GrendelAll that is fear...Join Date: 2002-07-19Member: 970Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, NS2 Playtester
<!--quoteo(post=1865747:date=Aug 2 2011, 04:59 PM:name=SentrySteve)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SentrySteve @ Aug 2 2011, 04:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1865747"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's the internet. Never said it was right, I only said it's to be expected. You aren't going to change an anonymous 16 year old's behavior by setting a good example. She's 27, if she's truly tried of unwanted attention I'd imagine she could figure out how to change her alias. "ProudHebrew1234" better not complain when people make single him out and make fun of jews.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, that's precisely how you change someone's behaviour. You set an example and if sufficient people adhere to a behavioural standard it becomes the norm.
Community backlash does help. Banning misbehavers IS a kind of community backlash, in that you enforce community standards. You don't see a lot of misogynism or racism in this forum, for instance, because misogynists and racists will get banned. The more such standards are adopted and enforced, the more people will have to be on their best behaviour. Eventually it may even become a habit.
Wow, reading such a mature and good discussion makes me keep my optimism, I <3 ns community. There are problems on the Internet and we will overcome them eventually. To state something like "it always has been and will be that way, your behavior won't change anything" especially about something changing as fast as the Internet (hell.. there was no youtube just 10 years ago) is pretty rediculous tbh.
Sops, she's not complaining to the trolls, she's talking about it here, where the trolls are not. Everyone needs to vent some times. No one is talking about complaining to trolls, they're talking about making it known to people who can do something about it, preventative or otherwise.
<!--quoteo(post=1866406:date=Aug 5 2011, 05:37 AM:name=Grendel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Grendel @ Aug 5 2011, 05:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866406"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Actually, that's precisely how you change someone's behaviour. You set an example and if sufficient people adhere to a behavioural standard it becomes the norm.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Holy balls, Grendel! You're still alive! I thought you would've evaporated into a cloud of pure spite by now.
One keyword in the last few posts is community. Communities (forums, clans, guilds and whatnot) do help provide somewhat of a hassle-free environment for people to play in. However, as it was previously pointed out, the OP shows a lot of crap coming from console online platforms where - to my knowledge - there is hardly any cohesion between players.
Not saying that being part of a community or being a regular on a server will grant you a free ticket to gaming heaven, but at least that's a start.
I was merely discussing past experiences I had on servers being a girl, I was never complaining. The abuse I got was from non Aussie servers.
In the past 5 years I have not had any issues playing on any Australian servers (pc games). I think alot of the reason for this is because the past 3 years there was the release of the mana bar, the first Australian bar to cater to gamers, when it was first announced as a confirmed contract it was big news, it had alot of attention from both men and women and continued to be quite big new in Australia even on release, they targeted both genders and there was a very strong response from both sides on their facebook account. The day of opening the queue wait to get in was 2 hours, and I believe there was just as many women as there were men in the line waiting to go in and play/drink. There were both genders dressed up in cosplay clothes and even the female members on the Australian gamer forums took part in promoting the gaming bar by dressing up as Mad Moxxi and little sister from some costumes supplied by the companies in support of the gaming bar. It was heavily advertised showing both men and women playing and having fun, I went there a few times and the attitude with everyone was amazing, the blokes were more than happy to hand over a control and shook hands if they lost or won, the attitude was very casual and accepting, both genders treated each other the same way.
I think because of this the general vision of Australians is anyone plays, on the servers no one really cares if your a girl or boy and everyone plays like normal. It is rare that someone comments and even if someone decides to harass a female player they are quickly put in their place and told that its no big deal a girl is playing and to deal with it. While the male population still is more in regards to gaming, in Australia the idea of a girl gamer isn't a big deal and everyone plays for fun and does not care if they lose to a girl. Which in Australia is true, at football tournaments there is just as many women screaming as men, and frankly i find some of the women much more intimidating than the men in support of their teams.
It is not uncommon in Australia to see both genders on public transport playing games on phones, nintendo ds, laptops and tablets. I have never seen a random guy go out of their way and go up to a shiela on a train to harass them for playing games and to go back to the kitchen.
