Let's Not Ban RapeLay

[ethaninja]

Has anyone here ever played Rapelay?

I have. My and mah buddies decided it would be good for a laugh to download it and play it. And it was, that game is impossible to take seriously. Not to mention that the graphics are so basic that the...organs clip through each other in the most ludicrous of ways, it's not even that graphic, nowhere near how bad the media portrays it. Obviously, it's still horrible in places, but it's hardly the bringer of the end times.

And yes, I think it shouldn't be banned. As long as they have proper safeguards so they can't get into childrens hands (although they'd probably find it as amusing as I did) then any consenting adult should be allowed to buy it, should they so wish. Freedom to choose, and all that.

That way, we can gloss over what is really at its heart quite a poor, silly game and promote the good ones.

Yeah I guess they are just more pissy about the idea of the game. What I don't get is, there are games where you can kill women, torture women and even games with sex in them. But when it comes to rape? I don't get it.

 

[Helba1984]

Um... yeah, according to Kotaku they officially banned rape games in Japan itself, which is some news...

No. They tried and it got shot down; the VOLUNTARY association of hentai game makers banned it, but they can still be made and sold, they just won't have their backing.

It's a way to distance themselves from backlash.

 

[Altorin]

A good rule of thumb in ethics is that if you have to try really, really hard to come up for a reason that something is ethical, it's probably not.

we don't have to try very hard at all.

1) there is rape everything else, and noone bats an eye
2) it's a game, for the same reason we can say violent video games don't make you violent, we can say a game where you rape someone won't turn you into a rapist
3) The country that the game is ONLY available in has one of the lowest percapita rates of rape and violent crime. Even if the rape number is larger because rapes largely go unreported, that's across the board. Rape is an underreported crime in ALL areas, not just Japan.

1) The only reason this is so is because Video Games are regulated by the ESRB whereas books and adult films are not regulated by the government. Using inconsistencies in regulation is not an excuse for the content.

2) That's beside the point and you know it. Violence is a part of daily life, you can turn on the news or the History Channel and see war scenes and scenes of violence, rape is not. Rape is a fundamentally different crime, as are all crimes involving sex. One could go on a tangent about the repression of sex in our society but that would be off-topic.

3) That's a red herring. Nobody, including me, is arguing that these video games = more rapists.

the ESRB is not the government. films and video games are both rated by PRIVATE companies. They are also entirely voluntary, but if you do not get your movie or game rated, it automatically becomes AO or X-Rated in the eyes of retailers. if rapelay were brought to the ESRB, it would get an AO rating. It wouldn't be sold in stores except the very few that do have AO games (IE, Porn stores), along with the rape porn. In fact, I had to read a book in 11th grade social studies that involved male soldiers gangraping another male soldier. It was part of the curriculum. If I had played that scenario as a game, that should cause me to go to jail, but to read it in a book it's required reading?

I don't believe there's a real ethical difference between between murdering someone and raping them. They're both horrible crimes. The fact is, these games do not make you more sexually deviant. Sexually deviant people play them BECAUSE they're sexually deviants.

And finally, yes, most people in this thread are arguing just that. If that weren't the case, and you just think it's gross, that's fine. We can agree on that. I don't play Rape games myself. But to BAN them? Have the government come in and tell us what we can't watch? That's a VERY slippery slope, and not a slope I'd agree with. Once you draw a line and say "Ok, ban this", then it will be easier to ban something else.

Right now, if you get your hands on RapeLay, you're free to play it. That's a freedom. If you give up freedom for protection, get end up with neither.

In short, you have the freedom right now to not play RapeLay, and if you ignore these threats, you can pretend it doesn't exist, and the world will continue the same.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Ok, maybe television was a bad example, but books and film often deal with this kind of material, and are celebrated for it since it shows humanities dark side. The book the bluest eye has a scene where the character gets violently raped by her own father, and we saw that in all he was doing it out of some sick love. Is this book looked down apon? No, it recieved several awards and has been praised numerous times. Scarface? It is all about a drug abusing, murdering, incest wanting pyscho that kills, mains, and climbs his way to the top. We are suppose to root for a guy that keeps several machine guns next to his desk. But it is considered in humane thing from the depths of hades? No, it is considered one of the greatest films and has made several AFI lists. I am just saying, gaming is just looked down apoun simple because we are "toy makers."

