BoleroOfFire said: Some of the responses in this thread are as disturbing as the game in question. Rapists should be hung by their privates along with the creators and supporters of this game.

Ever heard the quote "I strongly disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."? It's possible to defend something's right to exist without supporting was it is or says. I think it's disgusting too. But from a logical standpoint it's no more disgusting than beating a prostitute with a baseball bat in an alley, or cutting off people's genitals with gardening sheers. Which are both from games that most gamers would just shrug about. I have no intention of playing this game, but it has equal right to exist as any of these other games where you commit heinous acts of violence towards innocent people.

How many of the people who consider this video game taboo on this thread enjoy modern american horror ie, saw or asian extreme ie, ichi the killer, oldboy? The film industry releases more grotesque inhuman imagery than a stupid 2-d rape game. Yeah, rape is immoral, but so is killing and killing is a massive source of revenue for the film and game industries. And this totally perplexes me. How can one be more acceptable than the other when we can all agree that both are reprehensible? The problem doesn't exist in the content, but in human nature. And some people respond differently than others to different extreme scenarios. To some folks killing might feel worse to experience than raping. Where do you draw the line?

All people do not have the same personal standards. That is why censoring this game is going to far. So you censor it, then is all portrayal of rape to be censored? So Nabokov's Masterpiece Lolita pushing it too far? Pedophilia could even be worse than rape/killing to most people. Or what about Rosario Dawson in Descent, a serious examination of of what a rape victim experiences in a most personal view? Should these be censored as well. I mean if 2-d rape is bad then real life cinematic depiction is far worse, yes?

Censorship is only a solution for people who do not have the self control to keep themselves from viewing something they do not agree with. If you don't want to play this game then don't play it. If you don't like porn then don't watch it. The solution is this simple. Legal adults should be able to experience anything victimless.

Wasn't this game released in 2005?  If so, one has to wonder why, the past 6 months, it has become an issue.  I guess more proof how the government is incredibly slow to get involved here, along with public outrage.  I guess also it a sign that during slow news days, the press will muckrake.

How about we put Jack Thompson into the same time distortion device that the government is under, so that he is several years off?  This way he could demand the ban the last GTA title to come out on the PS2.

I want to tackle this "killing is allowed so why not rape" argument.

As PostModGuru said "How can one be more acceptable than the other when we can all agree that both are reprehensible?"

I think there are several reasons, and good ones, that this should be treated differently:

First, the victims. Murder victims are no longer around in order to be horrified/reminded/further traumatised by games involving killing. Rape victims are.

Second, justifications. There are scenarios where killing is accepted - in war for example, or in retribution. The fact that most games involving killing fall within one of the justifications tends to dull theimpact of killing in games. Not so for rape.

Third, the discrimination and social impact. Any of us could be killed. Rape is more targeted towards women. Any *anything* that encourages, leads to or simulates or represents objectification, demeaning, hatred, of any section of the population is bad *because* it does that - and bad in a way that universal crimes, ills and threats aren't. Killing doesn't (except, for example where it is racial killing), rape does.

So I don't think the killing v rape argument holds water. I'm not saying that - as crimes - one is worse than the other. I'm saying that - as representations having a social impact - one is worse than the other. in the same sort of way that a shooting game where you shot only [choose your section of society here] would be.

As i recall, in all the videogame related murders and crimes, the internet community cry that the game was of no effect to the criminal mind. But if a rapist is found with Rapelay on his pc, the game promotes sexual deviancy? Double Standards..

 

The game is about a sexual fetish, is for a specific japanese audience, the game itself informs you that it is not meant for installation outside japan, and you have to search for translation patches of warez to download a fully playable game. Hentai means "perverted" and the game gives you what it promises. I've played the game and the pedophilic (not the raping, as it is very strongly suggested that in some point the girls enjoy it. That does not sanitizes the rape, but it's a sex fantasy game. Pornographic movies exist with the same theme, especialy in japanese that are very hardcore and hard to watch.) aspect was disturbing, but lolicon culture that sexualizes little girls is not uncommon in japan. And in the end it is a game for the japanese. If no one made a point about it, (the game is quite old, only recent the controvercy spawned.) It would have been another obscure title.

phisheep said: I want to tackle this "killing is allowed so why not rape" argument. As PostModGuru said "How can one be more acceptable than the other when we can all agree that both are reprehensible?" I think there are several reasons, and good ones, that this should be treated differently:

Does any of this matter?  Murder is a bad crime, rape is a bad crime--do we need to decide which is "worse"?

