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USA

Eumerin wrote:
 Melissia wrote:
Meanwhile, I had someone say something to me along those lines as recently as Monday of this week, while playing league of legends.

Your personal experiences are fine and all, but scientific evidence has shown that women receive far more insults, negative attention, and general harassment while playing video games than men do, so don't discount the existence of the problem when you're not the target to begin with.


The most recent data I've seen actually suggests the opposite - men receive more online threats, harassment, etc... But the types of harassment directed at women tend to be more offensive.

Of the studies I've seen (several of which have been part of rotation of quotes in my signature in the past, actually), the number has been well above a 3:1 ratio of harassment sent towards women vs sent towards men. My personal experience mirrors this. Not only is the harassment greater in quantity, but it also tends to be more vicious.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/11/26 18:51:18


The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
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 Melissia wrote:
Meanwhile, I had someone say something to me along those lines as recently as Monday of this week, while playing league of legends.

Your personal experiences are fine and all, but scientific evidence has shown that women receive far more insults, negative attention, and general harassment while playing video games than men do, so don't discount the existence of the problem when you're not the target to begin with.


I merly see it as banter that exceeded the line of whats acceptable while you see it as specific harassment of female gamers, and this is why your often associated with demanding special treatment of women in gaming because you do, and while you do bring out other issues aswell they almost instantly fall to the sidelines. Equality is a broad brush when you try to paint all the nooks and crannies.

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USA

Bishop F Gantry wrote:
demanding special treatment of women
Respect isn't "special treatment".

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/11/26 19:35:56


The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
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Can we at least agree that it not acceptable to threaten to rape someone? Please.
   
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 AdeptSister wrote:
Can we at least agree that it not acceptable to threaten to rape someone? Please.


Sadly, based on some of the comments above, even that seems to be in dispute...
   
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My goodness, people actually read twich chat during major events ?
   
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Canberra

 AdeptSister wrote:
Can we at least agree that it not acceptable to threaten to rape someone? Please.
I'm scared to ask, but do you want to start a poll?

(Scared because I think we're all decent people, and I think a poll would prove that but don't know that it would)

   
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Adelaide, South Australia

 AdeptSister wrote:
Can we at least agree that it not acceptable to threaten to rape someone? Please.

I think the problem we're running into here is that there are two definitions of rape at work. The tradition, forced sexual contact version we uniformly abhor and a common parlance version that means 'to easily defeat'.

Had he said he was going to murder his opponent, or destroy or utterly annihilate none of us would for a moment believe he actually meant to do those things to the opposing player. He could have said he was going to slap his opponent silly or spank them and we still wouldn't actually believe any physical harm was going to come to anyone.

So why do we pretend that when someone says 'rape' it's suddenly a literal threat? It does seem to me like special pleading.

This is not to say that I think such language is acceptable- I don't.

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It's not so much that it's a threat. It's that rape itself is considered a particularly serious crime that can have very long-lasting psychological effects on the victim.

The general thinking is that it's not something that should be trivialized by throwing it around in casual competitive threats.
   
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USA

 Kojiro wrote:
a common parlance version that means 'to easily defeat'.
That's not common. That's a specific quirk of the underlying misogyny in gamer culture.

The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
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Made in au
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Adelaide, South Australia

 Melissia wrote:
 Kojiro wrote:
a common parlance version that means 'to easily defeat'.
That's not common. That's a specific quirk of the underlying misogyny in gamer culture.

Are you actually making the assertion that a general member of the public- let alone the kind of people following a pro SC2 player- would interpret that tweet as an actual threat of sexual assault?

More over, would it still be a quirk of 'misogyny in gamer culture' had he used the exact same expression against a male opponent?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/26 22:03:01


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Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

Underlying misogyny?

Oh Jesus...

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Inside Yvraine

Eumerin wrote:
It's not so much that it's a threat. It's that rape itself is considered a particularly serious crime that can have very long-lasting psychological effects on the victim.

The general thinking is that it's not something that should be trivialized by throwing it around in casual competitive threats.


Which is an interesting point, I think. I mean... "rape is a particularly serious crime". Murder isn't? Hell, beating someone to within an inch of their life isn't a serious crime?