I am not trying to cause a flame war with you, I am just trying to say that this is part of our culture and that it is just being rather unfairly critized when it is neither notable for how bad its content is or how many games in Japan (from what I heard) are like it. And think about it, if that was censored, what next? Any game that dippicted murder? It is considered a worse crime in all countries. Say goodbye to GTA. All games that show animal violence? Saw goodbye to mario and Zelda. Games that show theft, crime, or any material that could offend anybody in anyway? Well, we are left with Pong and Barbie's horse adventure.

 

[Brad Shepard]

The finger is on the button to the flood gates of banning, its going to take one little thing right now for the button to be pushed.

 

[omegatheta]

i find it ammusing that japan has all this wonderful stuff like rapelay and...panty vending machines and EXTREMELY well thought through anime porn(hentai W/E im dumbing it down) and yet whilst they aren't without crime they are definitely not in the top 20 crime infested nations in the world... Banning anything doesn't STOP people from doing it....if that was the case we would no longer have drug addicts... all banning things has ever accomplished is making people do/obtain them more secretively...

I think if I were into rape imagery, banning it would be a really bad idea. instead of just watching porn to get my fix of rape I'd have to.. go out and rape someone.

So that's a scenario that's JUST as plausible as anything they can possibly put out for why it shouldn't be banned.

People have sick urges. It would be good for them to be able to feed those urges without hurting anyone. And if you just say "They should suppress those urges", we all know that doesn't work. It's a compulsion, not a choice. The only choice in the matter for a rapist is NOT to rape. They choose NOT to rape to be part of society.

at least for the ones who have urges to rape. Some guys rape to show dominance. that's an entirely different beast.

that is... pretty much my point...you know who is going to play a game like this... people who enjoy games like that...not children(at least not if they have a half way decent parent around)....on a side note i think that parents who let their under 13 year old kids play whatever games they want completely unsupervised should be heavily fined by local state AND federal governments... it would be a better solution than banning a media because the subject is "controversial"

 

[PS2MAN]

The concept of rape and far worse beyond has been portrayed more graphically in movies/novels and even jokes. So why are games the only medium that ever offends people? Simple answer, they are old feeble minded farts being hypocritical. "Games must be what us corrupting the youths, they did not exist in my generation."

Wrong. Youths are not being corrupted by games, they are being corrupted by the uneducated morons that conceived them. The medium media is distributed is not what you should offend you or the what you should blame, its the media distributed by the medium and vice versa. In the case of content children have no legal way of obtaining your to blame for allowing them to obtain it.

In summery 2 fingers to all. Games have not magically created a new evil, they are simply an alternative outlet for the evils already present that this generation has inherited from you ignorant smegs, such as rape.

 

[RelexCryo]

Let's Not Ban RapeLay

Banning videogames about rape sounds like a good idea. Here's why it's not.

Read Full Article

Excellent article, nice job.

I'm anti-censorship and anti-lazy-high-profile-news-outlets-looking-for-a-cheap-bit-of-scandal-and-controversy, however, a line must be drawn somewhere. Also, you may say that the game exists as a result of the culture in Japan, but I'm afraid I have to say in that case that something needs sorted out in Japan. A country where women need dedicated train carriages just so they wont constantly get groped is a country that has serious problems.

Anyway, yes, I say a line should be drawn, and it should be drawn long before this game. I'm sure if it was a child porn game no one would defend it, why should this be any different.

Japan has a much lower occurence of rape than the US. What's more, their rate of rape and other sexual crimes actually decreased as they lightened up their porn bans.