But, okay, let's take a look at your points just in case it does matter somehow:

First, the victims. Murder victims are no longer around in order to be horrified/reminded/further traumatised by games involving killing. Rape victims are.

Direct victims aren't the only ones who are deeply affected by crimes, and this includes rape, murder, etc.  There are friends, family, etc.

Besides, even though no one survives a murder, people do survive attempted murders (!).  And I'd bet that someone beaten nearly to death can be just as traumatized as any rape victim we can imagine.

So, if we're going to censor because we're sensitive to those who've suffered through rape... shouldn't we also be sensitive to those who've been attacked in other ways?

Second, justifications. There are scenarios where killing is accepted - in war for example, or in retribution. The fact that most games involving killing fall within one of the justifications tends to dull theimpact of killing in games. Not so for rape.

"Justified" to who?  Not everyone thinks that every war is justified... and most societies call "retributive killings" murder.

Besides... later you mention societal impact.  Well, isn't it possible that having justifications to "dull the impact" of murder might be a worse message for society?  I mean, if the point is that murder is sometimes okay just as long as you feel "justified" (you've been wronged--time for a little "retribution")... well... maybe that's not a great thing.

Furthermore, a game like GTA allows a person to murder completely without any sort of "justification" outside of personal thrill.  So, even if we agree that there are better justifications given for murder in some of these games than we can imagine for rape, we'd still have to deal with the case of completely unjustified murder.

Third, the discrimination and social impact. Any of us could be killed. Rape is more targeted towards women. Any *anything* that encourages, leads to or simulates or represents objectification, demeaning, hatred, of any section of the population is bad *because* it does that - and bad in a way that universal crimes, ills and threats aren't. Killing doesn't (except, for example where it is racial killing), rape does.

These kinds of "discrimination/social impact" arguments can get messy.  For instance, I could make one of the following bad arguments to try to "counter" your own:

*  By saying that there should be no rape games because rape targets women more often than men, we are preventing art from dealing with "women's issues."  Which is discriminatory against women.

*  Arguing against a game in which only women are hurt, but protecting those games where only men are hurt, sets women up as a protected class.  It implies that women are somehow "less than" men, to need special protection.  Thus, the argument that rape should be out-of-bounds is intrinsically sexist, against women.

*  Saying that rape is a woman's issue is to unfairly ignore the male victims of rape.  It perpetuates a stereotype which is harmful in several ways, not the least of which is putting pressure on those male victims not to admit or report when it happens to them.

But I really don't believe any of that garbage. :)

In my opinion, men and women are different--that is reality.  And art (and I consider video games a medium of art, however well it does it) is concerned with reality.  Art should deal with murder, because murder exists.  It should deal with rape, because rape exists.  The fact that women are raped more often than men is "reality's problem"; not art's.

And besides all of this, trying to guesstimate the societal impact of a video game is really tricky, and bound to be deeply flawed.  Some people insist that violent games create more violence in the world... but some people believe that these games act as a release, and work to decrease violence.  Suppose that games that let people act out their criminally perverted sexual fantasies wind up saving real life people from violence?  Wouldn't that be a net gain?

Ehh... but honestly, like I said initially, I don't think that any of this is on point.  Even if your arguments are conceded ("rape is really really bad"), that doesn't sound to me like a great case to censor it.  Many things are really really bad, but I say we keep Mein Kampf in the libraries, GTA on our home consoles, and let adults make decisions for themselves.

@donathos:

I take your points - though I don't agree with your conclusions. But I will leave it lie, as to be quite honest this is not a subject that I want to nitpick over.

Just the one point, to be quite clear where I'm coming from - I'm not claiming that rape itself is particularly bad (it is, but that is not the substance to the argument, and there's no sensible linear scale of crime anyway), but I am claiming that the depiction of rape for entertainment is particularly bad.

Donathos :

Rape games could be considered an art , but to consider them only art would be an incredibly absract approach. Rape games are an art inspired by real things , real events , emotions , ideas etc it's not something that we are unfarmiliar with .

I don't how the victim is affected is relevant in distinguishing between murder and rape , I think the mental element of the crime is more important.

Alot of the murder we see today isn't soley for the purpose of murder , most people do not get pleasure from murdering another person , they do it for the purpose of something else , they aim at an end which is essentialy unrelated to murder.

