The Impact of Virtual Rape Online

[Atari]

Last month, two Belgian publications reported that the Brussels police have begun an investigation into a citizen's allegations of rape -- in Second Life. Wired has the story.

There is no question that forced online sexual activity -- whether through text, animation, malicious scripts or other means -- is real; and is a traumatic experience that can have a profound and unpleasant aftermath, shaking your faith in yourself, in the community, in the platform, even in sex itself. Our laws say that an adult subjecting a teenager or child to sexual words, images or suggestions on the internet is preying on their mental and emotional state in a sexual way. Even if you never try to meet the minor in person, and even if you never touch them or expose your naked self to them, it is a crime to attempt to engage sexually with a minor.

[booger]

Oh, for pity's sake. We've become a society of hypersensitive crybabies. The only thing this sort of hysteria serves, is to further marginalize how awful actual rape is. It dilutes the idea until everything is considered rape... until we get so bored with the term 'rape', that when an actual rape happens to someone we shrug it off.

Except, it isn't so easy to shrug off for the victim.

[Frigo]

The Brussels police have too much time and money on their hands.

[Tenshi]

- I actually thought it was a new game out, at first. "Virtual Rape Online." Huh? Not to be insensitive... but it's called "Log off."

[Pocket]

You guys, and the article, totally said it. It seems wholly inappropriate to consider anything that can happen online on the same level as rape.

One of the links embedded in that article, though, was a really, really interesting look at the effect of this sort of abuse had on an early online community. It was fascinating to see how the entire community changed after some of its members' comfort and security were stolen. Maybe this sort of thing would be better looked at along the lines of sexual harassment? Even so, it would seem like overreacting to attempt to criminally punish someone for acts done online.


P.S. Booger, with what I've seen in various online communities, our society is well on its way. It makes me so uneasy to hear people refer to being defeated in a game as "rape". I just shudder every time, and wonder if the person on the other end of the keyboard really realizes the dire connotations of the flippant remark that they just entered.

[Atari]

P.S. Booger, with what I've seen in various online communities, our society is well on its way. It makes me so uneasy to hear people refer to being defeated in a game as "rape". I just shudder every time, and wonder if the person on the other end of the keyboard really realizes the dire connotations of the flippant remark that they just entered.

Ugh! I hate it when they do that too.

[Banshee]

P.S. Booger, with what I've seen in various online communities, our society is well on its way. It makes me so uneasy to hear people refer to being defeated in a game as "rape". I just shudder every time, and wonder if the person on the other end of the keyboard really realizes the dire connotations of the flippant remark that they just entered.

Ugh! I hate it when they do that too.

/thirded

I find it completely offensive because it trivializes a very real and horrible act of violence. I realize that "I'm going to kill X" is also said frequently without meaning it, which trivializes murder. I don't tend to say that, but I realize that I'm a hypocrite for being so inured to it that it doesn't bother me the way the other does. I try to be consistent, but I've heard the one so often that I just don't react to it in the same way.

[Fizgig]

I think this is actually a very complicated issue. I would NEVER claim that being ‘raped’ in a game is even remotely close to rape in real life. That said, I do think we need to be careful when we trivialize abuse, especially explicit sexually violent attacks against avatars in games.

I know I personally feel attached to my CoH main and, to a lesser extent, my WoW main. I have spent many, many (ok, way too many) hours building them up to be powerful heroes and at the same time investing some of my own self image and desires in those characters. Yes, I clearly understand it is a game, but that doesn’t mean I’m not very emotionally invested in my characters. I have a very real social network build up around those characters. To claim I should walk away if I don’t like what happens to something I have spent hundreds of hours on is to suggest that I walk away from a meaningful social network and away from the thing I have built doing my favorite pastime.

On one of those links in the article they said it best – imagine my hobby is to lovingly restore vintage cars, I rebuild an old Astin Martin over years. One day someone breaks in and takes a sledgehammer to this thing I have spent many, many hours working on. Would most people say “get over it, its just a car!”? Would they laugh at my sense of loss and intense anger at the person who ruined the thing I cared about?

To bring it back to rape – rape is a crime of power and humiliation. When I read or see depictions of graphic rape, I find them stomach churning. Add in my own character as the victim and I would certainly feel horribly violated. No, I would not experience the same horror as a real rape victim, but I would argue that it is still abuse on some level.

Perhaps we need a better word since I would agree calling it rape doesn’t help – it trivialized real rape victims and makes people who have been attacked in this way seem reactionary. But I’m not willing to just say “get over it, its just a game” either.

[Tenshi]

- Fizgig, like you I have very strong emotional or relational bonds to my avatars in games. I invest a lot of time in building them and designing them, and they are generally always extensions of myself, given the chance (my Star Wars : Galaxies character took me over 3 hours to create and even longer to name). That said I suffered an exceptional amount of abuse in that game after some of the people found out particular details about me personally. Still, if someone was doing something obscene, I found no problem in just clicking a button to remove my avatar from that area, or to sign off for a while. Yes, it is a game. You can spend hours in it, but unlike the car in your analogy, if the power goes out at your end or the server end, you still have access to your car. You can lose your character in an instant, and it's best not to get broken up about "data."

- Again, I have very strong bonds to them all, but even still, there's a limit.

[Fierce Polly]

If they're gonna take it that seriously, might as well arrest anyone associated with 4chan or fan ficts.

[Apollo]

These things are text, they are not brutal, and you could just ignore them, if someone types (I am raping you ((only more graphically))) then just walk away, it's not like they're actually pinning your character down and raping them, just saying it, it's worth it just to go OOC for a minute and "walk away". To me (if it were happening to me) it seems more like one of those little yappy dogs trying to hump my leg, annoying, but I can just walk away or ignore it, because they suck. There is no law that says you have to stay in character and take it.

[booger]

Or, just respond "I am pepper spraying you".

[Atari]

Online sexual harassment was the main reason many women who tried FPS games left. And in FPS games, you aren't nearly as tied to your characters as in RPGs.

In a world where people can be anonymous and therefore unusually obnoxious, it's becoming increasingly important to allow players to protect themselves from being verbally abused. Game companies (especially subscription-based ones) are starting to get that. They are learning that if they don't build in these functions, they will lose players who will log off and perhaps decide to leave the whole game over it.

[booger]

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070505

[Tenshi]

Online sexual harassment was the main reason many women who tried FPS games left. And in FPS games, you aren't nearly as tied to your characters as in RPGs.

In a world where people can be anonymous and therefore unusually obnoxious, it's becoming increasingly important to allow players to protect themselves from being verbally abused. Game companies (especially subscription-based ones) are starting to get that. They are learning that if they don't build in these functions, they will lose players who will log off and perhaps decide to leave the whole game over it.

I do admit and agree with that. One of the major reasons I left SWG, despite SOE's horrible mismanagement of it, was because of the harassment I was getting. However, I think that's on a completely different level than referring to it as rape or treating it as anything similar.