But should you not drink yourself into obliteration if not in safe environment? Is it too much to require from adults to drink responsibly?

I am not saying it's then your fault, but damn, people who get wasted uncontrollably among strangers are really stupid.

This gets complicated. Personally, I'm of the school of thought that you shouldn't do things like this. You shouldn't be going alone to a stranger's room or hanging out in dark alleys or getting drunk in places where you're easily separated from your friends.

Obviously, that's going to put a person at an increased risk even though it does not excuse the rapist.

I'm not a fan of ignoring the contributions of all parties involved to the situation as that just leaves vulnerable people to be taken advantage of and there's always going to be sociopaths and psychopaths out there.

A week ago, my cousin (who's 38 now) said that she had an abortion when she was 21. She had gone out, got drunk, and got knocked up. She admitted to remembering she was horny even before she got drunk and couldn't remember anything else but luckily she knew the guy she had sex with.

My point with this is that, if my cousin wasn't a mature girl, she could have fucked that guy over in a major way. It shows how hard it is to trust anything said once both parties were drunk. Then you have to rely on testimonies and, sadly enough, friends are too eager to lie. ESPECIALLY male friends of drunk girls.

Oh, and I finally deleted RPS from my bookmarks. The site just disgusted me too often and it seemed like they like all the games I feel meh about, and dislike all the games I love.

I see your point and I completely agree with it.

This "blurriness" when trying to determine consent is the big problematic. Often in these cases, this is one person word against another person word and there is no absolute physical evidence to support one or another party. So what should we do? Imprison the accused person of rape, or imprison the accusing one for false accusation?

Without any evidence it is really hard to do anything. That's why some rapists get free, as some false accusers and some innocent people do.
Again, that's something I really deplore but what could we do?

Agreed. And how about questions of correlation vs causation?
Certain facts about our culture are observable and undisputable, but are they wrong?

If you can't prove a causal sequence where there is some malicious intent I don't see how you can extrapolate to culpability. Sure, some acts of negligence or omission can have negative consequences, but I would be very careful to penalize anyone if the "facts" being judged (or pre-judged rather) are all in the realm of psychology and cultural norms.

I understand such attitude of caution and respect is often called tolerance.


Isn't it possible that no harm is being inflicted - even if yes, someone may feel harmed, and in fact be in harm/experience harm? This is so similar to questions around who is to blame for poverty...

Sexual assault - the offenders
You know, maybe you should start to actually read about it, before attempting to venture deeper into something, that you clearly have no clue about. Otherwise you risk falling into the same stereotypical traps that didn't worked 50 years ago....

I was primarily talking about drinking responsibly, but I guess drinking responsibly among friends is also off limits.

But whatever, it was irrelevant to the discussion. I just don't get it why some people (regardless of gender) like to loose all control over their mind and body to the point they can't remember anything.

I know this topic has veered off quite a bit into other areas, but I wasn't able to reply to some older posts until now.

I don't believe people are being oversensitive about this topic. The problem is, there is no discussion going on anymore. This is not in reference to GOG and this forum thread, but the topic in general and what "gaming journalism" sites are putting out there. The real discussion was lost a long time ago, and now it has simply become a witch hunt to shame any developer for wanting to put a sexy character into their game. All I see on other forums are people nitpicking at games, and yelling it is sexist because "oh god she has a bow in her hair."

I am one of the people frustrated by this topic. This particular RPS article on its own is not what upsets me, but the fact that it is one of many that are blindly joining in on this crusade instead of actually analyzing and truly discussing the issue. it is also ignoring the many female gamers out there that don't mind these type of characters or actually prefer them. It pretends we don't exist, and that every woman feels as Anita Sarkeesian does.

I think what most people are wanting is for RPS to actually discuss the issue and not post the drivel they currently do. As I see it, they are not really discussing the issue at all, but seeking to call out developers who don't design a woman character that meets RPS' standards, and that is about it. They did try to post a followup article, but that article is poorly written and an insult to all their readers regardless. I have a feeling that kind of article would be laughed out of any journalism school.

