Murder and rape are both horrible and evil. I don't understand the value of trying to compare degrees of evil really.

You then make a leap into presuming video gamers as a group are more likely to see rape as worse than murder if I understood you correctly above. Where is the data to support that assumption? It might even be valid but is there some data to support that which you didn't make mention of but are aware of?

To find rape more evil or upsetting than people being shot does not necessarily make them desensitized video game playing hypocrites I wouldn't think. I guess one might argue for example that being shot to death is a final thing that lacks prolonged suffering whereas a rape victim suffers for a lifetime due the psychological trauma of that experience. And of course, murder commonly accompanies rape.

I tend to get my basic daily headlines, etc. from the CNN site and there's been no shortage of either murder or rape stories there sadly.

I would expect the whole of humanity to be somewhat desensitized to both rape and murder as a form of psychological coping because the fact is that both occur every single day all around us and are featured in our living rooms and elsewhere on television, radio, computers, etc. You'd have to be living alone in a cave on a mountain somewhere with no connection to the outside world to avoid being bombarded with bad news daily.

As long as both are DRM-free it's all good.

You, my good sir, are an excellent person.

That can mean only one thing... for some reason we enjoy violence and watching others suffer, but at the same time try to mask it... kinda strange.

No, that is something that predated video games, or at least videogames that were sophisticated enough to be able to depict murder and or rape.

I also suspect that this is something relatively recent as in the US at least, rape was perfectly legal within the confines of marriage until the 20th century. The last state outlawed it sometime in the '70s.

Additionally, people who have been murdered don't normally get to talk about the experience and as such, I think it's somewhat more difficult to justify the notion that it's a crime that affects somebody for decades.

And I guess lastly, the type of rape that most people think of as rape, only represents a minority of the cases in most parts of the world. Real rapes tend to be far less dramatic and far more traumatic in a psychological sense than in a physical one. Most of the time it's date rape or acquaintance rape rather than held at a knife point rape.

Bad analogy.

Take the rape scene, and then imagine that same scene but instead of rape, the girl is beaten 'till dead. Now evaluate which one is more disturbing.

Rambo is a perfect fiction where the HERO 'kills' unknown baddies. Take it closer, add struggle and fear, put a face and a name to the victim, and automagically the world is not so clear cut as before.

It's a cultural thing, society tolerates murder but not rape, why?who knows, it's the same thing, if you think about it, both are equally bad but in different ways.

If you read a criminal law book for example, rape as sexual abuse with carnal access or seriously outrageous sexual abuse (dont know if the translation is ok ) and murder had practically the same "punishment"

Sorry my english it's really hard to talk about law in other language :P

And RapeLay still won't be on here. We know what this thread is about.

Rambo killing is not murdering. Totally different. It's not terribly friendly, but it's not murder (disclaimer: I've never seen Rambo, but I assume it's a spec ops guy who's rescuing people behind enemy lines). Now, if I have Rambo wrong and he's going all out on his own to kill people who are not threatening people's lives, then he's downright bad. But if people are trying to kill him and his friends, then he has every right to defend himself.


But taken as a whole, I'd rather be raped than murdered. But neither is good at all and we should fight to stop it all.

Even in Australia where you can go to jail to prevent a rape, I think I'd still do all I could. I'd rather be in jail for three lifetimes than do nothing.

I will say in terms of movies and games I love love love violence. And yes there is a difference. Someone who says seeing a person shot in a movie is the same as seeing someone shot in real life has obviously never seen a person shot in real life.

Adding to that enigma, I can't stomach rape used in any context (obviously in reality) but also in media, save for it being crucial to the story. I don't want to see a rape scene in a movie but it's kind of vital to the plot in something like "The Accused" or "A Clockwork Orange" so I let it slide. I made a joke in Licurg's game thread but in reality the very thought of such a game makes me wretch.

This post isn't an answer only a point by point of how I feel about them. I'll let the professionals determine if that makes me normal, abnormal, immoral, amoral, or just down right confusing.

Technically, using sexual force is less of a crime than using lethal force. However, rape can have longlasting effects, that can result in irreversible psychological damage or even suicide, so in this view it is still a heavy crime.

But while we can more easily justify killing a person, for various reasons, raping someone is an egoistical crime and unjustifiable.

True, but i think there are other forms of rape like "psychological rape" - tormenting someone on a mental level. It can still have longlasting effects and lead to irreversible psychological damage or even suicide but for some reason it's heavily ignored... could say it's even more widespread than actual physical rape.

That's not hypocrisy at all.

At best, it's a double standard.

Thus readeth Mr. Ivory's lesson of the day.

I think a lot of people are getting lost in the word "murder" here. Perhaps it would have been better if it had been "Killing versus Rape" instead of "Murder versus Rape."

It makes the distinction much clean IMO, especially if one uses Rambo as an example. A lot of people would argue that a lot of killing isn't necessarily murder.

And yes, to me, it's not even close, gunning down several people (like say the Washington DC sniper a few years ago) is "worse" than people getting raped. I say this with an aunt who was brutally raped. But she wasn't murdered (killed), and is at least still here. She did struggle with what happened for years, but it's still better than being killed for most people.

But, in terms of movies and games and such, I agree with TinyE 100%. Killing doesn't bother me much there, but I don't want to see any rapes. I would rather watch an entire movie of scenes like you see in some of the worst horror movies than watch one rape scene. Well, actually, I'd rather watch neither, but if I had to choose, it would be the killing. Also like TinyE, I have no idea why that is, and what it says about me. I just know I have no interest in seeing rape whereas seeing killing is "meh."

Hmm... gunning someone down doesn't necessarily have to be so "up close and personal." You could be a nutjob and randomly shoot people and not feel much. I think rapists are more into the intimidation, domination, what have you.

Personally I think we should all go back to using swords and knives.