 

[KiruTheMant]

We have a rating system,I think japan has one,All online stores I order from basically say you must enter legal age,its impossible to lie,unless you steal someones credit card. Why ban a game if the 0.01 percent of children who will go through the point to steal are already on that road?why punish the 99.99 percent of people who will play the game?Would YOU go out and rape someone after playing this game?If you would,make sure your speaking of real life and not second life.Punish the people actually doing bad things,There was no raise in massive rape in japan by 400% that year.More people mug a year than rape.Chances are,people underage who had never heard of this might have raped their girlfriend.The point is,don't hate the game,hate the playa(oh my god yes I did just make that joke.)

 

[Vitor Goncalves]

My opinion is defending rapeplay from being banned ban is not the same as defending every game from being banned. A game that promotes women rape seems sick to me from the start. Seeing it just from a gamer point of view seems a bit simplist.

Anyway, yes, I say a line should be drawn, and it should be drawn long before this game. I'm sure if it was a child porn game no one would defend it, why should this be any different.

I agree with drawing a line, and this game seems far beyond the line. But probbaly we allready crossed other lines. Lets take murder as an example. I am sure not against FPS or any other kind of action game that involves killing enemies. But usually they are the bad guys, and that makes them morally correct even if some people says it promotes violence. But when the game makes you the bad guy killing just for the sake of slaughtering then I would also say a line should be also be drawn.

The problem is if, like in everything in life, we go for the no bounderies rule we might regret it later as it might bite us back.

 

[rekabdarb]

Um... yeah, according to Kotaku they officially banned rape games in Japan itself, which is some news...

Not... really.

They're just not calling them rape games anymore. Unless something's changed since then.

Whatever be the case, these games are normally meant to act as 'social valves' to let people live out their fantasies virtually instead of criminally(although the recorded crimes in Japan are beyond sadistic)
What I'll never agree with, though, is kiddie porn.
Japan enforced strict laws on that(outside animation and manga) only after foreign pressure to regulate that content.

doesn't japan actually have one of the lowest counts of rape in the "1st world countries?" where us united statesians have a much higher count

That's not and has never been my point. I'm just expressing my disgust regarding real-life kiddie porn.

eye of the beholder really

 

[Timbydude]

As much as I hate the fact that this game exists, it would sort of be hypocritical to ban it. Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto are essentially "murder simulators", yet these pervade the market and often find their way into the hands of kids. When, in actuality, murder carries a more severe punishment than rape, it seems odd to ban the simulator of the (legally) less severe crime.

But I have to say...I really am disgusted by this whole thing. I generally don't react strongly to "controversial material", but this is just crossing the line. I was almost in disbelief upon hearing of the existence of this thing. Why are people even producing crap like this?

 

[y1fella]

I'm sorry, wait no I'm not. rape lay is stupid fucked up shit and I do not understand why the fuck ANYONE is defending it. Rape is pretty much the most horrible thing one human can do to another.

 

[PS2MAN]

Rape is pretty much the most horrible thing one human can do to another.

Murder says hi.

 

[Silva]

movies are rated and 90% of the time they are enforced games are not

Games are rated as well, and actually, studies by the FTC have consistently shown that the videogame industry has a higher rate of rating compliance than the movie, video or music industries.

That is to say, it's considerably easier for a kid to get into an R-rated movie or buy an R-rated DVD than it is to buy an M-rated videogame.

None of which actually has much to do with the question at hand, but those are the facts.

Wait a second. At least in my country, the kid will still play the game. An adult, by enforcement if not by law, only has to be present while buying the game. That could be ANY adult, and whatever happens at home once the game is bought is likely to differ. So what you're saying is just not true for Australia, and last I checked the rules regarding MA15+ games were the same here as in America. Maybe you're right for Canada, though.

 

[reciprocal]

Great article Andy. I think this whole "rapelay" issue stems from two basic principles:

#1 - Hypocrisy. "I hate A. Therefore A should be illegal.". It's stupid as hell, but it's the most common mentality. People try to ban what they don't like because they're intolerant, and... Well... On average people are idiots... Accepting that you can dislike something and still live with it isn't easy, and requires people to think, something they seem so fundamentally opposed to. I'm not saying rape should be legal mind you, but "fake" rape? Which leads us to point #2...