Yet, there's a standard within our society that one very particular, very specific serious crime is ultra-serious and shouldn't be trivialized while everything else is fair game, and there's very little appeals to logic that support that standard.

My official stance on matters like this is that if you're going to participate in a league or be apart of an organization, you must play by their rules, whatever they may be, and suffer the consequences for breaking them. If a league encourages a non-offensive, family-friendly environment, or whatever, then they have the right to give you the D if they feel that your behavior is inappropriate.

But on meta level, between random people playing each other in a non-official environment, I don't think "it's offensive" is ever a valid reason to not say something, simply by virtue of the fact that any word or statement is potentially offensive in the right context. "You're about to get whipped" would be considered pretty casual banter to 90% of the gaming community. But I'm black, and I could certainly construe a highly offensive reference to an unfortunate time of pain and suffers for my ancestors from that statement.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2014/11/26 22:14:40


 
   
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Ireland

Kojiro wrote:So why do we pretend that when someone says 'rape' it's suddenly a literal threat? It does seem to me like special pleading.
Well, it's currently a "hot topic" in society, seeing that news are full of articles about university fraternities that plan "rape trips", or attempted cover-ups about actual cases of sexual abuse where the incident was quietly swept under the rug by school authorities/law enforcement/military/etc.

I'm linking to the "rape trip" issue specifically because apparently there it was only meant "jokingly" as well, which to me suggests it's about time that perhaps we should rethink the gamer culture's stance on this term, or "trash talk" in general, as I believe that the creation of an atmosphere where it's okay to make such jokes or comments actually has a risk of slowly eroding the moral barriers that may otherwise keep people from engaging in such behaviour. This is how human group dynamics work, people. See this article for another university example, where the perpetrator apparently did not even realise he had done something utterly, inherently wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I've used the word "raped" myself when chatting to friends during a game, but I would never use it in a public manner or towards people I don't know very well, specifically because I know that (a) I do not want to contribute to a toxic atmosphere, that (b) it can be misinterpreted and that (c) it could be unintentionally harmful, given that the person on the other side may have in fact been really raped in the past (for which you do not need to be female, just as a reminder), which would create a pretty awkward situation.

tl;dr: Perhaps it is time we took steps to "dial back" this trash talk culture a bit and prevent it from either placing other human beings at psychological distress or downplay real life atrocities by comparing them to losing at some videogame.

Truth be told, I'm not even sure "murder" would be okay, but I have a feeling this is less controversial because (a) like most posters here I am affected by contemporary western culture that teaches us that violence is okay, or (b) because this can actually refer to something that might really happen in the game. At the very least I've seen plenty of competitive games where you can murder the other player's character ... but none where you can rape them.

That's just my opinion, mind you.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/26 22:08:25


 
   
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USA

 Kojiro wrote:
 Melissia wrote:
 Kojiro wrote:
a common parlance version that means 'to easily defeat'.
That's not common. That's a specific quirk of the underlying misogyny in gamer culture.

Are you actually making the assertion that a general member of the public- let alone the kind of people following a pro SC2 player- would interpret that tweet as an actual threat of sexual assault?
"Going to rape some girl soon." is, literally, an admission of intent to rape someone. Someone saying that in most situations would be looked at as if they're insane or criminal.

Refusing to consider hte ramifications of saying gakky, horrific things to other people is not a sign of a good person.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/26 22:25:11


The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
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Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

My official stance on matters like this is that if you're going to participate in a league or be apart of an organization, you must play by their rules, whatever they may be, and suffer the consequences for breaking them. If a league encourages a non-offensive, family-friendly environment, or whatever, then they have the right to give you the D if they feel that your behavior is inappropriate.

But on meta level, between random people playing each other in a non-official environment, I don't think "it's offensive" is ever a valid reason to not say something, simply by virtue of the fact that any word or statement is potentially offensive in the right context. "You're about to get whipped" would be considered pretty casual banter to 90% of the gaming community. But I'm black, and I could certainly construe a highly offensive reference to an unfortunate time of pain and suffers for my ancestors from that statement.


BlaxicanX has pretty much hit the nail on the head.

All I'll add is that people are trying too damned hard to turn this into a gender/my soggy knees thing, when it really isn't. And if a guy had said this to a guy, we wouldn't even have this thread.

