Sex: Now that I have your attention: unconsensual

I'll wait until it's 25 dollars...

So...there has been a lot of talk about rape lately, with the New Tomb Raider's already removed sexual molestation scene. It's also appropriate for me to talk about it since the subject of rape is gonna be covered in Fighting Female July. Not the one you'd think, though.

Let's get the basics out of the way:

• Rape is a real thing that really happens.
• Rape is, by definition, unjustifiable.
• Rape is a serious matter.
• Rape is not something you want happen to anyone, but especially not to the more vulnerable members of our society (women, children, old folk) who tend to be the ones most likely to be raped.

Now, as a blogger, I was surprised at how much rape figures in entertainment once you start writting about it(entertainment, that, is.). But at the same time, are characters like Superman not merely modernized, toned down versions of characters like Heracles, who at one point raped and killed a whole society of warrior women? As time went on, people grew more concious that a guy who had his way with a lady in fiction is not too different from a guy who has his way with one's sister.

So rape became the domain of the bad guys. I mean, sure, that makes sense. But then, it became too ugly to even talk about rape negatively. Today, rape is as all encompassing as to include unrequied kisses and sexual relationships with drunk people.

But as a side current, there was merely escalation on the attempts at titillate. Mainstream entertainment, and especially videogames and animationa nd comics, have been trying more aand more to be more sofisticated, and somehow at the same time, have smalller bikinis and loincloths. Lara Crof, in particular, could not have started as a more obvious attempt at manipulating the male hormones to gain audience.

The costume to the right is described as MASSIVE ARMOR. This is our standard.

It was inevitable that these three conflicting ideologies, that of titillation, the concepts of rape in pop culture, and attempted softening of the more over the top elements of videogame culture would collide. To some people we're becoming more liberal and squemish, and to others we're becoming a stern amish society, when the truth is BOTH ARE SOMEHOW TRUE.

So, really, it was innevitable that someday, someone was going to try and rape Lara Croft. Two off the 3 explained mindsets supported it. I know it's easy to go with the outraged response. "This flesh peddlers are trying to sell rape as a way to tittillate. This is not acceptable." But isn't it?

When scavengers in the respective Resident Evil and Terminator apocalypses tried to rape their lead women, was it acceptable because you knew it wasn't going to happen? Is it acceptable in Boys Don't Cry because it really  happend, and if it really happened it isn't being exploited? When is it acceptable? Is God of War's offscreen sexing of concubines acceptable, because they never point out that concubines don't have much of a choice in anything? Is rape just to be left entirely out of interactive media, or just the adventure type games? If they make a Boys Don't Cry game, or GI Jane or  League of Extraordinary Gentlemen game is it okay if it has rape because the source had it? Does it have to be tastefull, and how do you measure what is or isn't tastefull?  I do not ask this questions because I want an answer: It's because if there is a  personal limit, then it needs to be clear each of us what it its. YOU need to answer to yourself this questions before reacting to things like this.



Look, I'll just make the horrendous, insensible jokes, and you fill in the rest, okay?

I'm telling you, in my country, there is a law against the distribution or having of "obscene  material" . And when you go in on what that actually means, it just goes with a really vague "whatever is too offensive to the mayority of peoples.  Now I've been to Hentai Foundry, so I know we might have differing opinions on what we want "My Small Horsies" characters to see doing to each other. But the point is, this kind of thing was bound to happen sooner or later. 10 years ago it was how much naked our BMX Strippers could be, and today is how much rape can we allow on our adventure games. This things don't just spring overnight, guys.