The R Word
- Thread starter Anonymous
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I agree with this. I've never been down that road myself, however the extent to which I am able to imagine it has me pretty confident in one thing; it ain't fun.
It goes beyond rape though. Only a very fortunate few of us don't have a single psychological scar of some description. So to make a joke which trivializes anything people suffer is just wandering into a minefield.
It goes beyond rape though. Only a very fortunate few of us don't have a single psychological scar of some description. So to make a joke which trivializes anything people suffer is just wandering into a minefield.
Well, you're just repeating exactly everything that I've said, so thanks for the assertions.ReiverCorrupter said:
More seriously though, my only point I was ever trying to make before I got too frustrated to see or think straight is that if you are offended by murder, you have no reason to be playing Call of Duty online. It should be completely acceptable to throw around that phrase in the specific violent online video game context. In the same way, people playing Animal Crossing or Mario Kart should not be subjected to being told that they are going to be murdered, because it really has nothing to do with the gameplay mechanics. Being offended by the word rape shouldn't exclude you from the experience of shooting people online.
Englishman,Irishman & Scotsman in France are sentenced to death by guillotine. The Englisman puts his head on the block 1st & the executioner pulls the lever, but the blade doesn't fall. The governor says ' If this happens 3 times then by French law you walk free'. The lever is pulled twice more & still the blade doesn't fall so he was set free. The same thing happens when the Scotsman had his head on the block & he was set free. Paddy puts his head on the block, the lever is pulled , again the blade doesn't fall. Then Paddy turns round so the back of his head's on the block. The lever's pulled & the blade doesn't budge. 'Aha!!' says Paddy 'hold on! I can see what the problem is!'TAdamson said:
I did read it mate and I don't know what you mean by "correctly" but maybe you should write it "correctly".Monxeroth said:
You seemed to be arguing that this is a censorship issue when it's not. It's a common decency issue.
There is a gaping chasm between having an opinion that people take offence at, for example:
"I believe that religion does more harm than good."
Which might offend the religious but I can't help that, and acting in a vulgar and despicable way, say, by going on XBox live and telling my opponent that I'm "going to fuck their mother".
One is an opinion that might offend some people and the other is being dick.
Don't be a dick.
Although I think it should be obvious (not saying you don't get it, but for the sake of random morons), I have the need to clarify that I don't go around spouting potentially offensive jokes to complete strangers. If I'm with complete strangers, I test the waters a bit before trying anything like that and it's not like I'm in 'offensive mode' 24/7.ReiverCorrupter said:
Still, I will always defend the rights of people who do that, even if I think they're assholes. Sticks and stones. I have never in my life been offended over the internet. Not because I'm a 'privileged white Caucasian', but because words mean jack shit to me. I would like for people to see that stupid words are meaningless and it's better for them, and the world around them, if they make words their bitches, as one rapper would say. If you do that, words don't hold power over you anymore, and neither does someone who wants to offend / traumatize you. Iron Lightning managed to break off of that and he's a true shining example that I'm right.
I might have gone a bit overboard with the whole "saying x doesn't make you x-ist" shtick; guess I'm venting about some other stuff like this in games. Oh yeah, some of it was directed at that shitty Kotaku article that's about how saying "rape" in an online game makes you ok with rape culture.
...
I think we're pretty much on the same page so gg. Guess we're not gonna have a 12 post debate.
Also, I have no idea why is rape such a hot topic lately wherever I look. It's like someone up there thinks it's new to all of us.
I think I should make myself clear. Not everyone deals with trauma the same. Some people, Like you and Iron lightning, are able to turn yourselves into gruff survivalists who turn their horrible experiences into things they can grow from. and good on you for doing that. HOWEVER, what is good for the goose is not good for the Gander, and how you have dealt with you're trauma and past experience's is not how the author will deal with it. Gandhi said a lot of thing's, but Gandhi was never raped by another man. neither was I, and neither were you (I assume and hope) so we can't judge him for dealing with his trauma in his own way.Ramzal said:
I find it fitting this article is published on June 25, Orwell?s birthday. Why? Because to me it is clear the guts of this debate is of language, and politics. I presume most of you have heard of Orwell. But some of you may not know he wrote, with his books, articles. One of his best is ?Politics and the English Language.? I urge you to read it if you haven?t.