Australias culture seems extremely flexible to change, just 5 years ago everyone was in baggy pants with underwear showing, since last year it suddenly changed to every man wearing tight jeans (I swear its their sisters jeans) and wearing huge hats dropped onto their heads sideways. The attitude here seems to be change and keep changing, so can the attitude to girl gamers change? yes. It happened here in Australia, I do not see why it cannot happen everywhere else.
Should women only name themselves with male names and hide who they are? I say hell no. I think we should all be able to play a game for who we are and not have to worry about hiding ourselves just because we are girls. Do women go to footy and dress up as men and wear beards so they don't get attention? no they go however the hell they want to dress and act how they want to act and join in on the community fun without worrying about what gender they are. Online gaming is no different, and should not be considered different, you still have the players, and the watchers. The games are made for everyone and sold to everyone, not just men.
Should we tell the women who work on the very games we play to use a mans name in the game credits since women should not be allowed to advertise themselves as being a woman in a game? What about those videos about Arena Nets production site? There is both men and women working on Guild wars 2 with the same love and passion, they all love gaming and working together to create more games. Should we now tell those women to start wearing male clothes and dressing up to look like the men since they are creating attention for being a girl in the gaming industry? The women in these places get treated no differently than the men even though its obvious what gender they are. The same should apply to online gaming, girls are obvious but no one should care and be happy to accept the diversity.
Maybe Australians find it easier to accept people for who they are and treat everyone the same? We still have some asses and weirdos, but the general behaviour is you can have fun no matter who you are, you don't need to hide yourself for fear of being harassed just because your a girl.
I rarely get comments about my name on Australian servers, now and then I may get asked because someone knows my art, but usually its "are you really a girl? ok, cool" then back to playing and having fun, no one says anything about my gender or name after apart from saying my name to notify me of an enemy targets position or general gaming related stuff. I would hardly say I am looking for attention because I have a girly name, more I am looking for people to just accept it and keep playing as if I was anyone else, much like in everyday real life situations where women and men both have fun with the same sports without hiding who they are and enjoying it more because there is a diversity of players.
also some interesting aussie news links regarding girl gamers if you care to read.
feb 1 2007 - <a href="http://www.cnet.com.au/girl-gamers-on-the-rise-in-oz-339273349.htm" target="_blank">Girl gamers on the rise</a> Oct 3 2008- <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/over-a-third-of-australian-gamers-are-female/story-e6frfro0-1111117646993" target="_blank">Over a third of Australian gamers are female</a> jul 20 2009- <a href="http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/07/gamer-girl-says-get-over-gamer-girls/" target="_blank">Gamer girl says get over gamer girls</a> Oct 8 2010- <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/women-fuel-4bn-casual-games-industry/story-e6frfro0-1225935831836" target="_blank">women fuel 4bn to casual games</a>
I have no experience on online console gaming, but I have listened in on my fiance playing online and the attitudes often seem quite childish no matter who is playing.
This might not be too related but one disappointing thing about gaming communities is the over usage of the "r" word. (The "r" word isn't just a female issue either).
One of the major counterarguments is - "If we stop using the "r" word, what next? We'll soon have no words to use!" Personally I disagree and don't think it's a big deal to stop using one word >.>.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You do realize that attitudes will indeed never change on the internet<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed - Sadly the only "practical" way to deal with the problem is to just avoid it (being anonymous). Well either that or guys should start using girl names (internet trolls can never find out whether the person is really a girl or not now!).
Oh yeah if anyone is curious - There exists a professional female Starcraft 1 gamer (skip to 10 minutes or so for gameplay) <center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dRKYJnxTrm8"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dRKYJnxTrm8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
If anyone is curious - <a href="http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=143803" target="_blank">topc from teamliquid</a>. Hmm though it's "also" related to the whole eSports thing (if people want eSports to be viewed positively[or at least more "politically correct"]), maybe people[like casters] should start avoiding usage of certain words basically). As for me saying the "r" word - Hey you'll know once you hit the battle.net forums >.> (tip - Cracklings is offensive and will get censored even though it's commonly referred to zerglings with attack speed upgrade).
