[ExI] 'RapeLay' video game goes viral amid outrage

Ben Zaiboc bbenzai at yahoo.com
Thu Apr 1 18:12:27 UTC 2010


Isabelle Hakala <ismirth at gmail.com> wrote:

> Honestly I feel we should have more outlets for people to
> deal with their
> bizarre and socially unacceptable fantasies so that they
> may work through
> them. We make such fantasies such a big huge bad thing that
> most people
> won't deal with what is behind them, thus they build up,
> and later if there
> is a trigger or a break of some sort, the person might
> actually do the
> thing. However, if people could act out these fantasies in
> a safe way, and
> thus deal with what is behind them, I think it would be
> very therapeutic for
> them.
> 
> Lots of people have rape fantasies. And it would be a great
> way for people
> to work through them without having to experiment with
> their significant
> other.
> 
> The people that would justify that the video game made them
> think it was ok
> to rape people, would simply have come up with some other
> justification in
> their minds, if they would actually rape someone. You can't
> stop people from
> being bad if that is what they are going to be.

That's the most sensible thing I've heard anyone say about this.  Fantasy is just that, fantasy.  As in 'not real'.  It saddens me that effort, money and time are wasted in suppressing this sort of thing (or unsuccessfully trying to, anyway), while real people are really being harmed. 

Maybe it's just that causing a fuss about depictions of things is so much easier than trying to actually prevent real people from suffering real harm.  Anyone with a conscience will be outraged about actual rape, not some video game.

Trying to stop people doing *anything at all* in a virtual environment like a game is tantamount to trying to control their thoughts (and may well be exactly equivalent to that in the future).  Peoples' reasons for wanting to play this game are completely irrelevant.  The real issue is power over what people are allowed to think.

It's funny (tragic funny) that depictions of violence involving knives, guns, chainsaws, or whatever, raise barely a murmur, no matter how gruesome, but put genitals in there (even in a non-violent situation) and there's a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, and we're suddenly in moral deep water.  I bet this game wouldn't have even seen the light of day (in the media, 5 years late) if it were about cutting people's heads off with machetes.

Ben Zaiboc


      




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