I will sift out the heart of the article. ?What is above all need is to let the meaning choice the word, and not the other way around.? Rape has a meaning. It is bound to the ideas of violence. Not just physical violence but mental violence. It is tied to robbing power from someone, to bringing people low, to the act of turning their body against them. That?s rape?s meaning its context.
I have a question to people who say they don?t want to use the full, bloody meaning of rape when they say it. Why are you not using a better word? There are plenty of words to mean: ?I defeated you.? Dominate annihilate, break, decimated, crush, and so on. I can think of two reasons you?re using ?rape.? You do not use the word for it?s meaning. You use it because everyone is. You find it easier for the crowd to choose your words. Or, you do want to invoke all the bloody, cruel and dehumanizing connotations of the word, but realizing that admitting to that would show you to be a monster, so you lie.
This is a debate between those who believe words have meanings. That meaning is what matters. Against those who find the thinking to choice a proper word is too hard.
?...you should say what you mean.? Lewis Carroll
I will sift out the heart of the article. ?What is above all need is to let the meaning choice the word, and not the other way around.? Rape has a meaning. It is bound to the ideas of violence. Not just physical violence but mental violence. It is tied to robbing power from someone, to bringing people low, to the act of turning their body against them. That?s rape?s meaning its context.
I have a question to people who say they don?t want to use the full, bloody meaning of rape when they say it. Why are you not using a better word? There are plenty of words to mean: ?I defeated you.? Dominate annihilate, break, decimated, crush, and so on. I can think of two reasons you?re using ?rape.? You do not use the word for it?s meaning. You use it because everyone is. You find it easier for the crowd to choose your words. Or, you do want to invoke all the bloody, cruel and dehumanizing connotations of the word, but realizing that admitting to that would show you to be a monster, so you lie.
This is a debate between those who believe words have meanings. That meaning is what matters. Against those who find the thinking to choice a proper word is too hard.
?...you should say what you mean.? Lewis Carroll
"Murder" gets thrown around very casually... As is to be expected when most games people are playing revolve around killing. Nobody balks at it, but it's there.TAdamson said:
Not even picking a side, just saying you should let go of that point.
I'm not sure I'd be so judgemental about it, but I think the "it's a trend" thing is pretty well spot on. It certainly seems a more reasonable assumption than assuming people actually have nefarious reasons for using it.NathanS said:
Dumb...not evil.
Kelethor said:
It's not about becoming a "gruff survivalist" It's about growing. Bad things happen in life, every day. And not enough dry heaving over toilets, or people saying "I'm so sorry" can fix that. It is up the individual. Do you wish to know why I find the author a coward? What he is typing is an attempt for attention. He is literally living -in- his poor history rather living his life. I've had more than enough drunk nights on my couch as I wake up to an angry wife in the morning to finally realize the difference.
Honestly, any short comings in my life are just that. Short comings. I've taken being raped at a young age by my own father as nothing more than a bone that was broken. It hurt for awhile, but it healed with time. I found that the more people who told me "I am so sorry that happened to you.." or "You must be going through such a terrible time..." or my favorite "It's not your fault." I found myself sinking -deeper- into the depression of the event because those statements -make- you feel like you were a victim.
Me and Iron are not a rare type of people this happens to. We're just people who decided that enough is enough. I know plenty of other people that this has happened to. Those extremely close to me as well, women and men alike. And for the majority the women I know have taken it much better than I thought. Two in which shrugged when I brought up this subject and said "People need to put their big girl panties on and learn to suck it up. Bad stuff happens to everyone."
These people live their lives without triggers, frequent nightmares or crying fits/gaining weight. That in itself is strength. True strength. Weakness in yourself calls for attention like the Author does. Things happen. But what truly---TRULY upsets me is the fact that the Author is in a position that he is speaking for -everyone- who has gone through this or that all of us---even a majority of us react from being raped as he does. Which is simply not true.
