The R Word

[Nanaki316]

Truly inspiring. I myself have only just learned to come to terms with the fact that I can't tell people not to use that word online or throw it around without a care in the world.
I bawled my eyes out and I've shared it. I hope some of my friends take the time to read this as this is exactly what I want to say, but I couldn't have said it better than you.

Thank you, honestly. Fellow Survivor x

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Are you honestly comparing those two things? They're horrible words and while I wouldn't say use them, your argument lacks for two things

1)I've never heard someone describe beating someone at a race as murdering them.

2)I don't know many murder victims who play X-Box live. If someone on there WAS a murder victim I'd either call an exorcist or ask how they survived and probably not refer to my victory as killing them.

1) I never asked you whether or not you have heard the term. I picked that very specific example because I have heard that when I played racing games.

2)Cute, how nice of you to overlook people who have survived attempted murders and people who's family members have died from gang violence and terrorism.

Your ignoring the very point of the reply, imagine something PERSONAL being thrown in your face every time not because you bring it up but because some guy or girl you're never going to meet just wants to use the word and doesn't give two shits. If you want to compare it to something, Rape doesn't compare to saying you murdered someone or you starvationed them, it would compare to saying to a random woman 'Hey, it's raining like a miscarriage out here. Oh, you had one? Well f*ck you, I want to use the word'. Though even that pales in comparison to the emotions Rape brings up.

You know what I'm imagining? You making an argument that doesn't use an appeal to emotion fallacy [http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-emotion].

You can't imagine it, huh? Well, maybe you should consider yourself lucky.

I consider myself Helmholtz Watson but you can call me lucky if you want. ;D

Are we bringing up fallacies now? Unfortunately the site doesn't have False Equivalence so we can't get into that with your site but

I found [http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white] other ones [http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division] that apply [http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon] quite well [http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof] to your arguments [http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading]

Also This [http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity] and this [http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoque] Sorry, ran out of sentence parts there were just so many that applied .

Although, while we're on the subject, an appeal to emotion doesn't particularly apply here, it's more an appeal to empathy, your entire position is founded on not giving a shit about other people I'm trying to say to consider the opponent's view-point. Arguing 101.

Incidentally, if you were to read just a feeew words after point 2 on the murdered response it mentions what I'd do if they were a survivor of an attempted murder (although this means we should be discussing the effect of the word rape on attempted rape victims, hooray! False Equivalency must be paying you good money to keep using it).

Which reminds me, 5 pages went up while I was asleep, are you still pushing this or did you finally read the counter-arguments rather than immediately ask "Why is murder OK but rape isn't!?"

 

[LetalisK]

Very interesting read. All I have to add is that I hope communities like Xbox Live eventually mature and cease to be cesspools of pathetic behavior. It's disheartening to see people act in such a way for no other reason than "because I can". I would love to be a fly on the wall during their lives to see if they act any differently when they are no longer free of consequences from their behavior.

 

[flatten_the_skyline]

In reality every sexual interaction is supposed to be consentual, however people, and I'd even venture most people, have fantasies about non-consentual sex with whatever kind of person they are interested in. Guys have their dominatrixs and amazons, girls have their randy shieks, pirate captains, and cattle barons and such. This stuff is sold by the truckload. It's adult material because it takes an adult to be able to seperate the fantasy from the reality and understand that things don't work like that in reality.

I agree. But to live out such a fantasy within a controlled environment, usually including safewords, a good chat beforehand and an evaluation afterwards IS consensual, this is called consensual nonconsent. As lang as you have safewords, even a "No" or "Stop" can be ignored.

I know several feminists of all genders who enjoy rapeplay, degradation or hurt.

But all of them only enjoy these things on their terms. Only few people enjoy to those things from strangers.

I don't have a problem with movies about rape, actually. There are a lot of good ones out there. And I don't have a problem with BDSM porn, as long as the actors are treated alright.
What sets me off are movies that include nonconsensual behaviour, which is not depicted as such. Comedies where people are degraded, and where the joke is not on the one who degrades (see "The Dictator", though this movie is also not perfect) but on the degraded.

Some romance novel written for women about some shiek or whatever (represented artistically by models like Fabio, or early Antonio Banderas) capturing some young, pretty thing, and using her for sex while she's taken to all these exotic places, perhaps with some trivial plot thrown in. The differance here is that while the sex isn't consentual to start, it's something everyone involved winds up enjoying, and usually turns into love, that harem girl usually winds up becoming the queen (or at least a favored mistress with a lot of power) by the end of the story for example. That's NOT a blueprint for a healthy real life relationship, which is exactly why it comes with an adult's only label as much as the actual sexual acts themselves.

