E-Male

There is over a decade's worth of publication in this area. I would encourage you to read up on some of it. No one is claiming exact equivalance. The point made by both the victims and the researchers is that online acts of hatred and violence have real-world emotional consequences that can be very severe. One would be quite wrong to dismiss the issue altogether, or overlook the fact that cyberspace can at times be a very hostile place for women.

It is very interesting to see the male denial of violence in the virtual realm. One thing that has been made very clear is that gender conditions our experience of any given media. A man's experience of the virtual realm is not the same as a woman's.

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E-Male

BigGaayAl

Just imagine what he would have done instead of writing a book, if the Marquis De Sade had lived in these times! He would have made one hell of a mod for GTA.

I've thought about this topic "virtual culture,real vice?" some time before the news actually surfaced. In some thought experiments I explored the fallacy's of the current laws concerning images of children etc. As long as everyone understand s that I in no way want to defend any kind of abuse towards children, let me make this argument. It seems in most countries, governments and citizens are striving -as pastors used to do generations ago in Europe- to outlaw the sexual fantasy itself, not the act.

This is clearly showed in some of e-male's examples. Possessions of virtual, not RL ("real life"in its common sense) images, of acts that are illegal in "RL" are being brought into the legal arena. Many cases get thrown out, but still in most western society's I remark a clear striving to outlaw fantasy, and visual representation of them.

For a part, this kind of thing will happen every time a new medium is introduced. I do find it remarkable that we discuss so often about whether children can discern RL from virtual reality, whereas prominent public figures and the law itself, seems not to make this distinction.


For a while when exploring ideas, I pondered creating a website that features just that kind of virtual imagery. Lets just say that I don't regret my inactivity after this has come in the news.

I just made this argument, because I always explore how and why society makes it's often arbitrary rules. Often it is more for protecting the psychological balance of the majority then to create a coherent and rational set of rules.

In the future, I think this issue will be decided by artists. Some will bring out works soon, that explore the borders of our laws, the logical fallacy's in it. In the end, I think the virtual vice will be decided to be no more then a virtual vice. The current mindset is simply not tenable in a logical discussion, and that is what the courts will bring eventually when confronted with this art. At least in somewhat democratic regimes.

I'm looking forward to discussion the artworks will bring.

*edit*An interesting phenomenon in the current legal discussion, is the invention of the term "child predator" which has its simile in the Dutch and many other languages. The very wise professor Paul Verhaeghe warned his students always to be weary when a new word is invented, to describe a phenomenon that has been with man for as long as he remembers.

Often it is an attempt to change our minds about a subject, and/or to hide historic knowledge about the phenomenon.

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Support your right to arm bears. ~Cleveland Amory

E-Male

Speaking of GTA, I went to see a movie the other day and the first commercial was a Coke production based on GTA, except the guy was doing nice things instead of bad things -- a great appropriation of virtual culture, a VERY interesting innovation in advertising, and an interesting cultural moment in the ethics of virtual society.

here is the ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfhZfSVuup4

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E-Male

Hambergler

@E-mail

I love your threads, they are inspiring. I learn a lot from them. It's obvious that there are cultural and political differences between our countries. Generalizing Americans in any way is going to leave bad tastes in some peoples minds. It's the same as black people can say all kinds of ridiculous things about each other, but once a white person says it. It is out of bounds. I hope that you can recognize this nuance so there will be no more distractions and we can focus on the topic. I really don't think it's what your saying, but how your saying it.

My .02

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E-Male

Well said Hambergler. The social sciences and humanities are based on the fine art of the generalization. Tricky stuff indeed. Two of my favorite ones are by Marx: 'capitalism is the best and the worst thing', and by the late neocon sociologist, Seymour Lipset, who coined the term 'American exceptionalism' in his classic work of the same name: 'America is the best and the worst'.

Everything else is in the details.

Generalizations are tough to deal with, because we live under the great myth of individualism and the soveriegn consumer. But patterns exist, behaviour and thought is constrained, and comparisions are possible, whether between two people or two nations.

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E-Male

Morganan

I have 4 daughters, ages ranging from 22 years old to 16 months old. I have quite often witnessed men hitting on "women" in this medium. (I play female characters in most of these types of games just to see how stupid people can make themselves look thinking they are around a woman)

Having said that, you are talking about games made by men (for the most part) made for men/boys. Blanket statements that cover the "industry" are equally as silly. Do I completely discount the things you bring forward here? absolutely not, but I do dispute the terminology used to describe them. Virtual rape? C'mon, I hope I don't have to go in-depth to debunk that one. Virtual robbery? More like a gameplay mechanic. Using terminology of this nature is a conscious decision made to sensationalize the issue and make it a "serious problem". Are there things that can and should be done differently in regards to these type's of issues? Certainly. Talking about these things in the context of crimes being committed is laughable and makes me wonder about the mental instability of those writing articles of this nature.

E-Male

Well, the reasoned discussion of the field of the study of virtual ethics and digital culture sort of ends when you start implying that an entire body of scholarship (one that I suspect you have not explored) is the product of mentally unstable minds.

I will entertain reasoned debate and informed discussion, but not wild accusations.

