Trigger warning
SabreCat:
I recently listened to the Walking Eye's episode on sexuality and identity in gaming, and it taught me a great deal. I learned some terms and concepts that have either entered feminist dialogue since I graduated college, or which I wasn't exposed to or didn't absorb back then. The one I find myself thinking most about is rape culture.
Personally, I've experienced sexual harassment, low-grade sexual assault, and manipulation into performing sexual activity I wasn't ready for. Those things don't make me a rape survivor; it's a facet of my privilege that I don't have to contend with triggers and flashbacks, for instance. But the degradation I did feel and still remember makes me pale to think what the victims of rape's full brutality go through.
And as a culture, we trivialize and excuse that. It's not even the clumsy way we sometimes joke about tragedy to cope with it, but a casual, pervasive thing that can grow horrific in its callousness. The Penny Arcade "dickwolves" situation (a timeline can be found at this Tumblr, though if you had to pick one article to read, I'd go with Maddy Myers' explanation of why she doesn't read PA anymore), for instance, showcases a range of inexcusable behavior directed at rape survivors, ranging from willful ignorance to perverse and violent hate speech. I used to have a great deal of respect for Penny Arcade's creators; now I wish I could go back in time and erase the fact that I ever considered myself a fan. (In retrospect, I should have followed my gut reaction to Alon Waisman's misogynistic treatment of my friend kmbrown6 at PAX, but at the time I thought that was an Alon thing, rather than symptomatic of Penny Arcade as a whole.)
So if I seem twitchy about the words "rape", "assrape", etc. used lightly in social situations like gaming, that's what's on my mind. I may even--I hope I will--call people out on it, and if it doesn't stop, I'll remove myself from the situation. I'm not comfortable with it anymore, and I don't want to be someone who tacitly condones it.
I recently listened to the Walking Eye's episode on sexuality and identity in gaming, and it taught me a great deal. I learned some terms and concepts that have either entered feminist dialogue since I graduated college, or which I wasn't exposed to or didn't absorb back then. The one I find myself thinking most about is rape culture.
Personally, I've experienced sexual harassment, low-grade sexual assault, and manipulation into performing sexual activity I wasn't ready for. Those things don't make me a rape survivor; it's a facet of my privilege that I don't have to contend with triggers and flashbacks, for instance. But the degradation I did feel and still remember makes me pale to think what the victims of rape's full brutality go through.
And as a culture, we trivialize and excuse that. It's not even the clumsy way we sometimes joke about tragedy to cope with it, but a casual, pervasive thing that can grow horrific in its callousness. The Penny Arcade "dickwolves" situation (a timeline can be found at this Tumblr, though if you had to pick one article to read, I'd go with Maddy Myers' explanation of why she doesn't read PA anymore), for instance, showcases a range of inexcusable behavior directed at rape survivors, ranging from willful ignorance to perverse and violent hate speech. I used to have a great deal of respect for Penny Arcade's creators; now I wish I could go back in time and erase the fact that I ever considered myself a fan. (In retrospect, I should have followed my gut reaction to Alon Waisman's misogynistic treatment of my friend kmbrown6 at PAX, but at the time I thought that was an Alon thing, rather than symptomatic of Penny Arcade as a whole.)
So if I seem twitchy about the words "rape", "assrape", etc. used lightly in social situations like gaming, that's what's on my mind. I may even--I hope I will--call people out on it, and if it doesn't stop, I'll remove myself from the situation. I'm not comfortable with it anymore, and I don't want to be someone who tacitly condones it.