I disagree. Games should be just like movies, which often target a core audience and leave it at that. We have dude-bro films, chick flicks, and all kinds of variety out there. These movies are certainly targeted to different audiences, even if there is some overlap in what people enjoy. Why can't games follow this pattern? I believe there should be some common decency when it comes to race or gender, but otherwise, I feel it is a bit silly for single products to appeal to everybody in existence.

On a more general level, I still find this all absurd. This article acts as though women will suddenly play these video games because a character is given more clothing. From my personal experience and the many women I know, that is not the case. While there are always exceptions, genders tend to favor different things. The women I know tend to prefer adventure games, casual games, puzzle games, social games (MMOs) and something with a good story. They are not turned off from MOBAs or FPS games because a girl has a midriff showing, but because gun play and fast paced action just isn't their thing. Create an FPS game of all properly dressed female soldiers, and I imagine the results will be approximately the same in how many women play it.

Goodness though, I am going to start rambling if I don't stop now. Sorry if I veered off to much there.

I've been following this topic quite silently, but now I'm just going to rear my ugly head and do something I usually don't: +1

Just for fun, attached is a couple of promotional pics from the ftp game Panzar which just popped up on steam. I bet that is very sensible when wading into hordes of mobs :)

That is now subjective. You can objectively show some "invisible" (often because "too visible", too "elephant in the room") elements that illustrate discrimination, double standards, asymetrical role attributions, etc. You can then analyse how these elements define and reproduce a norm, that is how worldviews and representations are shaped by our environment and its echoing (implicit, explicit) messages. That is, how our models, norms, values, are illustrated in our discourses (including mainstream fictions, myths, etc), and how we are being "educated" by them in return. This is highly complex, because such are our societies (we are exposed to very different discourses, from varied sources, to vayring degrees depending on our specific subcultures, plus there is the individual agency and criticism, etc).

And then only, there is the question of moral judgement. What we do of the results, and do we take them as a description of a legitimate state of affairs, or do we take them as the denunciation of an inacceptable situation. This is subjective.

Both are somewhat interdependant. If you want to denounce a situation, you need to be able to describe it and show elements that your opponents would deny. And reciprocally, many researches, many raised questions, are triggered by a "problem" that warrant the investigation, wherever the investigation leads to.

In the case of gender relations, you have "gender studies" on the investigative level, and "feminist militantism" at the political level. As gender studies tend to illustrate, indeed, issues of implicit domination, its results are widely used by feminism. It has also often originated in feminist questionning, triggers that have hinted at an issue to investigate - for instance the very male-centered approach of History, or discrepancies between official discourses of fairness/equality and the repeated experience of women in the workplace (harrasment, carrier limitations), in tribunals (rape recognition), etc. Still, I do hink that both processes must be dissociated. For instance, I dislike the notion of "feminist anthropology" which sometimes replaces "gender studies". Feminism if what we do of the results, while anthropology is, in my opinion, the assesment of facts "as if it didn't matter". I think that a researcher in gender studies should forget, on the field, that he is politically "feminist". He should describe situations as they are, as if they were okay - that is, when he demonstrates an asymetry of power, describing it as if this asymetry held no ("good/bad") objective moral value, but simply exists. The political debate is, then, on whether this should be allowed to continue or not, and that's where feminism steps in.

So, this is how I split the issue of "is it wrong". I think that masculine domination is wrong (as well as other stuff), but I don't think this should show, or be the point, in an anthropological report. Same for migration issues, corruption, or whatever situation an anthropology is brought to describe. The scientific report, itself, should not be the disputed element, during the political confrontation. All parties should be ready to accept its data. Ideally. And disagree only on what to make of it.

At least that's the distinction I'd advocate. Realities are a bit more complicated of course, but no public debate will ever progress if we give up on this effort of dissociation.

I never understood that kind of argument.

If your armour is magical, the magic is protecting you, so you don't need to dress like a tank. If I had a magical amulet that gives me +10 to protection I could basically walk in naked into a horde of ogres. OBVIOUSLY :P

What about the mana drain!

Well, clearly it's permanently enchanted!
(Not that there's all that much to enchant...)