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Author Topic: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy  (Read 23536 times)

GlyphGryph

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #120 on: May 25, 2014, 04:24:58 pm »

Actually I seem to recall that I claimed ostracizing people is often ineffective, not that it's wrong. I'd appreciate not being told what I believe, thanks.
I wasn't putting you on that side. You are on the other side - you just don't believe this particular method of stopping people from doing a bad thing is an effective one most of the time.
« Last Edit: May 25, 2014, 05:23:10 pm by GlyphGryph »
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scriver

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #121 on: May 25, 2014, 05:00:08 pm »

That's pretty much been the point of everyone on "that side" of thr argument, Glyph.

Also posting to watch.
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Neonivek

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #122 on: May 25, 2014, 05:01:11 pm »

Bay12: Where threads about homosexuality in games are derailed by pages and pages of rape discussion.

It isn't a derail now that the topic creator officially shifting it.

Now it is a topic shift.
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MDFification

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #123 on: May 26, 2014, 01:28:18 pm »

Here's a good quote relating to the topic; "As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular." So sayeth Oscar Wilde, whose relation to me shall henceforth be used to (with little justification)  ignore the fact that I'm a CIS White Male intruding in this thread. Also disclosure; me and several members of my family been sexually harassed several times over my life but didn't find it particularly traumatic, so if I'm speaking too bluntly about it and offending people I apologize, it's from that bias and is unintentional.

Some kinds of sexual harassment (calling all sexual harassment rape seems like it cheapens the word to me... physically forcing yourself on a person is a different thing from emotional abuse), specifically sex with the intoxicated, cat-calling, butt-slapping etc. can and probably eventually will be stigmatized to the point that a properly socialized person would never consider them. They seem part-way there already.

Physical rape on the other hand won't be resolved through ostracization. Rape is observed in many species, including many unsocial ones. I'm going to say then that it's innate, and the potential for a person to become a rapist will always exist, as will the potential to become a murderer/thief etc. Note that neither of those two crimes are actually tied to a person's economic class (a Victorian fallacy) and are in fact pretty consistent amongst the population.
Saying that we in the Westmost Western West should teach our children not to rape seems kind of dumb to me. If we had a culture that considered rape (again, I'm not using this as a blanket term for sexual harassment) acceptable, such as in South Africa (where it's considered a 'cure' for lesbianism... ugh), then yes, education would be a big deal. But in a culture that doesn't actively encourage rape and views it as a crime, raising your child to have innate moral quams with raping (alongside things like murder) is something any good parent already does.

Teaching people to treat rape as less of a life-ending event, however, would work wonders. People would find it easier to recover emotionally from rape and better reporting would lead to more convictions of rapists. Not that I'm saying 'trivialize rape'; the action itself should be considered despicable and dangerous, the perpetrators considered pathetic and locked away from society for the safety of others. I just think that our current response (victim blaming, treating rape victims as if they're a different person after they've been assaulted, supporting a culture of fear which makes the assault more traumatic for the victims) is really counter productive for ensuring the least damage possible to the victims.

Again sorry if anyone gets offended by this, it's an opinion that if misinterpreted makes me look like a pretty horrible person.
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Arx

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #124 on: May 26, 2014, 01:33:39 pm »

such as in South Africa (where it's considered a 'cure' for lesbianism... ugh)

Wait, what? Link? I've never heard of that, and if it is a thing, I'd like to have heard about it. That sounds terrible.
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Glowcat

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #125 on: May 26, 2014, 01:38:09 pm »

such as in South Africa (where it's considered a 'cure' for lesbianism... ugh)

Wait, what? Link? I've never heard of that, and if it is a thing, I'd like to have heard about it. That sounds terrible.

"Curing lesbianism" i.e. "corrective rape" like that isn't limited to South Africa. It's part of the wider rape culture which is being criticized.
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Arx

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #126 on: May 26, 2014, 01:42:32 pm »

I've heard about that, but I've never heard it advocated here, by anyone, ever. That might just be because I'm bad at news, but I dunno.
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MDFification

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #127 on: May 26, 2014, 01:44:50 pm »

such as in South Africa (where it's considered a 'cure' for lesbianism... ugh)

Wait, what? Link? I've never heard of that, and if it is a thing, I'd like to have heard about it. That sounds terrible.