#2 - ...People fail to understand why things are/should be illegal in the first place. Rape and child porn aren't illegal because they're "immoral", they're illegal because they're non-consensual and in order to create them some innocent bystander has to get hurt. This is the reason raping someone is illegal. This is the reason child pornography is illegal. It's not because some people don't like it, or consider it "wrong"... It's because people get hurt...

... Here's the kicker, nobody gets hurt in a videogame. Or in an anime, book, cartoon, etc. And here's where #1 kicks in again. People start trying to ban harmless media about these things because they don't like it.

Rape is illegal because people get hurt. -> Rape is generally considered bad. -> People start banning rape-related cartoons and games because they don't like them, under the faux pretenses that real rape is illegal...

Fundamental cause of the whole shenanigan: people are incredibly stupid...

Has anyone here ever played Rapelay?

It's more comedy than porn. The clipping, particularly, is laughable.

however, a line must be drawn somewhere.

Why? It's a game. Nobody will ever get hurt over you playing the game. Maybe barring some Jigsaw-esque scheme, but I think we can agree the game itself wouldn't be to blame there.

Why should we draw a line on what we can do if it's not hurting anyone? Would I defend a child porn game? Yes. I probably wouldn't play it myself, let alone buy it, but I can't see a single reason why it should be illegal. Cannibalizing babies? Why not? Probably not the best promotional stunt (then again...). Anything. I might not like something, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal.

As Voltaire once put it: "I might not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to death your right to say it".

This eloquently sums up my position on this.

I would like to add that I've seen the statistics regarding sexual crimes per capita for different countries and I also acknowledge that it gets underreported across the board. My question to everyone is how many of those cases were influenced by "artificial rape simulators" or even had access to them? Even if you cannot consider the option that distribution of "artificial rape simulators" decrease the number of rape cases, how about that they have little or no affect at all compared to the numerous other factors out there.

What with the current outcry regarding Catholic priests, don't you think that there are a lot of other factors out there that are worse than a video game? How about we start talking about forced celibacy for starters?

 

[FFKonoko]

Of course we shouldn't ban it. Is this the old bullshit claim that if you play a rape game you're automatically a rapist yourself? Riiight. I suppose that if you see gay you do gay as well then? If you play GTA IV then you're a fucking psychopath that needs to be chained to the bathroom pipes every night in case you get any funny ideas like killing your neighboor with a lawnmower..?
It's bullshit. Games are a form of escapism, what seperates it from books and movies etc is that it's interactive. If we have a fantasy that we desperatly we want to live out what better way to role-play than in a game.

This seems to be my general view.
I've not played the game myself, but I looked stuff up about it around the FIRST time all the controversy happened and from what I gather the only endings are bad. So while you can in theory keep the game going, sooner or later you mess up and get stabbed or hit with a train. Thats kinda interesting...rape choices in various H-games being punished, and even in the game centred around it, there's no happy ending where it ceases to be a horrible act?

Edit:
Between that last fact and the lower rape incident in japan...honestly, I would probably not be any more against a 'child rape' game, as people seem to be bringing up as a point. As a kneejerk reaction, sure, it sounds horrible and plenty of people would support it. There's already a young character in Rapelay though, judging from the pictures. The emphasis is that its a CHARACTER. Its not a child and never will be, and thus it is just as fundamentally harmless as all the other pixels. Exactly as harmless as reckless driving in Crazy Taxi, or beating an old lady with a bat in GTA, or savaging military in Prototype.

 

[addeB]

I only have one thing to say...
When did rape become a more serious crime then murder?

 

[Xvito]

Erotic games are always rape, because games can't say no.

You, sir, are pretty much completely awesome! That is the best first post ever!

 

[Shycte]

I'm sorry, wait no I'm not. rape lay is stupid fucked up shit and I do not understand why the fuck ANYONE is defending it. Rape is pretty much the most horrible thing one human can do to another.

Did you even read the article? It's no about defending RapeLay (that's one word, not two) as a game, it's about censorship and why it's bad. Jesus.

And Andy, I've been saying the same thing for ages and totaly agree with you. Just wish I ghad the skills to put in down in words as nicely as you do.