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Rape being used as a word indicating domination and success within gaming has come under a great deal of scrutiny since the LagTV incident the other day on NASL, half-time. For those who have not yet read on the subject, LagTV was invited to bring its relatively popular YouTube series "When Cheese Fails," in which "cheesy" play is attempted and... well failed. The main feature of the show is the two hosts, NovaWar and Maximus Black, with their somewhat vulgar senses of humor and "Car Guys"-esque ability to laugh at their own joke.
During the premiere of the show the NASL many a crass joke was made, as was expected, and the term rape was used to indicate how well one player was competing against another. This last point set the forums ablaze, with debates on the true meaning of word, the relevance of the show to the NASL on the whole and a great deal of counter-reaction to those who felt shock. It went so far that LagTV even felt compelled to issue an apology concerning the episode, and has buried it entirely.
Destiny, with his own tendency to roll out the vulgarities, has generally been used as the model for "offensive" humor, and has been outspoken in disassociating the use of the word "rape" in a game with the act of forcing sex with an unwilling partner.
For those who find the word offensive, they site the horror of the experience and the number of rape survivors who have yet to experience any sort of justice in relation to their case.
I feel compelled to share my own opinion on the matter, in blog format no less, and here it is.
Rape is not only the most appropriate word to use in gaming situations, it's the ONLY one, and should be used more often.
What the mother-fuck, let's get serious people. Moving your marines in a skilled fashion, using your keyboard and mouse to their utmost mechanical limits to gain an advantage over your enemy in a science fiction themed video game is so similar to actual, real, "happens every day to someone" rape that I can't believe people don't see the connection. OBVIOUSLY when you've brought out hellions to kill a person's workers the first thing you should be recalling is a veiny, hairy phallus penetrating deep into someone's orifices forcefully.
As a Protoss, when you blink or warp units into someone's base sneakily and take out a key tech structure and retreat with minimal or even no losses, don't you also imagine sneaking through the second story window of your neighbor's house, tying him and his wife up and having your frightful, terrifying way with their faces, torsos and feet? Hell, you got time since you cut the phone line, go for the shoulder blades! Just make sure you mask your voice so you can have breakfast with the after Sunday mass next week!
And as Zerg... are you fucking kidding me, have you SEEN the nydus worm?
Look at this shit!
It's like Blizzard WANTS you to buy a pair of leather gloves and a bottle of chloroform. Hell, Heart of the Swarm is going to include ten hits of Rohypnol:
Effective
And have you ever SEEN a spine crawler attack a spore crawler? Did the spore crawler consent to that? CAN a spore crawler consent? Is it really rape if they have no way of communicating that to you? If not, where does that put donkeys in the continuum of rape?
[Insert hilarious video of above mentioned act... the spore/spine thing not donkeys]
As we can plainly see, rape is an incredibly appropriate term to use in gaming to indicate domination, and especially so with Starcraft 2. As many have mentioned, it's the intention and context of a word that matters, and we all know that beating a 16-20 year old male in a strategy video game is extremely similar to forcing your dick into someone's anus, varied and multicolored fluids (and semi-solids!) dripping out the back as tears flow out the front.
Because you're playing a guy
I really hope this post has enlightened the reader, and that you come away from it with this:
Using rape in a video game context is not completely fucking ridiculous and there's not a reason in the world why people might be justifiably offended by it.
  
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Bad words?? Silly words??
People controlling what people say is dumb and demeaning to one's intelligence.
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You can't tell people what can and can't offend them. You have no right to do that.
If you think it's not offensive and you think it's necessary to use it then go ahead an use it. No one can stop you.
But you can't tell people what their opinions and feelings on the matter should be.
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I wouldn't go quite as far as you: I see why people might be offended by it. That said, I'm not.
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thebike
United States157 Posts
Wow, people are REALLY bad at understanding the point of this post.
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I guess you could say you... raped the debate? It's a censorship holocaust!
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OP is either a really insensitive prick or trolling, but I guess the desensitisation of todays society has gone so far that the feelings of potentially offended people don't matter anymore.
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On April 20 2011 20:50 thebike wrote:
Wow, people are REALLY bad at understanding the point of this post.