<a href="http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=137932#3" target="_blank">See this for reference</a>.
Obscenity fills an important role in language, a mature person understands this and will use obscentiies for their intended purpose, to add force to a statement.
Aversion to obscenity is more a mark of immaturity than anything.
I was on the train yesterday and two bogan boys hopped on at the opposite side of the tram and continued to very loudly talk about getting drunk, that punching women should be ok and doing drugs with every 2nd word being F**king and any time referring to a person they know they used C***. It was hard to not hear them they were that noisy, these blokes were using obscenity to the point they just appeared downright trashy and unattractive. There is no way I could find any person anywhere near respective if they speak this way and I am sure many others on the train found the mouth on these two boys quite foul and their use of swear words unnecessary.
I am fine with these words being used in normal talk, but not to the point that every time you open your mouth you say them. I think overuse of obscenity is more immature than aversion to obscenity.
"yeah mate that f***ing C*** came up to me and f***ing went up into my face so i told that c*** to F***ing back off and F*** off" - I hardly call this an intelligent sentence not one that should be tolerated in general everyday talk. Actually the only people who do speak like this are immature children and the bogans/nutjobs who appear to have sniffed too much petrol.
<!--quoteo(post=1867545:date=Aug 8 2011, 09:05 PM:name=kyliegirl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kyliegirl @ Aug 8 2011, 09:05 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1867545"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I was on the train yesterday and two bogan boys hopped on at the opposite side of the tram and continued to very loudly talk about getting drunk, that punching women should be ok and doing drugs with every 2nd word being F**king and any time referring to a person they know they used C***.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1867545:date=Aug 8 2011, 09:05 PM:name=kyliegirl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kyliegirl @ Aug 8 2011, 09:05 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1867545"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->"yeah mate that f***ing C*** came up to me and f***ing went up into my face so i told that c*** to F***ing back off and F*** off" - I hardly call this an intelligent sentence not one that should be tolerated in general everyday talk. Actually the only people who do speak like this are immature children and the bogans/nutjobs who appear to have sniffed too much petrol.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's less to do with the density of expletives and more the general sentence itself, it sounds no less stupid if you take the swearing out.
If the mood takes me I can quite easily match that amount of swearing and it doesn't make me sound stupid, it makes me sound incredibly pissed off which is usually why I'm swearing so much, but that's generally because I retain good elocution and efficient vocabulary. You can swear every third word but as long as the other two carry the sentence forward it won't sound stupid.
Swearing is like a scalpel... if you use it with precision and sparingly it's a very effective tool. If you use it constantly and without care it gets blunted and becomes ineffective. That's why it's so much more powerful when someone who's well-spoken swears, compared to a ned/townie/unpleasant person who just curses constantly to the point where you become numb to it.
My Higher grade english teacher was a huge proponent of swearing and slang. He thought they were an important and flexible part of language as long as they weren't abused :3
My swearing is like a quality knife - with proper care it stays sharp even with regular usage. It's when people use the swearing equivalent of cheap single-use scalpels that they wear out quickly.
In terms of the previous posts - <a href="http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=143803" target="_blank">This was</a> what I was talking about.
I've always thought it rather random what words and concepts are OK to use light-heartedly and what aren't. Isn't it somewhat ironic that you can spray the guts of a hundred people all over the walls in a video game, but you better not say you raped someone? Trivializing violence and murder: OK. Trivializing sexual abuse: not OK.
The argument seems to be that, for someone who was raped, hearing the word or seeing it used casually triggers bad memories. Alright, I can buy that - but if that's the argument, we have to ban humor entirely, because there isn't a joke out there that isn't going to make someone uncomfortable. What of all the people who were physically (but not sexually) abused? shouldn't we ban all violence in the media so as not to offend them? Better not use phrases like "kicked his ass" either. How about traumatized war veterans - better ban games and movies about armed conflict.