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E-Male

Franko

I have a question (though it may seem quite stupid or out of place to someone who knows more about this field than I do) about the term "virtual rape," this is not so much a criticism because I really know very little about virtual ethics and digital culture. So, when a "real life rape" occurs there is a complete physical loss of autonomy on the part of the victim. Now, when it occurs online, does the person not have the ability to get away from the computer, or are they so psychologically enmeshed in the medium that their autonomy is fundamentally linked with being online?

El_Gringo_Grande

I agree with you for the most part. There are many that want to abolish fantasy of any sort. And an even larger group wants to at least severely restrict fantasy that has anything to do with sex, violence or other deviant behaviors.

But with these spaces the fantasy is markedly different in that people within a fantasy are interacting. Fantasy has traditionally been a solo affair. Art, such as movies, has allowed many to kinda share but that experience has many limitations. One is that the fantasy is interpreted then regurgitated by the artist. Second watching is very passive.

Now with virtual worlds the user has an ability to actually become at least an actor in the fantasy world. An actor with a lot of freedom at that. As time and technology goes on the user actually becomes a builder of the fantasy.

What I think is most significant is that peoples fantasies are colliding. This seems to be the detrimental effect that E-Male is talking about. As these fantasies meld with real life (for example real money becomes involved) these collisions will be even more relevant to real life.



You also talk about how artists will effect all of this. That is a very important point. Right now the tools to produce these spaces are crude to say the least. And within the existing spaces the ability to be truly creative are also limited to non-existent. I believe this last point is most important. Artists may go off and create their own stand alone spaces. But I don't think that will be the norm. Artists want creative control AND they want reach as big an audience as possible. I don't think they can reach the audience they desire if they create isolated spaces. At the same time I don't think that existing spaces give near enough creative control to attract the artist/designers that would make them truly attractive to the masses.

So either these VRs are going to give up some control or they allow artists to create their own spaces and link to them through a set of protocols. The second one is the more exciting. You could even have groups of designers that come together to create truly "livable" areas.

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Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
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I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

El_Gringo_Grande

That is a good question. The fact is some are so enmeshed with their virtual other that they cannot simply flip the switch. They probably do experience real emotional harm. Of course it could be said that those that would be affected thus already have emotional problems but that doesn't really change the end result.

Even for the average player it can be difficult to turn away so I can understand the extrema cases. I was once corpse camped in World of Warcraft. I was pretty new and had wandered into a PvP place by accident. I could have just just turned off the game after the second death but something compelled me to try and get away from those camping. It was strange and an hour later I finally shut off the game.

I can see this happening even more as the spaces become even more realistic and linked to RL. At that point some form of law will kick in.

__________________
Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

War.mongeR1

Is this debate for real? I honestly can't tell if you all are joking.

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"Common sense is not so common." -Voltaire

El_Gringo_Grande

Sir, I am insulted!!!


Just kidding. But for me it is real. I find the whole concept of perception and reality very interesting. Because even the physical data that gets sent to our brains do not match exactly our perception of reality. For example if you look at the actual signals produced by the retina they are not very close to what we "see". So if you can't even trust the physical signals provided by your body, what can you trust?

__________________
Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

Hambergler

If a future generation spends 95% of their time focused on their computers their entire lives, school, money, relationships, emotions etc. Doesn't it make it make their virtual world what they consider reality. In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information.

There are many instances where people here would agree that some VR activities are more desirable then their RL counterparts.

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Iamthefallen

Or rewritten to say the same thing from another perspective:

Noteworthy in the article below is the draconian attitude towards virtual sex crime in Canada and Europe compared to the US. This accords with Canadian and European laws on expression, which allow for far lower levels of free speech than American laws and tend to place the collective will over an individuals rights. Canadian and European jurisprudence permits far lower levels of online free speech and thought crime than America (on thiis also see The Empire of Mind, M. Strangelove, UT Press, 2005).

It's pseudo-intellectual masturbation at it's finest. For someone who has immediate friends or family who are real-world victims of the foulest sex crimes imaginable, and live with the consequences decades later, the discussion is not only ridiculous, it's disgusting.

I took the liberty to relay this thread to a real life, actual, victim of real life, actual, sexual abuse, her comment was:
"How dare anyone compare what happened to me to what happens in a game? How dare anyone say that they are even remotely the same? Real life has no ****ing quit button. Kiss my a**"

While not as strong on rhetoric as some other posts, I do admire the straight forward sentiment expressed.

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Morganan

Then why doesn't reasoned discussion start with using proper terminology? I don't need to be in this particular field of study to recognize the word "rape" in regards to this discussion is indeed the wrong term to use. Might I direct you and your scholary associates to the dictionary to discover the proper definition of rape so you can indeed see it is an improper terminology to use to describe the phenomena you are discussing.

Medical definition of rape... http://www.medterms.com/script/main/...ticlekey=12412

legal definition of rape...
http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/q097.htm

Since both of those definitions refer to something quite different from what is possible with technology in the current day in the context of the word in this discussion, I think I am going to stick with mentally unstable, and quite possibly add con artist if indeed the people having this scholarly discourse apply for grants to explore this line of "reasoning"...