EPT"Rape" and Game Culture - Page 3
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SpicyCrab
402 Posts
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chobopeon
United States7342 Posts
On August 14 2010 04:15 KwarK wrote: Someone somewhere is hurt by just about everything. At some point you have to draw the line and say that no offense was intended and that they need to get over their own issues. As was pointed out earlier, owning someone could be conceivably misconstrued as a mocking reference to slavery. It could be but its not. For a second, out of your hypothetical defense and realize that in the real world, rape implies sexual assault. When people make forum posts about being raped in game and then in the next sentence talk about being forcibly bent over a table and having dicks stuck into them, it is not some coincidence. It is because rape means rape, even in gaming. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On August 14 2010 04:11 SpicyCrab wrote: Free speech has nothing to do with my point whatsoever. Free speech refers to governments restricting your right to speak in a certain way. I am certainly not advocating that. I am not asking the moderation staff to 'crack down'', and I am not asking you to be banned for your words. I am pointing out to people why they shouldn't use a certain word and I am hoping that TL is smart enough to understand why I am right (and yes, I am 100% right.) I am asking people to be more mindful of the words they are using, that is all. (Also note that free speech has no bearing on TL whatsoever; it is a private organization and can moderate as it sees fit although I do not expect them to moderate according to my beliefs.) Edit: Also note, saying that "owned" is analagous to "slavery" is a stretch to say the least, saying "rape" is analagous to... "rape" is probably less of a stretch, no? It's just that there are *so* many things you need to be mindful of, there's a point where you stop worrying about offending every particular minority out there. And trust me, there are a ton of them that feel their points are just as valid (although I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find one as valid as "rape" for rape victims). I can understand being mindful of what you say, for example, when you know someone who has been raped (aka your gaming friends and rape victim friend), but when you have no reason to think so, I feel there is very little reason to try to watch out for offending such minorities of people. I'm not going to refrain from saying "God damn it" either because it offends religious people. I do admit, however, that the trauma associated with rape gives more reason than almost any other to not say it. On August 14 2010 04:19 choboPEon wrote: It could be but its not. For a second, out of your hypothetical defense and realize that in the real world, rape implies sexual assault. When people make forum posts about being raped in game and then in the next sentence talk about being forcibly bent over a table and having dicks stuck into them, it is not some coincidence. It is because rape means rape, even in gaming. No, it doesn't. You can't just make that claim. I'd say more people than not don't use the "bent over a table" comment at all. It's an expression, just as "that's so gay" is a comment. I use the term "faggot" all the time IRL, even around gay friends. Although I knew it upset ONE of them, so I tried my best not to use it around him. Quite clearly I have no hatred of gays, considering I'm friends with like 5+ of them. | ||
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chobopeon
United States7342 Posts
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Earll
Norway847 Posts
This is something we used to get away with because the SC community was tiny. Now that real sponsors watch casts and read news updates its going to slowly die because its terrible publicity for what we do. This is a somewhat unrelaed point in my opinion. Obviously in this setting using the word rape is bad, but so is doing anything else unserious/immature/that looks bad for the sponsor, unrelated of what the meaning is, as long as its inapropriate. | ||
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Mobius
Canada1268 Posts
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On August 14 2010 04:17 choboPEon wrote: This is nothing like the word niggardly being called racist because thats fucking stupid but associating the word rape with sexual assault is so completely understandable that it boggles the mind that someone would deny it. how is that at all understandable when you're watching a sc2 cast you have to purposely LACK understanding to not get that the word is being used differently | ||
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The_Pacifist
United States540 Posts
You can say "rape" in-game but the word "suicide" gets censored. "Those banelings @#%$#ed into my zerglings." | ||
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baubo
China3370 Posts
I do want to say that I believe there is a difference between rape and other normal derogatory words like faggot. Mainly because the word rape represent a very despicable form of violence. And there is something about the nature of the crime of rape, that makes me not wish to use the term. But, to each his own. Obviously, most gamers don't care enough to avoid the word. | ||