After the whole Penny Arcade fiasco about the word last year, I started a debate thread about it, and 70 pages later I still didn't understand what was so special about this word/concept that warrants it special treatment.
<!--quoteo(post=1868825:date=Aug 14 2011, 01:19 AM:name=Sops)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sops @ Aug 14 2011, 01:19 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868825"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Now if you just went ahead and wrote rape instead of "the r word" we would all be on the same page, I thought you were talking about retard.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1868842:date=Aug 14 2011, 07:34 AM:name=DiscoZombie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DiscoZombie @ Aug 14 2011, 07:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868842"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've always thought it rather random what words and concepts are OK to use light-heartedly and what aren't. Isn't it somewhat ironic that you can spray the guts of a hundred people all over the walls in a video game, but you better not say you raped someone? Trivializing violence and murder: OK. Trivializing sexual abuse: not OK.
The argument seems to be that, for someone who was raped, hearing the word or seeing it used casually triggers bad memories. Alright, I can buy that - but if that's the argument, we have to ban humor entirely, because there isn't a joke out there that isn't going to make someone uncomfortable. What of all the people who were physically (but not sexually) abused? shouldn't we ban all violence in the media so as not to offend them? Better not use phrases like "kicked his ass" either. How about traumatized war veterans - better ban games and movies about armed conflict.
After the whole Penny Arcade fiasco about the word last year, I started a debate thread about it, and 70 pages later I still didn't understand what was so special about this word/concept that warrants it special treatment.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hm... This just sprung from an imaginary discussion with a villain, but: Torture has just as much potential - more, in fact - for physical and emotional trauma in the immediate sense, but the difference is that rape isn't just terrifying, it's also <i>scary</i>. You don't have to fear being tortured much unless you've got political enemies, but rape can happen to anyone, anywhere, anywhen... Or any woman, at least.
<!--quoteo(post=1868868:date=Aug 14 2011, 04:49 AM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Align @ Aug 14 2011, 04:49 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868868"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hm... This just sprung from an imaginary discussion with a villain, but: Torture has just as much potential - more, in fact - for physical and emotional trauma in the immediate sense, but the difference is that rape isn't just terrifying, it's also <i>scary</i>. You don't have to fear being tortured much unless you've got political enemies, but rape can happen to anyone, anywhere, anywhen... Or any woman, at least.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Acts of terrorism are scary, can happen to anyone and can be traumatizing.
You suggested that rape is more taboo then torture because it is something that can happen to a wide group of people unexpectedly. I said terrorism also fits that description, yet terrorism isn't taboo.
Comments
Actually, that's precisely how you change someone's behaviour. You set an example and if sufficient people adhere to a behavioural standard it becomes the norm.
Holy balls, Grendel! You're still alive! I thought you would've evaporated into a cloud of pure spite by now.
--Scythe--
Not saying that being part of a community or being a regular on a server will grant you a free ticket to gaming heaven, but at least that's a start.
In the past 5 years I have not had any issues playing on any Australian servers (pc games). I think alot of the reason for this is because the past 3 years there was the release of the mana bar, the first Australian bar to cater to gamers, when it was first announced as a confirmed contract it was big news, it had alot of attention from both men and women and continued to be quite big new in Australia even on release, they targeted both genders and there was a very strong response from both sides on their facebook account. The day of opening the queue wait to get in was 2 hours, and I believe there was just as many women as there were men in the line waiting to go in and play/drink. There were both genders dressed up in cosplay clothes and even the female members on the Australian gamer forums took part in promoting the gaming bar by dressing up as Mad Moxxi and little sister from some costumes supplied by the companies in support of the gaming bar. It was heavily advertised showing both men and women playing and having fun, I went there a few times and the attitude with everyone was amazing, the blokes were more than happy to hand over a control and shook hands if they lost or won, the attitude was very casual and accepting, both genders treated each other the same way.