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Inside Yvraine

 Lynata wrote:
I believe that the creation of an atmosphere where it's okay to make such jokes or comments actually has a risk of slowly eroding the moral barriers that may otherwise keep people from engaging in such behaviour. This is how human group dynamics work, people.
I disagree. People use this same line of logic to attack video games and, before that, movies: "making a game out of committing violent acts encourages youth to commit violence." Yet, the majority of research has shown that playing violent games does not enhance aggression or encourage violent acts, and neither do movies.

People have the mental capacity to identify the distinction between virtual and reality, and people also have the capacity to recognize that behavior that may be acceptable in one situation may be entirely unacceptable in another. If what we see or do in virtual reality had a tangible on us when outside of that environment, movies like Robocop would have turned us all into sociopaths by now.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/26 22:28:04


 
   
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 Melissia wrote:
"Going to rape some girl soon." is, literally, an admission of intent to rape someone.


Sure, if you remove any and all context it is.

"Going to totally murder them tomorrow" might refer to someone who's about to play in a basketball game the next day and is confident of their (and their team's) ability to win, or it might refer to someone who's about to shoot up his place of work. Thankfully, with the magic of context, we can determine what that person means.

Context: It's important!

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USA

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
if a guy had said this to a guy, we wouldn't even have this thread.
Because if that had been the case, the pathetic little twit NightEnDD wouldn't have raised a big gak about it to begin with.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Context: It's important!
Context is not an excuse for being a gakky person.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/26 22:28:50


The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
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Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

It's also not an excuse to imply meanings that aren't there.

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USA

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It's also not an excuse to imply meanings that aren't there.
Much like gravity, the meaning is there whether you want it to be there or not.

The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
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UK

The first bloke sounds like an absolute moron with little to no understanding of how to speak to people. In British English you sometimes say the word "rape" in a different context, but I think every man with any understanding of social nuance doesn't use it. Actually its so common in soccer I remember that Lee Savage got a bollocking off the BBC for saying "he absolutely raped him" live on air.

The point is, you don't say that stuff to a woman. I have said to a mate playing soccer "Oh you raped me there mate" but do actually remember being sure not to say the same thing in front of a woman if someones girlfriend or sister was present, its just manners and logic.

So yeah, he was a moron for saying it, but its hardly the crime of the century.

I find all this stuff fascinating though, as I said at the time, I was utterly uninterested in modern feminism and blissfully ignorant of it all about three months ago, then saw that whole Anita Sarkeesian story on here and have spent the last three months reading voraciously about third-wave feminism and the many arguments for and against it.

I had an epiphany about my atheism as a result, because It has made me really cynical about feminism. It reminded me of Richard Dawkins being told by some scientists who agreed with his sentiments but disagreed with his combative actions. The said that being super aggressive with creationists might not be the best tactic because it can become self defeating as moderate religious people get offended and then respond in kind. I disagreed when I first heard that ten years ago, but I am in full agreement now.

6 months ago I was very open to any and all advancements of women's place in society, I abhor the ludicrous things misogynists say about women, because I was born of one and I married one, and most importantly, I am not religious (plenty of it comes from holy texts, you cannot ignore the amount of negative things about women in them) as such, disliking women is both utterly illogical and entirely immoral, and yet..... now I am extremely cynical about modern feminism.

Women deserve equality in every aspect of life, but some of the gak I have read about these last few months is just really toxic and churlish and it makes otherwise normal men start to go "fething hell why don't these crazies just shut the hell up?"

TLDR - The bloke was a bit of a moron, but it isn't the fething end of the world.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/26 22:49:23


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USA

No one is treating it like the end of the world, Matty.

Except maybe the people who are acting like a person getting punished for breaking the rules is the end of the world, maybe.

As for your ideas on "third wave feminism", if you want that discussion, let's not have it here. Might be better to talk about that in PM, since that's not really the topic of this thread.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/11/26 22:58:18


The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
 
   
Made in au
Owns Whole Set of Skullz Techpriests






Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

But some of us are treating it as an example of "inherent misogyny", or that the event is "eroding... moral barriers", both of which are complete nonsense.

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USA

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But some of us are treating it as an example of "inherent misogyny", [which is] complete nonsense.