You want to know what the real monstrosity of rape comes from? The people who are killed before, during or after the fact. They never had a CHANCE to get stronger, or move past it because that chance was stolen from them. And it happens all over the world, Africa, Korea, Europe, even in the United States does this occur. But you want to feel sorry for someone who is still alive and has a chance to move past this issue when there are people who were killed just so they could be -easier- to rape?
I know exactly what the Author has been through. But I have no sympathy for him. Or care. How he deals with that issue now is my greatest nightmare for anything that has ever traumatized me, to lay battered, beaten and DEFEATED by something that is not physical anymore but rather as loose, and hanging there like a dream--the past. To live is to acknowledge the past, live in the present to build for the future.
His reaction and explanations come from nothing but the kind of person who has been traumatized but chooses to have it hold him back. He is strong enough to move past it. He is. Anyone is, but this is not subject of "Everyone deals about it differently" but rather him not dealing with it at all. I've needed no pills, some sessions with a therapist when I was younger, and no pity to get past it. It's a matter of seeing what happened to you before as the past and not allow it to define you.
The author has chosen for it to define him. I will not. Now do you wish to lecture me again on the subject of how to deal with being raped by a man (My own father no less), when I have already stated that I have been previously? I do not need your assumptions or your hope as it has already happened. And honestly...so what that it has.
I almost never comment on this kind of thread, but I'd like to leave my own comment here.
First of all, thank you to the author for making this. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult writing this article must have been. I can also appreciate how much effort you absolutely had to put into writing it, into "muscling through it", simply because of the sheer importance of the topic at hand.
I would like to leave it really clear that I honestly respect and understand (as much as anyone that hasn't been through such a situation can, of course) your point. I will, however, respectfully disagree, in a sense.
Now, I'm not questioning that rape is a truly horrible, life scarring, experience. Neither am I qualified to question it's "impact" as a trauma, I've never experienced it, and seeing as I work in the field of psychology, I'm well aware of it's nefarious effects long into a person's life. What I want to say is that rape is not the only traumatic, life scarring, experience being portrayed, or even "trivialized", in videogames.
I personally know, and am quite close, to someone who has suffered such an experience. Through absolutely no fault of their own (couldn't possibly have been, they were stopped in traffic at the time) this person's car was rammed by a drunkard in an 18 wheeler speeding down the wrong lane. His wife and daughter died instantly. He survived by sheer near-impossible odds. He nearly spent the rest of his life quadriplegic. It's been quite a few years since (I was very young back then, never really "appreciated" the tragedy of the situation till many years later). I'm not trying to "compare" tragedies, it's impossible to compare such a thing. My point is that you can see how such an event would share a lot of similarities in the sense that it is horrible, impossible to fully understand unless you go through it, something that could happen again at any time, and something that you never really "get over" - a permanent scar, if you will.
I know someone else who is incredibly, absolutely dysfunctionally, afraid of ringing telephones. This person didn't exactly have a nice and easy upbringing, as you can guess, and now they are horribly afraid of ringing telephones. They literally had panic attacks when a phone rang near them. In an age where everyone has a cellular phone with them wherever, whenever, you can understand how this poses an issue.
Some people go to war and see and experience things we can't even begin to understand. Someone else I know described to me the experience of nearly losing your own life in an ambush in war. Of losing people you cared for in rather horrible ways, like landmines. None of it is nice, regardless of how heroic hollywood paints it to be. I've seen what it does to people.
And, of course, nobody talks about death because... That's kind of a one way deal. Self-keeping secret, if you will.
Again, my point is not to compare traumas. It would be ridiculous and arrogant beyond belief to do so, as you can understand. One does not simply "measure" a trauma. My point is that, unfortunately, a lot of people go through things most of us are fortunate enough to never even have nightmares with. These people carry these scars, and it sucks. It really does, I can certainly understand that, as I can understand you wouldn't want this kind of imagery sprung up on you unexpectedly during a commercial. I couldn't possibly respect that more.