Those plots are worse, because the message is "she wants it, or will want it at some point, she just doesn't know yet"

A line between that kind of thing, or the male version with guys being used by Amazons (or whatever) much the same way, and things like "Rapelay" which is the current textbook whipping boy does exist. That line is that "Rapelay" is all about revenge and the entire point is that the girls on the receiving end don't enjoy it, as the protaganist rapes his way up the line of a family, which puts it in a differant territory as none of the victims wind up genuinely enjoying themselves in any lasting fashion. Other examples like "Battle Raper" are less ambigious, because if that's the series I'm thinking of, I'm not a fan (due it it kind of blowing chips) but if I remember the plotline is basically a fighting tournament where the winners get to use the losers sexually in addition to advancing. Despite "rape" in the title, pretty much everyone involved knows the rules and more or less consented to it by entering into those battles to begin with. It's not exactly a deep title or a common sense set up, but you really can't say it's paticularly offensive either.

I checked out Battle Raper on wiki and moby right now, but it doesn't say anywhere what happens when the guy loses. And you're right, to some point this still questionable game is way better than rapelay, where consent is definitely out of the question. I know that "loser gets dominated" exists in RL as well.

A good part of why I am going after feminists is the dual standard. If you take a story about a Shiek who takes women as concubines, who finds that one special girl who he falls in love with while using her, finds the feeligns are mutual with, and eventually marries, along with whatever else pads the story out, if it's direct at men feminists will scream it's a horrible work of rape-horror that needs to be banned. The same basic story appears with someone like "Fabio" on the cover and marketing directed at women, and feminists will generally ignore it.

Nope, most people I know will despise them all the same.

It should also be noted (to answer this for all those who raised this question) that while feminism was at one time about equality, it's not entirely about power coming at the expense of men, which is why it has a dual standard. The basic message inherant in going after one face of things but not the other is simply that men can't handle it, so society should keep us in line. To be honest, decades ago Feminism had a valid point where women were outright prohibited from voting, or doing specific things for no paticularly good reason. Today, without those valid crusades, it's all about things like trying to basically shackle men because of our physical differances and how they give us an unfair advantage. Demands that standards be lowered for pretigious jobs with physical requirements so women can do them, or even in some cases have job performance standards lowered or removed when certain biological things like childbirth come up. The demand that people overlook the differances between men and women entirely, and oftentimes in exclusion of common sense.

Sexism is over just like racism ended in 1870. I've encountered sexist structures whithin the most anarchist emancipatory movements, because there's a sexist in all of us, including myself. We all were raised with sexist role models, and even if you don't want it, it shows. And denial as often encountered with self-proclaimed feminists only makes it worse.

Today, it isn't about those obvious things like driving a car, going to the army or voting.
Today, it is about subtle things. The way we behave, speak, assume roles. And no, I don't subscribe to everything that's been done in the name of feminism.

Along with this you have feminists in many cases going so far as to claim that due to men being bigger, stronger, and still in control of most of society, there is no such thing as consentual sex and all women are rape victims because they are not in a position of enough control to begin with in order to consent. That is how utterly bonkers the feminist definition of what constitutes rape increasingly is. No matter how consentual it is, it's still rape, since it can't be any
other way. A no-win scenario created by their own inherant logic.

Yup, they exist. We're sorry.

In short, I don't take feminism seriously as a position.

Then you maybe didn't meet the right feminists. Most feminists I know are fun, pro-sex, active, intelligent people.

 

[CaptainKarma]

^^^^^ That may be all well and good, but, like reclaiming racial epithets, that is not your call to make

I'll just assume this was directed towards me, I being the guy directly above.

So the way language is used isn't the call of the speakers? I use the word "******" when talking to my white friends in a white setting with levity and joy; why? Because it's naturally evolved to be a word we use in discussions. Language and the way it's utilised isn't "called", it develops independently and freely based upon those who use it.

I'm not calling for people to change their definition of rape; but it seems a lot of people are expanding it's definition and using it in more and more circumstance. That's the natural development of language, right there; it changes based on the users.

That supplements my argument very nicely. So yes, we must remain filled with levity lest we live in fear and start speaking with edicts and consensus.

No of course it isn't the call of the speaker. Words have meanings, I can't start calling my keyboard a felgercarb, because nobody can understand me. You can't decide that "******" or "******" are just suddenly non-insulting because you choose them to be that way. There are efforts to reclaim those words, but by the groups they refer to

 

[rednightmare]

I can't imagine hard that was to write. Thank You

 

[ShakyFiend]

This is easily the most compelling and coherent article to come out of the Hitman-debaucle.

