I have been very preoccupied with something lately. I work in governmental social services and a few months ago I was transferred to a division that provided support to (among other specifics) victims of sexual assault. Working with these men and worman I have had experiences related to me on a daily basis that I hope that you could never imagine. The “standard assault” cases are enough to shake anyone, but I have worked with people who have been though things that there are just do no words to describe how awful they are.

So what does this have to do with gaming? Well its online gaming terminology. I have always thought it was in poor taste in online gaming for somebody to say “We got raped” after losing a game, or on a forum for someone to talk about a game company “raping” their customers, or a franchise. But with my new work it now really gets under my skin.

I know that some people may disagree with me on this but I think that some things should just be off limits when it comes to joking about and I wish that the word “rape” would work its way out of gaming vernacular.

I agree. Well stated, and good point.

Yeah, that sort of thing is usually in poor taste.

Unfortunately, if you make a fuss about it, the situation runs the risk of turning into another dickwolf fiasco.

This is actually one of the main reasons I almost never grouped up with people back when I played WoW. I'm relatively hard to offend, but I just don't have time in my life to hear that kind of crap. There isn't a shred of me that understands what makes it acceptable, yet I always feel like I'm too uptight for being bothered by it. But some things just aren't funny, period.

...

I know what you mean. It bugs me that I let other people get under my skin just by the things I read and hear online. But at the same time I just can't seem to shug it off. But I think Bevinator is right, calling people out on it never helps.

Meh. Takes more to offend me I suppose.

I've lost family to cancer, yet I don't get mad when people crack cancer jokes. Just shrug it off and move on man.

I had cancer. I find the topic to be hilarious. :D

I didn't know what was so I looked it up. Needless to say, I'm laughing my ass off right now.

For the three you mention specifically: in my mind, the reason I hate their usage as slurs, is a couple of reasons. For retarded and gay, or other characteristics of people, because the use of them as a slur is specifically making those characteristics bad and something inherently wrong and vile. When someone calls something dumb "gay," they aren't generally doing it as a specific targeted attack on the homosexual community, or any one gay man. But the reason they use the term is a culture of equation between "gay" and "lesser." Getting people to not say it doesn't mean the negative attitude will totally go away, but it does mean--especially a person stops saying it because they realize it is offensive and they feel bad--that the word as a cognate for "lesser" (and such) will become less prevalent.

In terms of why I think that rape as a term to describe "victory" or "competition" is bad, I think that it is because it is about the power dynamic. Rape is an act which is all about power (sexual or otherwise), and the positive equation of it--into a situation which clearly already has its own power dynamic and terminology (a game, or sports, for instance)--means that rape is seen as valid and expected for a "winner." It doesn't necessarily "promote" rape culture in the way that telling someone that having sex with an unconscious person is totally ok does. But it does reinforce the idea that a victory, or being a "winner," (or a "man" if we want to get gendered) comes with a prize, and that prize can, and should be taken by force.

#thoughts

What is off limits? What others around tell you so. Trying to tell them "Hey guys, don't use the word rape" CAN make you look pretty weird if they have no problem using it.

This reminds me when Google complained to TVTropes about the word Rape and as a result all pages containing the word Rape disappeared for a time (including the Mind Rape trope, which has nothing to do with actual rape.)

I agree with you that words have different uses in different contexts and your right that scolding people is childish and counterproductive. But I think it is something worth discussing in the right context. Something that surprised me working with these people was seeing just how many there are and how hard it is for them to move forward after going through what they have been through. I am sure I have known many people who have been victems of these kinds of crimes and never even knew it.

I guess it just got me thinking about my own speech and that maybe it’s not so bad to err on the side of being cautious.

Just to address this second point you make: The term "mind rape" totally has something to do with physical rape. 1. Sexual assault is both a physical and a psychological thing. Someone that is raped deals with trauma both mentally and physically, and so people's minds are definitely raped just as much as their bodies by physical rape. 2. Even if the former wasn't the case, the use of the term rape in the phrase "mind rape" is most definitely an allusion to the physical act of rape. The term has to do with rape in that it is about a mental, forced violation of another person. As I said in my previous post, rape is all about power (in various forms). And using the terminology of rape in the context of non rape situations classifies the power of a rapist into those other actors: a gamer, a sports player, a "mind raper." This makes rape a positive thing because it implies victory and winning, and a deserved prize which has been forcefully (and rightfully) taken.

NOT the mind rape that is described on TVTropes. Unlike rape which is considered a sexual assault, mind rape is not necessarily a sexual assault.