I think because of this the general vision of Australians is anyone plays, on the servers no one really cares if your a girl or boy and everyone plays like normal. It is rare that someone comments and even if someone decides to harass a female player they are quickly put in their place and told that its no big deal a girl is playing and to deal with it. While the male population still is more in regards to gaming, in Australia the idea of a girl gamer isn't a big deal and everyone plays for fun and does not care if they lose to a girl. Which in Australia is true, at football tournaments there is just as many women screaming as men, and frankly i find some of the women much more intimidating than the men in support of their teams.
It is not uncommon in Australia to see both genders on public transport playing games on phones, nintendo ds, laptops and tablets. I have never seen a random guy go out of their way and go up to a shiela on a train to harass them for playing games and to go back to the kitchen.
Australias culture seems extremely flexible to change, just 5 years ago everyone was in baggy pants with underwear showing, since last year it suddenly changed to every man wearing tight jeans (I swear its their sisters jeans) and wearing huge hats dropped onto their heads sideways. The attitude here seems to be change and keep changing, so can the attitude to girl gamers change? yes. It happened here in Australia, I do not see why it cannot happen everywhere else.
Should women only name themselves with male names and hide who they are? I say hell no. I think we should all be able to play a game for who we are and not have to worry about hiding ourselves just because we are girls. Do women go to footy and dress up as men and wear beards so they don't get attention? no they go however the hell they want to dress and act how they want to act and join in on the community fun without worrying about what gender they are. Online gaming is no different, and should not be considered different, you still have the players, and the watchers. The games are made for everyone and sold to everyone, not just men.
Should we tell the women who work on the very games we play to use a mans name in the game credits since women should not be allowed to advertise themselves as being a woman in a game? What about those videos about Arena Nets production site? There is both men and women working on Guild wars 2 with the same love and passion, they all love gaming and working together to create more games. Should we now tell those women to start wearing male clothes and dressing up to look like the men since they are creating attention for being a girl in the gaming industry? The women in these places get treated no differently than the men even though its obvious what gender they are. The same should apply to online gaming, girls are obvious but no one should care and be happy to accept the diversity.
Maybe Australians find it easier to accept people for who they are and treat everyone the same? We still have some asses and weirdos, but the general behaviour is you can have fun no matter who you are, you don't need to hide yourself for fear of being harassed just because your a girl.
I rarely get comments about my name on Australian servers, now and then I may get asked because someone knows my art, but usually its "are you really a girl? ok, cool" then back to playing and having fun, no one says anything about my gender or name after apart from saying my name to notify me of an enemy targets position or general gaming related stuff. I would hardly say I am looking for attention because I have a girly name, more I am looking for people to just accept it and keep playing as if I was anyone else, much like in everyday real life situations where women and men both have fun with the same sports without hiding who they are and enjoying it more because there is a diversity of players.
also some interesting aussie news links regarding girl gamers if you care to read.
feb 1 2007 - <a href="http://www.cnet.com.au/girl-gamers-on-the-rise-in-oz-339273349.htm" target="_blank">Girl gamers on the rise</a>
Oct 3 2008- <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/over-a-third-of-australian-gamers-are-female/story-e6frfro0-1111117646993" target="_blank">Over a third of Australian gamers are female</a>
jul 20 2009- <a href="http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/07/gamer-girl-says-get-over-gamer-girls/" target="_blank">Gamer girl says get over gamer girls</a>
Oct 8 2010- <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/women-fuel-4bn-casual-games-industry/story-e6frfro0-1225935831836" target="_blank">women fuel 4bn to casual games</a>
I have no experience on online console gaming, but I have listened in on my fiance playing online and the attitudes often seem quite childish no matter who is playing.
I agree.
One of the major counterarguments is - "If we stop using the "r" word, what next? We'll soon have no words to use!" Personally I disagree and don't think it's a big deal to stop using one word >.>.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You do realize that attitudes will indeed never change on the internet<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed - Sadly the only "practical" way to deal with the problem is to just avoid it (being anonymous). Well either that or guys should start using girl names (internet trolls can never find out whether the person is really a girl or not now!).