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QuanticHawk
United States32157 Posts
The only people who should care are people getting paid to cast. Who gives a shit if you randomly offend someone on the internet. | ||
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BeMannerDuPenner
Germany5638 Posts
On August 14 2010 04:01 KwarK wrote: He's slaughtering those zealots could be offensive to victims of genocide. Words have meanings. In gaming to rape does not mean to sexually assault the unit or player in question. If anyone was in any way unclear about that then I can see why they might be shocked until the matter was cleared up. But I cannot understand why a word, which at this point is simply a homonym, should be banned because a tiny minority of people associate it with something other than the intended meaning. In gaming culture rape is not an offensive word. I don't use it but this is almost as bad as people who claim the word niggardly is racist because it sounds kinda like nigger. this post kinda ends this thread. exactly my(and i guess the majoritys) thoughts just way better written then i ever could. nice one sir | ||
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chobopeon
United States7342 Posts
On August 14 2010 04:20 Mobius wrote: My parents beat me when i was a kid, so whenever someone says they "beat" me i get really offended. Can we stop with the unimaginative hypothetical defenses and admit that this affects actual human beings? | ||
KwarK
United States44240 Posts
On August 14 2010 04:17 choboPEon wrote: I'm all for removing words like rape and faggot and have been for a while. There are so many good, colorful curse words to use that don't recall terrible things like that. But people seem quite set on raping faggots. Ridiculous first sentence. Rape is a specific, terrible act that a lot of women suffer silently from. Slaughter is something cows go through before we eat steak. In gaming, rape means to utterly and completely dominate, not unlike the sexual meaning at all. Only tiny minority or people associate the word rape with sexual assault? Come on, man. Come the fuck on. This is nothing like the word niggardly being called racist because thats fucking stupid but associating the word rape with sexual assault is so completely understandable that it boggles the mind that someone would deny it. So, you say that people object to hearing the word rape, despite no rape occuring in the game, because they associate it with something terrible that happened to them. However this is nothing like a black guy objecting to hearing the word niggardly used as an insult, even though from a phonetic point of view he is likely to think of the word nigger and therefore be reminded of something terrible that happened. Are you quite sure that they're not alike? Because they seem pretty alike to me. The whole problem seems to be based on hearing words that sound like other words (or in the case of rape is a homonym) and getting upset over the reminder that the other word exists. That is the case in both. | ||
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chobopeon
United States7342 Posts
On August 14 2010 04:21 travis wrote: how is that at all understandable when you're watching a sc2 cast you have to purposely LACK understanding to not get that the word is being used differently Because niggardly means something completely different from nigger but rape means rape | ||
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SpicyCrab
402 Posts
Once again, associating the word rape with rape is not a stretch. In fact it is a very simple connection, one which is VERY DIRECTLY related to the way in which this community uses the word. I can only say that I am disappointed that so many are unwilling to accept that the word has a real meaning outside of our games. And that our use, whatever its meaning heapens the emotional distress of literally millions of Americans who silently suffer. | ||
Chill
Calgary26003 Posts
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neohero9
United States595 Posts
On August 14 2010 04:01 KwarK wrote: He's slaughtering those zealots could be offensive to victims of genocide. Words have meanings. In gaming to rape does not mean to sexually assault the unit or player in question. If anyone was in any way unclear about that then I can see why they might be shocked until the matter was cleared up. But I cannot understand why a word, which at this point is simply a homonym, should be banned because a tiny minority of people associate it with something other than the intended meaning. In gaming culture rape is not an offensive word. I don't use it but this is almost as bad as people who claim the word niggardly is racist because it sounds kinda like nigger. 