I realise that it is addressing the use of the word 'rape' as a derogatory insult on servers and the like, and the fact that it constrains itself to this is partly why it is so effective.

Also I like how it moves the issue away from gender politics away to the more over-arching issue of rape in general, something that's been a long time coming.

BUT. I have a feeling people will take this and apply it to games that involve rape, as well as the server-name-calling, and...well...I don't think we can avoid an issue because we are afraid of hurting someone.

The lovely bones, The colour purple, The shawshank redemption etc. are all what they are partly because they deal with rape, I hope games will someday be able to address the issue maturely, because discussion of these matters is important, even if they hurt someone.

If you disagree, consider that this article probably had exactly the effects it described on at least one rape victim who read it.

 

[Omgsarge]

Perhaps taboo wasn't the perfect choice of words. I meant to imply that issues of nudity, sex, sexuality and anything related, are largely seen as obscene and are condemned publicly. Violence and aggression, on the other hand, are encouraged and lauded--soldiers are heroes, war is patriotic, sports like football, mixed martial arts and boxing are national icons, guns are "cool," etc., etc.

So when someone murders another in a culture that largely surrounds itself with violence, there's nothing too shocking about it. But in a society were sex is a dirty little secret and even a shameful act, rape is the polar opposite and quite jarring.

So it's not the actual crimes that people see. Rather the issues they represent.

I think there is some truth in what you are saying. It has been my impression, though, that the sheer amount of power play involved represents the most jarring aspect about rape in general, not the sex itself (most of the time, it doesn't have anything to do with sex or pleasure but dominance).
Thanks again for clarifying your statement. I have to get away from this topic now. I have a wild imagination and way too much empathy. Reading and researching about this topic just makes me extremely uncomfortable.

 

[Britisheagle]

Fantastic article.

I find myself cringing using the term rape as slang, as well as when I hear other people say it, as it was a term I used a lot. I have since grown up and seen that it's not something we should joke about as it is a very serious topic.

That being said, the term "I'm going to kill you" has been round for how long and when you think about it murder is another serious topic.

So perhaps it is being blown out of proportion overall but still I try to use other phrases to try be more respectful to those who have actually had a traumatic experience and to ensure that karma doesn't come round one day.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Fuck me.

I know a fraction of this, my brother was assulted too. I was incredibly angry with that bastard who did it to him. Wanted to beat him to a bloody pulp. I would have too, even if it meant a jail term.Thank you for writing this. It made me feel better. I hope this is not insensitive to victims as I have never been assulted but please know that I know a little bit you go through.

Even typing this makes me angry. That fucker.....

 

[SonicKoala]

Snipped for Space

Is simply not using the word "rape" unless discussing an actual rape really "walking on egg shells"? Furthermore, you are asking a lot by saying that a person who has undergone such a brutally traumatic event should be forthcoming with this information if someone says something they find emotionally jarring. Such an event is not something one would want to share, as this article emphasises.

Making jokes about "rape" is ridiculously insensitive - it's in incredibly poor taste, and whoever makes such a joke should be punched in the face. Using the term rape in a gaming setting is also very unnecessary - the gamer lexicon is chocked full of terms which mean the same thing, so why can't we just stick to those? I, too, am a supporter of free speech, but I hardly see anything inherently valuable being lost if people stopped using this word in such wildly inappropriate ways.

 

[Ryokai]

Amazing article. I will definitely keep in mind to be careful when using words I never gave a second thought about before.

 

[darji]

People

I suppose I gain the ability to freely express myself regardless of how other people might feel about it.

I'm sorry, but if you need to use the word rape to express yourself you have some serious problems.

I am sorry but people use this term since ages in video games. ITs just trashtalking. Grow up. Its the same when I say "I am gonna kill you" Someones whos parents were killed and he had to watch it would also be as hard as someone who was raped and hears these words.

These kind of events are tragic and every victim has my sympahty but thats how far it goes. If you cant stand this than dont play this game. If you dont like the music people are hearing because you think its offensive than dont listen to it.

What if someone was almost killed by a dog as kid and now has a huge trauma about dogs. Do you want people to stop saying the word dog via internet? If you cant take such a thing dont get involved in it. ITs as simple as that. If a friend says something like that, than state your opinion about this topic maybe confess if its a really good friend and they will understand.

But trying to tell people its bad to use the word rape or any other offensive word during trashtalking in games because your opponent may or may not be a victim of such an criminal act is just too much.