Oh yeah if anyone is curious - There exists a professional female Starcraft 1 gamer (skip to 10 minutes or so for gameplay)
<center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dRKYJnxTrm8"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dRKYJnxTrm8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
<a href="http://lmgtfy.com/?q=the+%22r%22+word" target="_blank">http://lmgtfy.com/?q=the+%22r%22+word</a>
<center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dF1NUposXVQ"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dF1NUposXVQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
<center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dF1NUposXVQ"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dF1NUposXVQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This guy is cool.
Also
<center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1IFloXOuLgA"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1IFloXOuLgA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
Offence comes from how you use a word, not the word itself.
<a href="http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=137932#3" target="_blank">See this for reference</a>.
Aversion to obscenity is more a mark of immaturity than anything.
/s
I was on the train yesterday and two bogan boys hopped on at the opposite side of the tram and continued to very loudly talk about getting drunk, that punching women should be ok and doing drugs with every 2nd word being F**king and any time referring to a person they know they used C***. It was hard to not hear them they were that noisy, these blokes were using obscenity to the point they just appeared downright trashy and unattractive. There is no way I could find any person anywhere near respective if they speak this way and I am sure many others on the train found the mouth on these two boys quite foul and their use of swear words unnecessary.
I am fine with these words being used in normal talk, but not to the point that every time you open your mouth you say them. I think overuse of obscenity is more immature than aversion to obscenity.
"yeah mate that f***ing C*** came up to me and f***ing went up into my face so i told that c*** to F***ing back off and F*** off" - I hardly call this an intelligent sentence not one that should be tolerated in general everyday talk. Actually the only people who do speak like this are immature children and the bogans/nutjobs who appear to have sniffed too much petrol.
Sounds like Scotland :P
That's less to do with the density of expletives and more the general sentence itself, it sounds no less stupid if you take the swearing out.
If the mood takes me I can quite easily match that amount of swearing and it doesn't make me sound stupid, it makes me sound incredibly pissed off which is usually why I'm swearing so much, but that's generally because I retain good elocution and efficient vocabulary. You can swear every third word but as long as the other two carry the sentence forward it won't sound stupid.
My Higher grade english teacher was a huge proponent of swearing and slang. He thought they were an important and flexible part of language as long as they weren't abused :3
The argument seems to be that, for someone who was raped, hearing the word or seeing it used casually triggers bad memories. Alright, I can buy that - but if that's the argument, we have to ban humor entirely, because there isn't a joke out there that isn't going to make someone uncomfortable. What of all the people who were physically (but not sexually) abused? shouldn't we ban all violence in the media so as not to offend them? Better not use phrases like "kicked his ass" either. How about traumatized war veterans - better ban games and movies about armed conflict.
After the whole Penny Arcade fiasco about the word last year, I started a debate thread about it, and 70 pages later I still didn't understand what was so special about this word/concept that warrants it special treatment.
So did I actually.
The argument seems to be that, for someone who was raped, hearing the word or seeing it used casually triggers bad memories. Alright, I can buy that - but if that's the argument, we have to ban humor entirely, because there isn't a joke out there that isn't going to make someone uncomfortable. What of all the people who were physically (but not sexually) abused? shouldn't we ban all violence in the media so as not to offend them? Better not use phrases like "kicked his ass" either. How about traumatized war veterans - better ban games and movies about armed conflict.
After the whole Penny Arcade fiasco about the word last year, I started a debate thread about it, and 70 pages later I still didn't understand what was so special about this word/concept that warrants it special treatment.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To the tropemobile!
<a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil" target="_blank">http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main...ecialKindOfEvil</a>
I don't strictly get it myself, but it is a common belief.
You don't have to fear being tortured much unless you've got political enemies, but rape can happen to anyone, anywhere, anywhen... Or any woman, at least.
You don't have to fear being tortured much unless you've got political enemies, but rape can happen to anyone, anywhere, anywhen... Or any woman, at least.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Acts of terrorism are scary, can happen to anyone and can be traumatizing.