Alexander Anderson
Alexander is a lifelong gamer who used to play video games competitively. He has a bachelor's degree in psychology which gives him a unique insight in the world of gaming. You can follow him on twitter
In the gaming world, the word “rape” carries a different meaning than that of the real world. When someone says that he “raped” you it means that he completely owned you and you couldn’t do anything about it. Me and my group of friends casually throw out the word “rape” when one of us happen to destroy the other in a video game.
However, “rape” in the real world context is completely different than “rape” in a video game context. Gamers and non-gamers alike argues that all gamers should stop using this word due to its real-world connotation. We will explore both sides of the argument, but let’s first learn why the word rape has such a bad meaning outside the gaming world.
Mass Hysteria
The mainstream media and the education system taught us that rape is the most traumatizing experience that women face in modern society. According to a commonly cited study, 1 in 5 women will be raped in her lifetime. That statistic has since been debunked and proven wrong. This effect is quite similar to the 77 cent wage-gap myth.
Under the recent data, about 1 percent of the U.S population experienced rape or attempted rape in 2013. Nevertheless, rape is considered such a huge problem that society simply assume that accused rapists are guilty by default. Rape allegations are treated as if it’s factual. This presumption of guilt mentality lends itself to the system being abused by women of all social class in order to boost themselves up and gain publicity. This is not only unethical and manipulative, but it is also extremely disrespectful to the real rape victims.
Recent examples of highly questionable rape allegations include the infamous UVA case, Lena Durham, and the girl who carries around a mattress on campus. Many men have seen their life completely destroyed because they have been accused of rape. Worse, politicians have begun to buy into this mass hysteria. California recently passed the laughable “Yes Means Yes” law which nearly requires men at all colleges to sign a contract with a woman before he sleeps with her.
If it’s not reported then how do you know about it?
The Debate
For those who want gamers to stop using the word “rape.” I offer you the counter-argument. Rape is terrible but so is murder, mass shooting, getting burned to death, burried alive, suicide, tortured, kidnapped, slavery, etc. Some of these crimes occur more often than rape, so why is this “rape” word being singled out and not all the other words? Genuine rape victims and their sympathizers wouldn’t try to use their victim status as a weapon to alter society for their benefit. We know it’s not your fault you got raped, but you must consider that it’s not our fault either. We’ve all gone overboard on trying to censor use of a word that has alternate definitions.
People of all ages have had bad experiences throughout their life. Are we going to ban every word that has negative meaning because there is a chance that it might offends some group of people? White people once “owned” slavery. Are we going to ban the word “owned”?.
In contrast, the argument for banning the word rape can be made as well. Rape is a terrible word that can easily be substituted by different words in the dictionary without losing much of it meaning. In fact, the word has been slowly phased out and replaced with words like “Wrecked” (or “Rekt”). Moreover, rape is a word that can get you in trouble when the line between gaming world and the real world meets. For instance, a Starcraft2 progamer named Kas was disqualified from a tournament for a tweet he made before his match against a female gamer named Maddelisk.
English isn’t his first language, but still.
Third, it might potentially scare newcomers away from gaming communities. Throwing the word “rape” around is going to drive people away especially if they don’t know the gaming connotation of the word. It also is clear that the word rape provokes an emotional response in women because they believe that we live in an oppressive rape culture.
Lack of SJWs?
What puzzles me most is the lack of SJWs presence in this debate. Why are they not launching a full-scale offensive social media campaign aimed at destroying gaming communities for their widespread usage of the “rape” word? It fits in with their theme of branding gamers as anti-women and for promoting patriarchy, which rape culture supposedly stems from. They want to ban “bossy” in school, but they don’t want to ban “rape” in gaming communities? It doesn’t make any sense.
However, it makes perfect sense considering their true nature: SJWs are an Invasive species. An invasive species is a plant or animal that is not native to a specific location and has a tendency to spread, which is believed to cause damage to the environment, human economy and/or human health. SJWs don’t know about the common usage of the word “rape” because they are not gamers to begin with. They don’t know about the in-and-out of gaming culture. They only play mainstream single-player games, which operate more like interactive movies than an actual video game. They play on the easiest difficulty and quit the game when they get struck. They’re not going to run into anyone that says the R word.
Final Words
Rape is wrong and all rapists should be punished and sent to jail, but should all gamers stop using the word “rape” because of it? I dislike the fact that Western society is attempting to control everyone by deciding what words we can or we can’t use, so there is no reason to it being banned because some group of people don’t like it.
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