What I have a problem with is one kind of horrible experience being somehow "above" the others. Look at any game topping the charts right now. Hell, look at the last 5 or 10 games you've played. How many revolve around killing people? Or simply allow you to kill people "for fun"? I'd be very surprised if you said anything less than half. Yet no one bats an eye when you pick up a katana and behead someone in GTA. It's common place for games. Yet, I bet the person above who nearly lost their own head the same way wouldn't find it very enjoyable, would they? The guy who lost his wife and daughter in such a... indescribably horrible accident most likely won't enjoy GTA or Burnout very much. At least not the same way most of us do.
My point is that we routinely "trivialize" things that are traumatic for a lot of people. We do it because, to those of us who didn't experience these things, they are fun. They are. War looks much more fun to those who've never suffered with it. So, if want to consider rape "untouchable" by games (and by extension other forms of media), then the same courtesy must the extended to every other potentially traumatic topic games already cover. And if you're not willing to do that, then we can't single out one type of atrocity and say "this one's out of limits... everything else is ok!".
So, my bottom line is that, yes, I agree that public advertisement shouldn't contain that kind of content and that people are often quite ignorant about rape (or about most things, to be quite fair). We still live in a rather shitty society where frat boys secretly (or not so secretly) glorify rape. But a game shouldn't be forbidden, or particularly attacked, for including rape any more than any other dev is attacked for including the ability to kill and/or maim others. If "RapeLay" is to be criticized for approaching such a serious topic the way it did, then what should be said of titles like Call of Duty, or Prototype, or any of the myriad of games out right now that not only permit, but in fact glorify, horrible, cold blooded murder for fun?
For example, take the game that seemed to recently spark this issue again: The most recent Tomb Raider. Regardless of how tasteless one could consider the trailer, the "rape" (that best I can tell never happens) actually lends authenticity to the scene, at least as far as we can see. Picture rude, crude, rather "amoral" gunmen in a lawless jungle. Picture them coming across a wounded young Lara... Can you honestly say that, in the world we live in, this would be an unreasonable scenario? Or, in fact, that this wouldn't be extremely likely? If so, why should this get any difference in attention than any other time you sneak behind a soldier doing his job and slit their throat without a second thought? Or when people play "pretend death dealing soldiers" in virtual "proxy-wars" to real events, with real people, happening right now, to see who gets the highest score?
First of all, thank you to the author for making this. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult writing this article must have been. I can also appreciate how much effort you absolutely had to put into writing it, into "muscling through it", simply because of the sheer importance of the topic at hand.
I would like to leave it really clear that I honestly respect and understand (as much as anyone that hasn't been through such a situation can, of course) your point. I will, however, respectfully disagree, in a sense.
Now, I'm not questioning that rape is a truly horrible, life scarring, experience. Neither am I qualified to question it's "impact" as a trauma, I've never experienced it, and seeing as I work in the field of psychology, I'm well aware of it's nefarious effects long into a person's life. What I want to say is that rape is not the only traumatic, life scarring, experience being portrayed, or even "trivialized", in videogames.
I personally know, and am quite close, to someone who has suffered such an experience. Through absolutely no fault of their own (couldn't possibly have been, they were stopped in traffic at the time) this person's car was rammed by a drunkard in an 18 wheeler speeding down the wrong lane. His wife and daughter died instantly. He survived by sheer near-impossible odds. He nearly spent the rest of his life quadriplegic. It's been quite a few years since (I was very young back then, never really "appreciated" the tragedy of the situation till many years later). I'm not trying to "compare" tragedies, it's impossible to compare such a thing. My point is that you can see how such an event would share a lot of similarities in the sense that it is horrible, impossible to fully understand unless you go through it, something that could happen again at any time, and something that you never really "get over" - a permanent scar, if you will.
I know someone else who is incredibly, absolutely dysfunctionally, afraid of ringing telephones. This person didn't exactly have a nice and easy upbringing, as you can guess, and now they are horribly afraid of ringing telephones. They literally had panic attacks when a phone rang near them. In an age where everyone has a cellular phone with them wherever, whenever, you can understand how this poses an issue.
Some people go to war and see and experience things we can't even begin to understand. Someone else I know described to me the experience of nearly losing your own life in an ambush in war. Of losing people you cared for in rather horrible ways, like landmines. None of it is nice, regardless of how heroic hollywood paints it to be. I've seen what it does to people.
