fuck you very, very much.

[samatethecookie]

It's about a week old, it might be old meme, but... ugh.

Rapelay virtual rape game banned by Amazon.

My overall feelings about this is:

1. Look, I know these sort of things happen in Japan every day, but what the flying fuck is this?! This isn't just disgusting, it's completely sexist and demeaning. The "lol it's Japan" excuse isn't funny to me anymore because the more I think about it, the more I realize it's been going on before this game. This is serious. This is the reason why feminism exists and why we need to talk about feminism in other countries. I'm not going to pretend that western culture doesn't have its share of problems, but I'm also not going to turn a blind eye to what's going on in another country.

I'm genuinely concerned about the women in Japan and why they don't have the same knee-jerk reaction to these sort of things, because this only seems to happen against women in anime, manga, hentai, and television shows, and countless others, and all of them encourage violent acts against women and the demeaning stereotypes about them. I hear about the weird shit that goes on in the country, but I almost never hear about the general negative reaction to it, if there's any at all.

Women, in general, around the world, need to take action against things like this or else it's going to continue and we're not going to make any progress towards gender equality. Men need to tag along with us, too.

2. I heard the game was over exaggerated and it's not as bad as the article makes it sound. The topic of rape is still there, though. Knowing that some of the details are exaggerated doesn't change how I feel about it or change what's wrong with it. It's still based on a topic that shouldn't have been a focus for a video game at all.

3. Now I realize why I was told to write about my vagina in my Women's Creative Performing Arts class. This makes my vagina feel like curling up in a ball and hiding from the world right now. :|

Comments

[samatethecookie.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't get who comes up with these ideas. I really don't. Rape is serious and it should never be the focus of a video game; it's traumatizing and harms a woman's physical and emotional well-being.

[evilwildlex.livejournal.com]

it's traumatizing and harms a woman's physical and emotional well-being.

Agreed, with one minor amendment - it hurts the physical and emotional well being of anyone who has suffered rape/sexual assault. Male or female. Men don't get raped very often in adulthood (though it still happens)...but as far as childhood sexual abuse, boys are almost as likely as girls are to be victimized.

[samatethecookie.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course, it happens to boys, too. I remember my teacher talking about a male student she had that was sexually assaulted by a priest, and to this day, he still has a problem adjusting to life after the assault. Rape in general is nasty and traumatizing to all its victims.

It's just unfortunate that rape happens to women more often and it goes unreported every day, and that there are people out there trying to cash it on this and turn it into a joke.

[evilwildlex.livejournal.com]

That's partially because of the fact that victims of rape are often under the impression that they did something to deserve what happened to them. There is also a lot of victim blame involved in rape, which sucks. "She was asking for it" because a woman wears something revealing, has an alcoholic drink, walks alone at night, etc. Our society is pretty dickish in that way, and first world Western countries have better laws than some other countries as far as rape is concerned.

Or in cases where it's a relative, people don't report it because it'll "destroy the family". Like the rape itself didn't do that already.

[samatethecookie.livejournal.com]

I never heard of the excuse that it'll destroy the family. How... who comes up with that?! That's when you need your family the most. O_O

All of that just makes me sick to my stomach. Why do people always blame the victims? Nobody ever questions why a man can walk alone at night and a woman can't, society just accepts it as a given and blames the victims for bringing it on themselves. The "logic" is mind boggling.

[evilwildlex.livejournal.com]

No, no...when an adult relative rapes a child relative. Like an uncle or whatever raping the child. The family doesn't always want to press charges against the adult relative, because they're still family, and instead, they'll push the relative in question to seek professional help without ever pressing charges.

Admittedly, if a man gets jumped by a gang for his wallet, he'll still get the "he was asking for it" thing because clearly, it's the victim's fault if some asshat(s) decide to commit a crime.

[samatethecookie.livejournal.com]

Oooooh. Okay, I know what you mean now. My bad, I missed the part where you mentioned the relative (I overslept and feel generally shitty right now ^^;) ... and that's even WORST. D:

I've heard about that once, but it was in the situation when an older brother, a teenager, started molesting his little sister. Nothing ever happened to the boy, he just had to seek therapy, since the parents didn't want to press charges. The girl was estranged from her family, if I remember right.

[evilwildlex.livejournal.com]

There are also families who have the unfortunate idea that something must be wrong with the GIRL because she's an object of temptation and now she's no longer "pure" or some such bullshit.

Needless to say, this was why mom never left me alone with adult male relatives except for dad when I was a child.

[samatethecookie.livejournal.com]

Ugh. So fucked up. Because it can never be the man's fault.

Same here. My parents never left me alone with any men in our family. Not that they didn't trust them, but they felt safer with me in their sights. :/ They also taught me to never let alone ever touch me when I was a kid.