'Victims' of genocide are dead  I get what you mean, tho. The difference, I think, is that whereas there's an incredibly small probability of meeting someone who was affected by genocide, and that they have a still open psychological scar from it, the corresponding numbers for rape are much higher-- higher than anyone wants to admit. Many rapes go unreported because the victim is afraid to see their assaulter again, or they can't relive the experience in order to describe what happened, or many other reasons. Nearly every woman I've met has been either the victim or attempted victim of a sexual assault or rape. The statistics for the general population aren't much better. Think about the way in which we mean "rape" when we say it in a game. It's not simply "that guy got owned" or "stomped" or "destroyed. We mean that our target was so thoroughly beaten that they could not have resisted the inevitable conquest we rained upon them. Boom, headshot? Raped. Melee from behind? Raped. Simultaneous nukes in mineral lines and army? Raped. What does a rapist do when they rape? They conquer the victim to the point that there is very little, if anything, they can do to prevent their victimization. They remove the victim's ability to choose their fate. The usages are conceptually the same. The differences are in application: one is to a virtual conquest, the other to a sexual conquest. A recent rape victim, in many instances, doesn't have the presence of mind to differentiate between applications of that word. The same way that a woman who had been raped might freak out if you grabbed her in the same way as her rapist, even though you obviously don't mean to replicate that event, a victim can also be sensitive to the word or concept of rape. It's a traumatic event that remains sensitive for some time: years or more in some cases, and we ought to be sensitive to that fact. It's not their shortcoming, it's their assaulter's. The "why should we censor ourselves for this minority" argument is silly to me when we consider the effort and effect. Gamers give up the word "rape" in their vocabulary, essentially changing nothing. Victims gain the comfort of knowing they won't be reminded of their assault with every epic kill or beatdown in a video game. Even better, both sides lose the problems of having to deal with victims hysteria when confronted by someone celebrating the thing which causes them so much pain. While the gamers vastly outnumber the victims, the victims still gain much more than the gamers lose. So if we can do something to help, at little to no cost to us, why not do it? EDIT: I think, too, that there's a definite difference in the "closeness" of the word "rape" to the concept of sexual assault and victimization, and that of "slaughter" to "genocide". When we think of "rape" there is one definite concept that comes to mind in ALL PEOPLE; when we think of "slaughter", the first association is not to the mass murder of people, it is to the mass murder of animals, which most people don't find offensive in the least; and even fewer find it traumatic on the level of rape. In short, your comparison is complete hokum. | ||
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Archas
United States6531 Posts
Suppose I decided to invent a new word (for the sake of argument, let's say this word is "namish" or something). At this point, the word "namish" has absolutely NO positive or negative connotation. But suppose I lose terribly against a friend while playing a competitive game, and I exclaim "Namish!" in a frustrated manner. Now, "namish" has been infused with a negative connotation, since the word was wielded with anger. Over time, "namish" might be used by the friend I lost to previously, and the term spreads. Eventually, "namish" is morphed into a curse word of the highest degree, when it came into being as a completely neutral word, as all words do. Of course, I won't deny that the word "rape" doesn't quite fit the scenario I've laid out for my made-up word, as its initial definition is itself a violent and depraved act. But again, context means everything, as well as the delivery of the word. If you were to sit down with a person who had been a victim of rape, it's only common decency to tread lightly when discussing the matter. That act (and the word used to describe the act) have been cemented in the victim's mind as incomprehensibly horrible things to endure. However, the word takes on an entirely different connotation when my friends and I are having a heated battle in Starcraft, Street Fighter, or what-have-you. In this scenario, the meaning of "rape" has been altered to the point where the subject is no longer what it means to a victim of sexual assault. Long story short, words only have the power individuals believe them to have. That's why I don't really think that using the word "rape" in a triumphant manner while competing with others in a friendly way is at all offensive in general, because I have not indicated whatsoever that I support the physical act of rape. If you're sensitive about the use of the word, I won't stop you from discouraging its use in the above context, but again, it's the context that counts. Demonizing words gets you nowhere; instead, demonize the acts that the words describe. | ||
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chobopeon
United States7342 Posts
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QuanticHawk
United States32157 Posts
On August 14 2010 04:21 travis wrote: how is that at all understandable when you're watching a sc2 cast you have to purposely LACK understanding to not get that the word is being used differently he's not saying that people don't get it. He's saying that the word has more than one meaning and origins of the word are pretty firmly rooted in sexual abuse. | ||
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