And, of course, nobody talks about death because... That's kind of a one way deal. Self-keeping secret, if you will.
Again, my point is not to compare traumas. It would be ridiculous and arrogant beyond belief to do so, as you can understand. One does not simply "measure" a trauma. My point is that, unfortunately, a lot of people go through things most of us are fortunate enough to never even have nightmares with. These people carry these scars, and it sucks. It really does, I can certainly understand that, as I can understand you wouldn't want this kind of imagery sprung up on you unexpectedly during a commercial. I couldn't possibly respect that more.
What I have a problem with is one kind of horrible experience being somehow "above" the others. Look at any game topping the charts right now. Hell, look at the last 5 or 10 games you've played. How many revolve around killing people? Or simply allow you to kill people "for fun"? I'd be very surprised if you said anything less than half. Yet no one bats an eye when you pick up a katana and behead someone in GTA. It's common place for games. Yet, I bet the person above who nearly lost their own head the same way wouldn't find it very enjoyable, would they? The guy who lost his wife and daughter in such a... indescribably horrible accident most likely won't enjoy GTA or Burnout very much. At least not the same way most of us do.
My point is that we routinely "trivialize" things that are traumatic for a lot of people. We do it because, to those of us who didn't experience these things, they are fun. They are. War looks much more fun to those who've never suffered with it. So, if want to consider rape "untouchable" by games (and by extension other forms of media), then the same courtesy must the extended to every other potentially traumatic topic games already cover. And if you're not willing to do that, then we can't single out one type of atrocity and say "this one's out of limits... everything else is ok!".
So, my bottom line is that, yes, I agree that public advertisement shouldn't contain that kind of content and that people are often quite ignorant about rape (or about most things, to be quite fair). We still live in a rather shitty society where frat boys secretly (or not so secretly) glorify rape. But a game shouldn't be forbidden, or particularly attacked, for including rape any more than any other dev is attacked for including the ability to kill and/or maim others. If "RapeLay" is to be criticized for approaching such a serious topic the way it did, then what should be said of titles like Call of Duty, or Prototype, or any of the myriad of games out right now that not only permit, but in fact glorify, horrible, cold blooded murder for fun?
For example, take the game that seemed to recently spark this issue again: The most recent Tomb Raider. Regardless of how tasteless one could consider the trailer, the "rape" (that best I can tell never happens) actually lends authenticity to the scene, at least as far as we can see. Picture rude, crude, rather "amoral" gunmen in a lawless jungle. Picture them coming across a wounded young Lara... Can you honestly say that, in the world we live in, this would be an unreasonable scenario? Or, in fact, that this wouldn't be extremely likely? If so, why should this get any difference in attention than any other time you sneak behind a soldier doing his job and slit their throat without a second thought? Or when people play "pretend death dealing soldiers" in virtual "proxy-wars" to real events, with real people, happening right now, to see who gets the highest score?
Hey guys, let me just say a few things:Ramzal said:
I understand why you were upset by my article, I really do. If I had read this article two years ago I'd be right there with you, completely outraged, completely pissed off. How dare this guy make people think all of us are delicate porcelain dolls like him? How dare he just sit there, being a victim? And most of all, where the fuck does he get off speaking for everyone? (This, by the way, is why I started the article saying "I only speak for myself here.")
After all, I had gotten over it, why couldn't they?
The problem was, I hadn't gotten over it. I'd had five years where I was almost entirely symptom-free, or at least free from the most obvious symptoms like flashbacks and intrusive thoughts. That was due to my being in a less stressful living environment where I was able to more easily bury my past. Looking back, I can now see that though I thought I didn't have symptoms, this was actually the time when I was most effectively self-medicating with alcohol and when my dating problems were at their worst. It wasn't gone, it was just dormant, and growing. The problem with this kind of trauma is that it's like a vermin infestation -- the longer you pretend it doesn't exist the worse it gets.
That period ended when I took a new job that was much more stressful. Gradually my symptoms of depression increased, and my self-medication with alcohol went on the upswing. This was the worst period for me, and though I didn't understand what was happening until afterward, I was just about to take the first big drop on the roller coaster of depression.