The point of this post is to use humour to belittle all the discussion that's going on around this subject, and perhaps suggest that people are over-reacting. Or that's what I got from it.
I'm all for trying to lighten the mood, but I didn't find the tone of this post did that. If people put forward their opinion either for or against using certain words then they should.
I'm just frustrated that it seems these days people can't express an opinion around here without being insulted or ridiculed.
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I believe the word 0wn3d has its origins back to slavery where people would literally own slaves.
but fact that doesn't really need to be said perfectly good words to describe situation other than rape.
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I don't use the word nor do I really enjoy other people using it.
Part of this is simply because of the original meanings of the word, but also another part of my disdain for it might be because the first I had heard it used in a gaming sense was over ventrilo while playing Battlefield a couple of years ago, by this annoying high pitched, 12 year old american kid who used it in almost every sentence. As a result of that I end up associating others who use it with the same kid.
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I also don't use the word "owned". It offends my fellow black brethren whom were once cruelly shackled against their will and forced to do hard labor for very little pay.
Aww someone beat me to it. But in NFL 95 on Sega Genesis you could make your black players say, "I OWN YOU", it was awesome.
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I also don't use the word 'win' because it offends those who lost.
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every once and a while the white knights of the internet get all uppity about the word and its usage, then things return to normal. Such is the ebb and flow of the intranets.
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On April 20 2011 21:30 Squeegy wrote:
I also don't use the word 'win' because it offends those who lost.
Exactly, phrases like "I beat you", or "I killed you" also offend those who are affected by domestic violence or even assault, either to themselves or to a family member. We really have to be careful with what we say on the internet.
But truthfully, I don't think it should be on the NASL stream. It's fine in forums and chat and everything else, but if we are trying to reach out to larger audience we shouldn't have anything that wouldn't be on TV.
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The word rape didn't have sexual connotations until very recently, the original term simply meant "To seize or take by force" which is exactly what happens in a game like SC2.... so we use the term rape correctly.
Words are just words, if the NASL was being broadcast from Europe, this wouldn't even be up for discussion. Its not on TV, this game is rated TEEN and if you are old enough to understand and play it, you are old enough to hear swearing and words you might find offensive.
The thing about offensives words are that, its personal whether you find something offensive or not. I find terms like faggot offensive, because I am bi, but I don't find many other far worse words offensive at all....... if NASL started using the word faggot alot, I would complain as its a term only applied in a negative way to describe gay people..... using the word rape is offensive to no one, since its just a word to describe a thing, not a person.
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As gamers, we should coin the new term "gamerape". This would allow for all gamers to use the term rape in it's gamer defined fashion while also appeasing those who may be offended by it!
I will say though, on day 1 of NASL I believe Gretorp used the word rape several times during the telecast, if not rape then definitely another word that had me thinking "man, that's really not a great word for a 'professional' caster to be using". I'm fine with the use of the word in gaming, however if it's something that's going to be viewed by more 5k people, I'd tend to say watching the language would be the smartest course of action
edit: I has bad english in the morning
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On April 20 2011 21:50 emythrel wrote:
The word rape didn't have sexual connotations until very recently, the original term simply meant "To seize or take by force" which is exactly what happens in a game like SC2.... so we use the term rape correctly.
Words are just words, if the NASL was being broadcast from Europe, this wouldn't even be up for discussion. Its not on TV, this game is rated TEEN and if you are old enough to understand and play it, you are old enough to hear swearing and words you might find offensive.
The thing about offensives words are that, its personal whether you find something offensive or not. I find terms like faggot offensive, because I am bi, but I don't find many other far worse words offensive at all....... if NASL started using the word faggot alot, I would complain as its a term only applied in a negative way to describe gay people..... using the word rape is offensive to no one, since its just a word to describe a thing, not a person.
I can see why people might be offended and even though I'm not, if we can choose to use words that are less offensive at no cost to ourselves, why not? If instead of raping my opponent, I can prosper greatly from the fruits of my efforts, why not prosper?
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Killing is better than raping?? :D :D :D
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If someone keeps over 1k/1k in the bank i'm gonna start say they are niggardly with their resources. Hey bro i'm just using the original meaning of the word here!
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EPT
