There's a Difference

Her side-eye has killed 100 men.

(Content Note: This post talks about rape culture and sexual violence.)

Yesterday, on the wonderful social network that is Twitter, I posted this link and expressed offense and disgust at the achievements listed, particularly the first one.  As sometimes happens, I was immediately questioned by two dudebros who insisted that A) "It's just a game!" and B) that I was a hypocrite because I play World of Warcraft and kill masses of people every day.  (That last part isn't exactly true, but rather than argue semantics over killing mantid versus humans--as I don't PvP--we'll say I do go on a mass murdering spree every time I log in.)  When I tried to explain that sexualized violence is a different brand of violence, I was met with "Violence is violence!"

Except it's not.

Sure, I do feel any sort of violence is bad when not used in self defense, and there have been times in video games when I was upset that I was either forced to have a character perform a violent act and kill a group of people, or defend a character who had done something I disliked.  However, the crux of this issue is comparing killing monsters in a video game en masse versus singling out one, very specific female character and encouraging players to sexually violate her.  The latter is often played off as a joke, or not a big deal, which is very much an echo of what I hear about real-life sexualized violence over and over again.  Furthermore, there are real people in this world right now who believe women have "no expectation of privacy" once they leave their homes and that by leaving their homes they're giving men consent to unknowingly take pictures up their skirts and share those images with others.  (Oh yeah, that's a judge.  You know, the person you expect to want to put the criminal away.)

In our society we treat the crimes of rape and murder very differently.  The vast majority of players don't enter into video games thinking "Yeah mass murder is awesome!"  In the context of the game we might find it fun or even a little humorous depending on the game, but once we leave that game we don't turn on the news and cheer when we hear about a dictator silencing opposition with violence.  We don't say, "They were asking to be killed living there," or "What's the big deal?"  We express horror and sign petitions or join advocacy groups, and sometimes we ask our world leaders to get involved in some way.  Yes, I'm sure there are some exceptions to this rule, but again, the vast majority of us are going to recognize a real difference between what we do in a game and what happens in the real world.

With rape, what should be a clear case of right versus wrong becomes murky.  In the Grand Theft Auto franchise we can have sex with a prostitute, kill her, and then take the money we paid her back.  In real life, when a sex worker is raped we call that "theft of services."  In other games (heterosexual) men are invited to ogle at women and fantasize about them.  In real life when women express discomfort or offense at these things that happen to us, we're asked "What's the big deal?" and told it's a compliment to be leered at and told what sex acts a man wants to do with our bodies.  If we talk about it happening in a game, we're told we must be unattractive to take offense and jealous, as if being attractive or unattractive adds or detracts from the validity of our words.  (Hint: It doesn't.)

In the real world, when a murder occurs, we want justice. Police don't usually stand around and debate whether or not a victim was murdered (and before someone tries to get smart with me, I am talking about cases where foul play is obvious and not an episode of Sherlock).  If they ask where the victim was and why, it's to figure out who else might have been there and had access to the murder scene so as to derive a list of suspects.  If the victim was involved in a criminal activity, they still try to capture the murderer (in most cases) because they believe the person will murder again.

When a woman comes forward to say she was raped, the scenario changes.  First, we have to ask her whether or not she was really raped and doesn't just regret a one-night stand.  Regardless of any physical evidence gathered (which may or may not ever be tested), we ask if she was dressed provocatively.  Was she inebriated or otherwise impaired?  Did she scream no and flail like a good victim?  If not, maybe it wasn't that bad.  Since it's far more likely she knows her rapist, the questions will turn to why was she with him, or why she let him into her home.  People who know the rapist will leap to his defense and say he couldn't possibly do such a horrible thing, and then tell the victim she's a horrible person and ruining his life.  Even if she's not the first person to speak up or the last, the rapist will always be believed first over anything his victims might say.  The victims, after all, want attention or money or some combination thereof.  It's rare that a rapist ever spends a day in jail.

The above paragraph isn't a scenario from a video game, it's the reality in which I live.  It's a reality I've experienced when I was sexually assaulted and tried to file a report with the police.  "It's just a game!" rings hollow when I see boys online cheering gleefully about being invited to violate a female character, and I witness men walking away from persecution for doing the same thing in real life because it's not that serious of a crime.  It becomes harder to "take a joke" (as if it's easy to laugh off trauma I've actually experienced) when I see recent studies where young men say it's reasonable to force a woman to have sex (i.e. rape her) if they paid for dinner or she flirted with them.  Or that men might be raping women and not consider what they've done rape, or are able to get away with it because if she's drunk or doesn't scream "no" at you, it's not really rape.

I've said before that video games are like art and as such they provide a reflection of our society.  I don't believe someone not already prone to violence is going to play a violent video game where they murder people and be encouraged to go and repeat those acts in the real world.  I don't believe a man will necessarily take an uninvited peek at a female character's underwear and then go out and try it for real.  But just because I don't think playing a game will turn someone into a predator doesn't mean I don't see a disparity between how we, as a culture, talk about murder versus rape.  We get daily messages that murder is wrong, that it's bad, yet we don't quite receive the same messages about sexual violence and rape.

Maybe, just maybe, it's time we worked to change that.