It was during this time when I would become the most angry and defensive about this type of article. The point when I was the most convinced that I was getting along fine and that the people writing these things just had to toughen up and face the world. You're a rape victim? Oh boo hoo, so am I. I never needed therapy or told my story on the Internet. What did these people want, attention?
In retrospect, it was obvious how deeply in denial I was. The reason these articles made me so angry and upset was because they were showing vulnerability, and I'd been taught that the only way to live with myself was not not have that vulnerability. Without realizing it I was still dancing to the rapist's tune: "Forget this happened. Don't talk about it. Don't tell people about it. Don't even think about it." I had learned that the best way to deal with it was to disconnect my emotions from it and soldier on -- and yeah, that can be useful sometimes in the short term. Sometimes you need to do that to get through the day, or get through the week. I get that, I've been there. That's a part of emotional control. But eventually, you realize you're using it to get through life, and that's not healthy.
I'm going to tell you something that sucks a lot, and you're probably not going to believe me: to process the emotions you're actually going to have to feel them. I tell you that because when I got the most angry about articles like this one was right before I had my worst episode of depression. I was trying to pack down the feelings and I was failing. I'd ignored them for too long and they were finally boiling over.
So here's the deal: I'm not saying that you aren't over it, but in my personal experience when I thought I was over it was when things were just about to get really bad. When I thought I was thinking, "I don't want to be like that guy," I was actually thinking, "I don't want to feel things like that guy."
Just know that your extremely strong reaction may mean that you're not as "over it" as you think you are. When you look back on an experience like that and don't have any emotion or only have a faint feeling of emotion, it's likely that you're undergoing emotional numbing, which is a symptom of depression. The good news is that I've gotten a lot better since I started confronting what happened to me, but a lot of that has come from being more open to my emotions and being more vulnerable - and yeah, sometimes that means feeling sad. Feeling sad about something like this is normal, feeling bulletproof is not.
Well, that's how it's done.
So long as there is no suggestion of ever limiting the right to freedom of expression, to outlaw any fictional material which deal with this or any other topic in whatever way, then it's hard to disagree that showing consideration towards others is a good thing.
However, it must always be stressed that if people don't want to do so, such is their right. Sure, if you're an Iraqi who fled Iraq during the Gulf War, then watching lines upon lines of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on the shelves might not be all that cool for you. Quite understandable for someone who've been in the actual conflicts area it's based on.
But if there is a market for it, with tons of people wanting to play it, then you've got no right to interfere. By all means tell them how traumatic experiencing actual Modern Warfare was for you, and thus how the game's very premise, and the competitively cavalier attitude towards the slaughter shown by the players, is discomforting to you. Or go to the local gun shop and tell them how the sight of firearms makes you queasy, and how you'd really like for it to stop selling guns.
Whether either of them will listen is ultimately their choice though, not yours.
So long as there is no suggestion of ever limiting the right to freedom of expression, to outlaw any fictional material which deal with this or any other topic in whatever way, then it's hard to disagree that showing consideration towards others is a good thing.
However, it must always be stressed that if people don't want to do so, such is their right. Sure, if you're an Iraqi who fled Iraq during the Gulf War, then watching lines upon lines of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on the shelves might not be all that cool for you. Quite understandable for someone who've been in the actual conflicts area it's based on.
But if there is a market for it, with tons of people wanting to play it, then you've got no right to interfere. By all means tell them how traumatic experiencing actual Modern Warfare was for you, and thus how the game's very premise, and the competitively cavalier attitude towards the slaughter shown by the players, is discomforting to you. Or go to the local gun shop and tell them how the sight of firearms makes you queasy, and how you'd really like for it to stop selling guns.
Whether either of them will listen is ultimately their choice though, not yours.
Anything I could say would be insufficient. I can't understand how hard this is for you. Reading what you wrote made me numb.
Thank you for doing this. You deserve to be happy, so I pray that you find all the happiness in life that you can. Again, thank you.
Thank you for doing this. You deserve to be happy, so I pray that you find all the happiness in life that you can. Again, thank you.