. E.g America waged war on Iraq for the defence of their country , they didn't wage war on Iraq for the sake of killing civillians (which did happen but is irrelevant) , killing the terrorists in iraq was a means to an end not the end itself.

So we can see that even though america is guilty of commiting mass murder there is some justification in the fact that they wern't doing it soley for the purpose of being mass muderers , there's a lowever level of accountability. That's not to say that they where right in what they were doing but it's certain they wern't as malicous as a America which aims to killed Iraqi civillians for the heck of it.

When a rapists abuses a person he doesn't do it for this or for that , usualy the rapists end is as the same as his means : to rape . You might say "well the rapist could rape the person who killed his family as revenge" you'd be correct in saying that this also aims at an end unrelated to rape , but why would you use sexualy pleasure yourself as a means of getting revenge , is it really noble or honourable to have intercourse with some one who killed your family ? It seems highly unnesacery ,you wouldn't penatrate some one you hated unless your desire for pleasure superseded your hate for the person.

Picture the man who shoots the man who killed his family in the head , he does it impersonaly ( no physical contact ) , he might experience alot of pain in the process ( unlike the rapist who experiences pleasure ) , there's no pleasure in it for him unless he enjoys killing ( in which case revenge for his family wouldn't be the only end ) if he enjoys killing then he's exactly like the rapist.

Even in games like GTA there's honour and nobleness of sorts , IIRC didn't Niko go to liberty city to kill the people who murdered his comrades ? .

Watching sexual content , playing sexualy interactive content stimulates sexual desire because it is a very visual thing . I can only imagine playing rape games would stimulate a different sort of sexual desire in a person , especialy if some one looks to play these kind of games .

I don't think the desire to kill can develop in some one even when they play killing games .you could kill a 100,000 people in GTA , I don't think it would make you any more likely to murder a person than if you hadn't , there are those who go off on killing sprees after playing violent games but I don't even think that provokes them to kill , it might give them inspirational ideas about how to kill but it wouldn't push them any closer to commiting the act.

@NinjaKido
But the point is not why you kill in real life or how you feel when doing it in diverse circumstances. The point is why you _play games where you kill_.
We could debate endlessly about the justifications for murder or war, to say nothing of the Iraq wars. Luckily for us, we can avoid all of that word flailing because that would be completely off topic :)

Exactly like gamers like violence and powerplaying in games because everybody harbors deep down some violent desires that are kept at bay by our moral and the cultural superstructure we live in, so the same works for a rape game.
We can harbor more or less deeply some rape fantasies - ask any psychiatrist, they're perfectly normal in men _and_ women - and never act on them because of our own moral or the moral we've been taught.
By, for example, playing a game we can vent those deep pressures, escaping the watchdogs of our ego and superego because _we're not really acting on those pressures that we feel immoral_.

That's all it takes: recognizing the difference between a game and reality. Failing in doing so is psychopathic behavior. Indulging in fantasies in the private of your mind isn't, unless it affects your real life becoming an obsession.

So basically we're back to square one: we can policy what people do, not what people think. And gaming is all in the mind.

NinjaKido said: Donathos : Rape games could be considered an art , but to consider them only art would be an incredibly absract approach. Rape games are an art inspired by real things , real events , emotions , ideas etc it's not something that we are unfarmiliar with . I don't how the victim is affected is relevant in distinguishing between murder and rape , I think the mental element of the crime is more important. Alot of the murder we see today isn't soley for the purpose of murder , most people do not get pleasure from murdering another person , they do it for the purpose of something else , they aim at an end which is essentialy unrelated to murder. . E.g America waged war on Iraq for the defence of their country , they didn't wage war on Iraq for the sake of killing civillians (which did happen but is irrelevant) , killing the terrorists in iraq was a means to an end not the end itself. So we can see that even though america is guilty of commiting mass murder there is some justification in the fact that they wern't doing it soley for the purpose of being mass muderers , there's a lowever level of accountability. That's not to say that they where right in what they were doing but it's certain they wern't as malicous as a America which aims to killed Iraqi civillians for the heck of it. When a rapists abuses a person he doesn't do it for this or for that , usualy the rapists end is as the same as his means : to rape . You might say "well the rapist could rape the person who killed his family as revenge" you'd be correct in saying that this also aims at an end unrelated to rape , but why would you use sexualy pleasure yourself as a means of getting revenge , is it really noble or honourable to have intercourse with some one who killed your family ? It seems highly unnesacery ,you wouldn't penatrate some one you hated unless your desire for pleasure superseded your hate for the person. Picture the man who shoots the man who killed his family in the head , he does it impersonaly ( no physical contact ) , he might experience alot of pain in the process ( unlike the rapist who experiences pleasure ) , there's no pleasure in it for him unless he enjoys killing ( in which case revenge for his family wouldn't be the only end ) if he enjoys killing then he's exactly like the rapist. Even in games like GTA there's honour and nobleness of sorts , IIRC didn't Niko go to liberty city to kill the people who murdered his comrades ? . Watching sexual content , playing sexualy interactive content stimulates sexual desire because it is a very visual thing . I can only imagine playing rape games would stimulate a different sort of sexual desire in a person , especialy if some one looks to play these kind of games . I don't think the desire to kill can develop in some one even when they play killing games .you could kill a 100,000 people in GTA , I don't think it would make you any more likely to murder a person than if you hadn't , there are those who go off on killing sprees after playing violent games but I don't even think that provokes them to kill , it might give them inspirational ideas about how to kill but it wouldn't push them any closer to commiting the act.