 

[agiganticpanda]

We should start to use the word pillage in the gaming community instead. It means the same thing without nearly as much horrible flashbackness and makes you think of pirates.

 

[Mr Companion]

Thanks for saying what needed to be said, and thanks for saying it even though its so difficult.

 

[putowtin]

As someone who can relate, thank you, a million times thank you.

 

[itsthesheppy]

People

I suppose I gain the ability to freely express myself regardless of how other people might feel about it.

I'm sorry, but if you need to use the word rape to express yourself you have some serious problems.

I am sorry but people use this term since ages in video games. ITs just trashtalking. Grow up. Its the same when I say "I am gonna kill you" Someones whos parents were killed and he had to watch it would also be as hard as someone who was raped and hears these words.

These kind of events are tragic and every victim has my sympahty but thats how far it goes. If you cant stand this than dont play this game. If you dont like the music people are hearing because you think its offensive than dont listen to it.

What if someone was almost killed by a dog as kid and now has a huge trauma about dogs. Do you want people to stop saying the word dog via internet? If you cant take such a thing dont get involved in it. ITs as simple as that. If a friend says something like that, than state your opinion about this topic maybe confess if its a really good friend and they will understand.

But trying to tell people its bad to use the word rape or any other offensive word during trashtalking in games because your opponent may or may not be a victim of such an criminal act is just too much.

Just because it's been used for a "long time" (something I would dispute, to be honest) doesn't make it an okay word to use. Also, your invocation of the 'slippery slope' is a fallacy. Nobody is suggesting that.

What is being suggested is that using the word 'rape' is insensitive because there are a LOT of rape survivors (or victims, as some would rather be identified) out there in the world and rape has a particularly special place in the trauma hierarchy; not only for the brutality of the crime but the frequency of it. Vastly more people are sexually assaulted in their lives than are attacked by vicious dogs.

It's true that you never know whose trigger words are what, and it's a sad fact of life that the spectrum of human experience is so wide that it's very possible that benign words may set people off, and oftentimes we only know that after we hurt somebody. It can't really be avoided in many cases, but we are responsible for that hurt nonetheless, and its on us to lessen that as much as possible. If you have a friend or a gamer pal who you know has had traumatic experiences with dogs, you're less likely to bring them up. Telling them to quit being a wuss only paints you as an insensitive jerk.

The reason the word 'rape' is being given special treatment here is manyfold. The prevalence of the crime, the brutality of it, the lasting effects of the trauma and so forth are only the beginning. None of us need the term in our lexicon for reasons other than describing an actual sexual assault. I don't use the word when describing a particularly hard loss in a game. It's completely unnecessary; there are a multitude of ways to express such a thing, many of which are more creative and colorful while at the same time being less potentially hurtful.

So yes, if you say "Wow, we beat them bad" and there is someone in your midst who suffered beatings as a kid and now suddenly feels bad, that's a rough spot. You didn't know, now you do, and maybe you should think of different words to use; but that will be very uncommon and to be honest, it's highly unlikely that multi-purpose words like 'beat' or 'kill' (you can kill and app, or kill at a comedy show, etc) will be tied to specific trauma. Rape is highly more specific. The repurposing of the word is an almost entirely gamer-oriented invention and it needs to go away; the trauma it calls to mind is too brutal and too widespread.

 

[itsthesheppy]

This and similar recent topics on rape on this forum are proof: you're victims because of rape, while physical violence is just a normal part of life. Your wife and kids were murdered? Tough break champ, as long as its not sexual assault YOU'RE FINE.

Absolutely nobody that I am aware of is suggesting that. In fact in the reply I posted above your post here, I make a point to say that everyone's trigger words are to be respected; however, some words, like 'kill' are so general and multi-purpose in our language that it is less likely to cause severe offense than the much-more-specific word of 'rape'.

I mean if I use the word "We beat them", the word 'beat' is very general. It's less likely to trigger someone, though if it did, I would certainly owe them an apology and be mindful around them in the future. The word 'rape' however is not multi-purpose. It means sexual assault. It's a much more specific word that calls to a specific trauma, and moreover, it's unnecessary to everyday gamer parlance. It can be omitted without losing anything of value, and doing so make the community that little bit safer and more inclusive.

nobody is saying the word should be illegal to use. All that's being said is that using it causes hurt; you're welcome to ignore that hurt, as I am welcome to consider you to be an insensitive person, and I reserve the right to make it clear that insensitive people are not welcome.

 

[wizzy555]

For all the accusations of fallacy there's a reluctance to address the core issue here. That's the disagreement of moral worth attached to emotional harm and that attached to free expression and evolution of "culture" and language.