possibility so that he might guard against it. I'd have to wonder, would you really take it to heart if I said, "Jim, the next time you're at a party, maybe don't turn into a rapist, okay?" I'd wager not. Because you know you're not a rapist.

The reason ad campaigns focus on helping women recognize and avoid vulnerable situations is because that's where the ads are more likely to achieve a result. The point of the ads is to try to reduce the number of rapes that occur, and women are more likely to listen than rapists. It's the same reason we put locks on our doors -- sure, it's wrong for someone to break into my house do me harm or take my things, and it wouldn't be my fault if he did, but is it better for me to feel that inner peace of knowing I'm in the Right, or is it better for me to not get robbed at all?

I wear my seatbelt when I drive, so that if I'm hit by some drunk, I'm less likely to get killed. If I wasn't wearing the seatbelt, and I was killed, I know full well that the law would punish him for my death -- he was 100% at fault for driving drunk and hitting me, and I'd be 100% blameless in the entire affair. Problem: I'm still dead.

Locking my door or putting on my seatbelt isn't somehow accepting blame for the potential crime that could have otherwise occurred. It's me realizing that such steps are a small price to pay to reduce my chances of being selected as a victim of these crimes, and that safety is worth more to me than the comparatively hollow knowledge that, if I am robbed or killed, no one can blame me.

(More on topic: 1. Victim blaming is real and does happen. 2. Games that encourage the player to engage in rape, or allow the player to potentially be made a victim of rape as a failure condition (or, really, at all I think) are indefensible, except in the most technical arguments for "Free Speech"... and even then, I wouldn't take the case.)

 

[Num1d1um]

I think a big part of the difference is a pseudo-medieval concept of honor that still floats around fighting to the death. In most games, you engage opponents that are well capable of killing you, so killing them is not only self-defense, but the duel between the player and the enemy retains a certain kind of fairness. I don't see honor or fairness in rape. Anywhere.

 

[FedericoV]

- I've read a lot of posts about rape in videogames. But at the end it's mostly a japanese thing, isn't it? I would like to understand why for the japanese rape is not an absolute tabu on a cultural level.

I guess it's mostly caused by Japanese culture's concept of honne and tatemae attitudes. These mean the two facets of someone's personality. "Honne" means inner desires, and "tatemae" means the public exterior.

Thanks for the interesting and in-depth insight.

 

[Shjade]

Please bear in mind that my video's intent is not to discuss the right/lack of right of any of these games to exist, at least outside of the throwaway comment near the end. I'm talking about *why* the two subjects are handled differently, not the right/wrong in *how* they are handled. While I may discuss that subject in a future video, it would be too much to discuss it in the same video as this one.

Have to admit, when I read the video's title I was sorta hoping it'd address the subject of people getting upset about rape, the word, being used as trash-talk/description of performance in playing of games i.e. "I just raped that guy so hard." I find those arguments about whether it's worse to say you raped someone than to describe what you literally just did to them (involving, say, a shotgun at close range followed by some napalm) interesting and amusing at times.

When it comes to game content, though, eh...it really depends on how you're handling it. I mean, I'm looking at context, as was mentioned in the video. There's a load of possible scenarios involving killing people: military action, self-defense, survival needs, assassination, etc. compared to far fewer plausible contexts for rape. If rape's the central focus of the game, that means the game's context is going to be screwed up pretty much regardless. If this Hypothetical Rape Game is based on the idea that your character is going out in search of women (or men?) to beat down and rape, I'd have to think it would be pretty much just as bad if he (or she?) were hunting down people to murder, not because rape = murder, but because of the stalking and motivation and so on. It's not so much the rape itself that's the rotten core of this concept; it's more the fetid cherry on top of a game that's completely structured to play a monster/serial killer/what have you.

From the other side of the same idea, I'm trying to think of games wherein adding a rape element probably wouldn't change much about how bad the people involved are and/or how "inappropriate" the game is. Saints Row 2 comes to mind. Not because of the wanton murder and nakedness and general wtf behavior throughout the bulk of the game, though that helps. No, I'm thinking of a particular scene in which your character abducts the girlfriend (non-combatant, victim) of one of the bad bosses, stuffs her in the trunk of a car and tricks the baddie into crushing her to death with a monster truck.

