My basic thought is that political correctness has no place here. Like it or not trash talking, intimidation, and similar things have a place in competition, and by definition you use anything that works, racism, sexism, rape threats, it's all good within this context as the idea is to get under your opponent's skin, while preventing them from doing the same to you. You can't really start saying "well some things need to be off limits" because once you start putting down limits you defeat the entire purpose as it rapidly turns into a case of "you can't actually intimidate someone with something that's actually intimidating". This was a "money" game so to speak, not a friendly competition.
The way I see it is that if the lady in question felt the need to complain then by definition it should have been a forfeit. Part of the "skill" is being able to cope with the pressure others are putting on you.
That said, this is one of the many reasons why I believe men and women need to be segregated into different leagues, it's not just about whether a girl can go through the physical motions in a sport (electronic or physical) the same way as a guy, but whether they are psychologically able to handle the other aspects of competition. At the end of the day the differences between men and women are such that even in an arena where the differences don't matter, the fact is it's much easier for a guy to intimidate a girl and get inside her head and knock her out of a game than it is for the opposite to happen. To put it bluntly some dude who is physically capable of doing it says he's going to rape a girl and acts like he means it, that's going to scare her and knock her off her game. She does that to him he's going to laugh it off. When it comes to two dudes that's usually not going to work either.
Once you start limiting this kind of thing, you demean everything, because part of what makes a competitor is to actually be iron inside just as you are outside (so to speak). There is a reason why before competitions you have a lot of athletes and stuff acting like psychopaths, especially before fights, half of any competition is mental. It should also be noted these even comes into play with things like poker for money, especially with strangers, table conversation and such is used to try and get reactions out of people to break their "face". Part of having a good poker face is not so much just being able to be a blank, but to be able to maintain that if some guy mentions he'd like to rape your girlfriend when she's right next to you or whatever else. It's not always that overt though, there can be an art to getting a rise out of people, especially since threats won't always do it, but as we can see here, girls can be comparatively easy.
The classy thing to do here for a girl would be after being threatened with rape would be to say something back like "you aren't going to be raping anyone after I cut your nuts off" or whatever.... or just ignore it. That's how
this game is played. I personally suspect not many girls can do this though which is why you don't see more of them in high end competition, and with certain things it comes down to instinct coming from relative physical vulnerability.
See, like with boxing or whatever, half the battle is getting the tools, the other half is getting into the other guy's head while not letting him into yours. This is why a lot of people talk about how great fighters like Ali not only had great physical gifts, but were also capable of getting into the head of their opponent. The most extreme example perhaps being how he beat Foreman with the "Rope A Dope" by playing off his arrogance when he probably couldn't have beaten Foreman in a straight match purely based off of skill and athleticism. He had to convince the guy to actually let the ring be modified (the ropes were loosened if I remember, and both fighters knew it). Mike Tyson and his whole "I'm gonna eat your children" thing was a failed attempt at something similar, acting even more off his rocker than he actually was.
Basically if all I have to do is threaten rape and you turn into a quivering pile of jello that goes running for the authorities, then obviously I'm better than you are when it comes to this kind of thing. Sure you might have the skills in a purely academic sense, but the skills without the strength of will and confidence behind them are only half of what this kind of thing is supposed to take. Sports of all sorts wouldn't be half as interesting if it was only about playing the games, the personalities involved are a big factor for a reason, and there is a reason why some truly terrible human beings become so successful. Look at say what Michael Vicks did to those dogs, the man is a total sociopath, and I'll be honest in saying that particular trait probably mentally influences his athletic success because people know he's a piece of work and are scared of him. He still plays despite being an awful human being, because that's part of the game.... it's what people mean when they talk about how they "love to hate" someone.
Don't get me wrong this guy is a definite heel for threatening a girl like that, but is far from the first one, and half the fun of guys like that is waiting until they eventually get theirs.
Not popular sentiments here though I'm sure.
