Can the Rape Culture in the West be Reduced with Guns?

[Nymeria]

Jaicee said:

Nymeria said:

The line in the west is often seeing the gap in mentality of joking about rape or making rape threats and being confronted about it. This forum has been really respectful and I appreciate that. In other places online I have felt the hostility and received numerous threats involving rape. Play online and the second they hear my voice my sex becomes a topic and almost inevitably turns to violent statements such as "You fucking dumb cunt, I'd rape your ass until you bleed slut!" Do I think they mean this? No. I think they feel embarrassed they lost to me in a game, and in their impotence lash out in rage to try to gain power in the situation by scaring me. If brought out behind the wall of online anonymity and forced to sit in front of people you'd likely get a meek "I didn't mean it, it was a joke, I'm sorry

I believe it. I don't really do social gaming online anymore for precisely that reason. I too have found VG Chartz to be an unusually welcoming space. (That said, I get discouraged easily anymore and am trying to move past that.) Other gaming forums, like Game FAQs, I have found to be substantially more hostile. And actual online gaming is really the worst. I can't deal with that anymore.

In fact, I was reading an article in the Guardian not long ago that said many women in online gaming are actually resorting to pretending to be male to avoid sexual harassment and threats of violence, especially in the wake of Gamergate. I wonder if that's not true on a lot of gaming forums as well; if there aren't rather more women around these spaces than we're led to believe.

That's hard to say, my real life experience is video games are  a male dominated space if you are referring to "core gaming" this site deals in.  There isn't a Bejeweled or Candy Crush thread running on here for example.

Men socialize differently from women.  I can have a three hour conversation with female friends about feelings where we really open up and even cry.  I've never seen male friends behave this way, it's often discussing a topic or joking a lot.  I'm not saying one is better, but when you see this divide it can become clear how many men work through processing emotions.

In online spaces people can run or hide easily and often just want reactions because the most shocking statement gets attention.  Make a thread on here that is agreeable and watch it drift away.  Have a "hot take" and antagonize people and see it go for dozens of pages over months.  Gaming online most experiences in games like Fortnite are uneventful, people do their thing, and once in a while get generally a young person who discovered obscenities and racial slurs trying to rile people up.  It's sad, but I don't let it shape how I view gamers or people.