| 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.