POORLY WRITTEN RANT BELOW:

The ultimate problem with your argument is that it relies solely on your subjective view on the said material being honorable, justified, etc just like the poster you replied to just said. Although you might look at Niko as a noble character, he's still pretty fucked up. *SPOILER* Remember when Niko was about to shoot/not shoot the traitor of his squad? He said something along the lines of "$1000?!" and the traitor replies "And how much do you charge?" *SPOILER* Niko has killed innocent people in required missions, and again you have the option of doing horrendous things that's not required.

And you see, just like the person you replied to said, it gets way too messy. People have to play through each game, and then come to a consesus.

AND EVEN IF, a majority, or hell, 99.99999% of the population believe that the material is sick, disugusting, etc in the United States we have a concept, despite our firm belief in Democracy, that the majority can not impede on the basic human rights of a minority. This includes the Freedom of Speech.

If we are to ban this game, think of the real world ramifications. We would have set a precedent, that if we believe that there is something that is so vile and horrible we have the right to ban it. That means that, just like the poster to which you replied to said, that the government can ban KKK marches, pornography, flag burning, anti-American things, and so forth. Where do we draw the line? We cannot, as it is completely subjective.

The difference between something along the lines of child pornography, and a rape game is that the rape games in question are created without the use and involvement of real victims. An increased demand and supply, will not result in more victims for the creation of the games, whereas child pornography that features real children (I just remembered a debate last year about lolicon, which is a even harder thing to defend and gross to think about) will, in the case of an increased supply and demand, result in more victims.

Now as for you saying that the rape games cause people to want to rape, as opposed to violence, I think is really strange logic. You said that rape games are a "visual" thing, and I only wonder what you think violent games are. You say that if you kill 10,000 people from personal experience you don't feel like killing someone. Now I know I never played a rape game, and I'm sure you didn't too, but I don't understand how we can conclude that violent video games don't cause real life violent urges based on anecdotal evidence, and conclude that rape games do, when we never played one.

Personally when I play GTA I want to kill virtual people. Otherwise why am I buying many T-M games that feature murder as gameplay (BTW I absolutely love Flower, which I play when I have only a few minutes)? I'm not going to bullshit and say that I wanted to play a noble hero. How many of you guys, reading this thread, played an evil character on Fable, Oblivion, KOTOR, etc? How many times have you tea bagged a person in Halo 3? Do you guys read, on the front of the box cover, that the hero is noble? How fun is it, to play a purely noble character? Even if you like playing tragic heros, they have an evil/flawed trait that result in their downfall. Do your movies always features a noble character that is good/overcomes their flaws? I watched Downfall that featured Hitler (after watching the Xbox clip =P), and it was absolutely amazing to see Hitler as a human being, without being stereotypically evil, and understanding the horrific nature of the human nature and the absurdity of the word "inhumane" in describing undesireable actions.

I don't have any guilt, nor desire to kill real people because I know that there's no actual harm being done.

Why can we conclude that people who play rape games want to rape real life people?

People who play violent video games want to kill virtual people. For the great majority of them, based on anecdotal evidence, don't want to kill real life people, nor gain a desire to kill real life people.

People who play rape games want to rape virtual people. For the great majority of them, based on anecdotal evidence, ???.

(I know this rant was poorly written =/ I don't want to waste my 5-10 minutes though)