Marketing the Game of Rape - scienceblogs.com

scienceblogs.com Category: Feminist Stylings Posted on: June 10, 2009 9:59 AM, by Isis the Scientist

Dr. Isis's blog BFF, Sheril Kirshenbaum of The Intersection, has made a horrifying discovery. Apparently there is a line of Japanese video games where the goal is to stalk and rape the female characters in the game.

The main character of RapeLay, a prisoner who has recently escaped from jail, vows to find and rape the female members of a particular family, two of whom are minor children. According to Honest Gamers (I'm putting this behind a cut for those of you who are at work):

After several painfully tedious minutes, the poor girl runs away in fright, presumably to tattle to the police, a neighbor, or a Junker. Unfortunately, all three women choose to run somewhere secluded where it's easy to pin them down, tear off their clothes, and anally rape them. There are other options too, such as coerced blowjobs, but none of them are consensual. It all boils down to raping women and jizzing into or across their bodies.
"Sniff... sniff... I w-w-want to die..."
That's the kind of dialogue you'll hear after each rape. Then you'll either snap some quick photographs of their desecrated bodies or rape them again to shut them up. RapeLay contains a lot of rape.
In an attempt to blend actual gameplay with its cutting-edge character models, RapeLay incorporates a flexible sex system that lets you adjust positions, techniques, and vibrator placement. You can even impregnate the women (and then rape them some more). Unfortunately, although saucy schoolgirl Aoi can't protect her own virginity, she'll get really, really mad if you knock up her mother or sister. And when Aoi gets mad, she gets lethally violent.

But, there is a way to "win" at the game of rape...

After you've completed the story mode, the remainder of the game focuses on transforming each hot little number into a devoted sex slave. You do this by raping them some more. As the girls learn to enjoy being raped (a disturbingly predictable trend for these kinds of games), you'll unlock the ability to watch some hot lesbian action or engage in threesomes, foursomes, or gang-bangs with creepy Taneo Tanamatsuri look-alikes. RapeLay even keeps track of how many times you cum inside each girl (that's what the nakadashi count is for), so you're encouraged to rape them repeatedly in every orifice. Then you can boast to friends about your nakadashi achievements, unless your friends happen to disapprove of rape.

You win by raping the women until they learn to like it.

But even the reviews of the game are fucked up in ways I can't begin to articulate:

Crazy people -- the types who try to rationalize virtual rape fantasies -- might claim that these "groping" scenes are built upon the principles of diligence and delayed gratification. Me, I say they're boring and pointless, since you can't possibly lose.

The game's not pointless because it's wrong to rape women. It's wrong because it's not possible to lose.

Somedays I wonder why we bother.
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Comments
These games aren't legal in the U.S. It was made in Japan, who in the huge (and rightly) uproar about this game, made them illegal in Japan also.
As a gamer, I follow several tech and gaming sites, and heard about this a few months ago.

Posted by: Jessika

This is nothing new. Video games involving rape have been around for a looong time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer%27s_Revenge
Badly received then, badly received now.

Posted by: Hanspeter

There is no doubt that you are more brilliant, more educated, more eloquent than I but that doesn't change the fact that your efforts at "objectivity," although noble, are doomed to fail. Studies are wonderful, aren't they? We should pour over them, quote them, worship them even. But what if the data are incomplete to the degree that the conclusions must be false? Would you sing the praises of a study about the eating habits of American women that used only PhD's as a data sample?

Japan *is* a shame culture. Rape is a problem in Japan. Maybe the decrease in reported rapes has more to do with rape becoming a norm (rather than the crime that it is). Under reporting rape is a fact in Japan and in every other place that I know of.
Since the Argument from Authority works for you:
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/27/dussich.pdf
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/159329350.html
http://www.uga.edu/ovp/pdf/sexual_violence_factsheet.pdf
(note that 84% of rapists did not believe that they were committing rape)
Now looky there, you've just made me try to show you that your statistics are irrelevant by showing you more statistics!
How about this? I was working with a group of five women one night. The conversation turned to sexual assault. Turns out 4 out of the 5 women (ranging in age from 24-43) had been sexually assaulted and/or raped at some point in their lives. That's not a statistic. These are real people.
What you seem to really want to say (without having the balls to say it) is that rape video games have nothing to do with real rape. Really? That's what they are about! In a sense you are right. We can also say that cooking shows have nothing to do with cooking. But wait, that's how a lot of people learn how to cook.
Alas, it is true that we become who we are based on our life experiences. (A tautology even.) That is why I suggested (and I am serious) that your perspective might be different if someone had forcefully fucked you up the ass. No offense and I don't enjoy the thought, even if you are creepy.
I would also suggest that there is a difference between rape porn and rape video games, although both are reprehensible.
So this ends the rant of one particular under-educated, [poverty stricken] liberal, man-hating feminist, armchair whatever you want to call me. Since you like MAIN POINTS, mine are: Rape is bad. The cultures that make a sport of it are bad. Rape video games are bad. The silence of the men who do not offend equals consent.
(Oh, and to keep up with your steady stream of personal insults, I'll add that you are one self-important, mean spirited dood.)

Posted by: anonymous

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