The prevalence of misogynistic insults and rape references directed towards women amongst gamers is an excellent example of misogyny within the culture.

While I'm well aware that you'd prefer to live in denial of the problem, that doesn't make it go away.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/26 23:03:05


The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
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Made in us
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And if a guy had said this to a guy, we wouldn't even have this thread.


Honestly, I think we ought to, though. In that hypothetical situation, I mean. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have this thread now, when it was said by a guy to a girl.
   
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New Zealand

 Melissia wrote:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But some of us are treating it as an example of "inherent misogyny", [which is] complete nonsense.


The prevalence of misogynistic insults and rape references directed towards women amongst gamers is an excellent example of misogyny within the culture.


I have been "threatened" with rape hundreds of times during online play over the years.

Having someone to threaten me with gaping my anus using their fists, detaching my male genitalia and "ramming" it down my throat and the list goes on has not phased me in the least.

Honestly, in my experience its usually only the people who are annoying who get insulted OR its simply some kid who watches too many youtube videos and wants to replicate it dishing out the insults.

So maybe look at the person giving the insult or look at the person being insulted and see the real reason. Usually that person is simply a pain in the ass. (or its just a dumb kid). If you find yourself being insulted frequently maybe you are just being annoying? I mean, I can certainly see why personally.

Nobody is in denial, we are all aware people insult each other every second. People call the swat on gamers, people go out of their way to troll other gamers in game (ever tried loading a cannon with someone trolling it in mount and blade?), people hack with the sole purpose of ruining other peoples fun and the list goes on. There is no anti women movement with gamers, there is no "misogyny" involved, there is nothing there to see except the fact that gamers like to annoy everyone. Im gonna bold that for you... and caps it.... EVERYONE. I think that is clear. You being part of everyone doesnt mean you have to search for reasons to make your case a special one.

Straight, gay, white, black, women, kid, adult it doesnt matter. There are people who simply have fun pissing you off. Saying rape in front of a women gamer? Gonna annoy them. Just like calling a new player a noob, just like calling the winner a cheater, just like calling the guy with the best stuff a power gamer.

Gamers annoy everyone. Boobs or not. Stop trying to twist it into some ilumaniti style conspiracy. We all get annoyed by gamers. Because there are gamers whose goal is to annoy all.
   
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USA

 Swastakowey wrote:
Honestly, in my experience its usually only the people who are annoying who get insulted

"It's her fault for wearing such a short skirt!"

 Swastakowey wrote:
Gamers annoy everyone.
If that's how you define gamers, then let gaming die.

The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
 
   
Made in nz
Heroic Senior Officer




New Zealand

 Melissia wrote:
 Swastakowey wrote:
Honestly, in my experience its usually only the people who are annoying who get insulted

"It's her fault for wearing such a short skirt!"

 Swastakowey wrote:
Gamers annoy everyone.
If that's how you define gamers, then let gaming die.


No thats not at all what I said...

To use your basic and some what typical example.

Lets say there is a 100% rape in the world. Nobody will go their life unraped. Then lets say this group of people think they are being targeted of rape for special reasons. That group then dismiss everything trying to make out their rape is worse than everyone elses and that they need special treatment and help because its clearly the world vs them. That is the situation.

There are gamers who annoy everyone. Dont like then mute your mike and dont read the chat. Or quit the game. We all have to put up with annoying gamers. Deal with it like the rest of us have to.



Also please use whole paragraphs when quoting me. You clearly are attempting to make me look bad. Quote me in context, or you are simply being dishonest. See the end of the sentence you quoted? Stop twisting my words.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/26 23:31:38


 
   
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The main argument seems to be about if people should accept using "rape" as a term equal to "rekt" or "owned" or "whipped" in relation to beating someone virtually. I have yet to hear convincing argument why it is we should. I still don't understand people's argument on why saying you will murder someone is the equal as telling that you will rape someone. The acts are fundamentally different. They mean different things. I can see people arguing that murder can be a justified crime. But can you guys really justify rape?

And the argument "This only happen because he said to a woman?" : Yes. While people should not say it to anyone, saying to a woman is a profoundly bad idea due to history and the current environment. It silly to pretend otherwise. This is not "special treatment", just an affirmation that you really should not be using terms with such baggage lightly at all.
   
 
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