Think about that for a minute.

There's no self-defense justification. There's no monetary or military gain from her death. It doesn't do anything to benefit you or your goals at all, really. All it accomplishes is ruining the girl's life (via messily ending it in a rather terrifying and probably painful manner) and pissing off the boss. That's it. Your character just does it because he (or she) is a colossal bastard.

Now, if instead in this event the girlfriend is raped and sent home to her beau to tell him about how she was traumatized, it would accomplish pretty much the same thing. Would it make the game better/worse? I dunno, I don't think it would really change much of anything - you're a monster either way.

Of course, given it probably wouldn't change much of anything, there's no reason to include rape there. It wouldn't add anything to the story any more than it would detract from it. It'd just be something thrown in for the sake of having rape in a game, and that's not a good thing either.

tl;dr - There are probably contexts wherein rape could be included in a game without completely corrupting the game with it, but it'd be pretty hard to do without making it some kind of exploitative fanservice for creeps. Or, to put it another way, it's very hard to justify including rape in a game, even in cases where it might "make sense."

 

[Phasmal]

I thought this episode was really good.
I wouldn't have known quite how to phrase it myself, but I'm glad someone is able to put it a bit more coherantly than I would.

I think that at the moment we have enough trouble with real-life rape being trivialised and dismissed, and I really think the best thing video games can do is just stay out of it.
Not to mention, as a female gamer - that's really the last thing I want in games.
Now, I'm going to try and get out of this thread before I get flamed for this opinion.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

I disagree. If you ban rape and rape discussions and somehow remove it from life entirely, why not do the same for dentistry, dentists, everything to do with teeth? I mean, it's pretty traumatic, painful, everybody hates it... Or paper-cuts. Man, those hurt.
Death on the other hand is a final full stop, a big ending, there is nothing (as far as I know) beyond death. There are no chances to heal yourself emotionally and physically.

Tl;dr: Death-end, rape-pain, thus saying rape is NONO while death is ok is hypocrisy.

Again, Dentistry can be justified. You dont NEED to go to a dentist.

Rape is not. There is no justification for Rape, period.

it's called the cycle of abuse not that it justifies rape but if child is raped over x amount years by a predator then turns around and does the same because he or she never got help for the abuse then it goes in cycle that needs to addressed. No there is never a just cause for rape however given a person's weak state of mind and enduring amount of abuse he or she might of took it's understandable why the person would repeat the cycle, to make some-one hurt or feel bad as they do.

So I'm supposed to feel sorry for a guy who rapes today because he was raped 20 years ago? That is a piss poor excuse and it gets no sympathy from me.

there are kids that rape younger kids or are you unaware of that?? Kids that where molested for 5 years from ages 6-7 to 11-12 feel frustrated in pain and don't know what the hell to do. They look for some younger than them and take it out on that person because the person's psyche was already broken at a young age. You really need to read up and study case laws on this stuff it's actually sad how this damn cycle of abuse goes with out as much glance or care to talk about. No if person was raped 20 years ago as a kid then goes out and rapes it's not legit reason or even a damn excuse however you have to take into factor did that person get help over those twenty years or did he or she little it bottle up and explode because of the shame/guilt of what happened.

There is nothing as cut or dry that some it just twisted evil sh** with no morals unless they are "sociopaths". Mental health issues play alot into this so don't excuse it as b.s. You're talking to a victim of molest ion to begin with that would rather kill him-self than commit such a horrible act of rape or sex abuse.

 

[The Great JT]

Rape really is a touchy subject to approach, so I can kind of understand why mainstream games tend to avoid it. I mean, the gaming industry gets enough flak for violence, and rape is another beast altogether.

 

[RPGxMadness]

http://youtu.be/ymNdfdQvdVc

This is the quote from Dave Chappelle that Jim used, note that everyone is laughing and applauding...