Regrettably, the rape culture in South Africa (considered to have the highest rates of rape in the world, though statistics are questionable, generally speaking) is so extant that it's not even considered controversial to point it out any more. Here's backup to the statement about so-called 'corrective' rape, which horrifyingly enough is estimated by some to happen 10 times per day in South Africa alone. The most disgusting thing to me is that it's not even recognized as a hate crime.

@Glowcat: The reason I single out South Africa is because it's the most extreme case for this brand of rape. It might be the most extreme case in terms of all forms of rape per capita, but almost all statistics about the prevalence of rape world-wide are questionable, facing differing standards (for example, in some jurisdictions if you're raped by your partner numerous times but only report it once, it's legally considered one rape) and chronic under-reporting due to social stigma.

I don't believe there's evidence that all areas have a rape culture, nor all groups. Each culture/subculture, however you define that, has its own perception of rape and the perception that there's this monolithic rape cult on a global scale (not saying you're saying that, it's just a popular perception) strikes me as counterproductive to addressing what issues we feasibly can.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2014, 01:50:29 pm by MDFification »
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Arx

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #128 on: May 26, 2014, 01:49:53 pm »

Thanks for the link. The fact that a lot of it is township culture explains why I didn't know about it. I am frequently disturbed by how differently different parts of the country work...
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Vector

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #129 on: May 26, 2014, 01:59:17 pm »

.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2018, 11:14:38 am by Vector »
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Sappho

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #130 on: May 26, 2014, 02:20:47 pm »

I was planning to avoid looking in this topic because it’s a sensitive subject for me. Now, I’ve decided that I do have something to say, and although I have no interest in getting involved in a conversation about rape culture (again, very sensitive subject for me), I’m just going to go ahead and leave my comments about the original topic of this thread right here.

Basically, I just want to ask the majority of the folks on here to take a moment to imagine something. I mean, really, no arguments, no anger, just… close your eyes for a moment and allow yourself to imagine actually being in one of these situations.

Spoiler: If you’re male… (click to show/hide)


Spoiler: If you’re white… (click to show/hide)

There are plenty of other types of diversity, but you get the idea.

The point here is, if you’re in the majority, it’s easy to say “I don’t see any problem here. I don’t see why it matters.” It’s not enough to look for a reason why more diverse games would be objectively better for *you*, or why they might require diversity in order to succeed. That’s not the point. The point is that for everyone who isn’t just like you, games are fucking ridiculous. Playing a game where you can’t relate to any of the characters is a fundamentally different experience than playing one where you can. If you’re in the majority, you probably haven’t ever really been forced to experience that.

I don’t think people who say “games don’t need more diversity” are calling for ignorance or racism or sexism or any of that. I think it’s just a sign that they honestly don’t understand the issue at hand. Which is not their fault. You don’t choose to be in the majority any more than to be in the minority. But if you want to have a fair, rational, balanced conversation on this topic, it’s absolutely necessary to try to feel empathy for the other side. You MUST find a way to empathize. This doesn’t mean imagining a world with more diverse game characters and saying “yeah, so what? I don’t see that making any difference (to me).” It means imagining a world where YOU are in the minority, and everyone in the majority tells you that you don’t deserve to relate to your games the way they do.

As a non-heterosexual female who’s been gaming since the 80s, I fall into several minorities at the same time. I’ve spent my life having to play male characters, or scantily clad females that I find revolting. (When a man gets to choose his character’s facial hair, a woman gets to choose her MAKEUP. *shudder*) I’ve been forced to empathize with white heterosexual cis males my entire life, and having that empathy is not a bad thing. But they’ve never been forced to empathize with me. That needs to change. Not having empathy with an entire group of people makes it possible for the kind of “rape culture” you’ve all been discussing to exist.

That is all.

palsch

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #131 on: May 26, 2014, 02:27:22 pm »

MDFification, I have a couple of substantial issues with your post. Going to spoiler this for extended discussion of rape.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Late edit:
Complete tangent to the tangent, but an interesting article from an unexpected angle. Robert Rodriguez On Why He Launched a TV Network To Reflect Diversity In Front of And Behind The Camera.
Quote
When I was doing "Spy Kids," the Weinsteins asked me -- not that they were being jerks at all, they were just wondering -- "Why are you making the characters Hispanic? It doesn't make any sense, isn't this supposed to be for everybody?" "Well, it's based on my family."

They'd just never seen it. Hollywood is very much... no one wants to do it first, because what if they screw up? If someone else does it first and it's successful, then that's something we can imitate. It just makes business sense for people not to constantly be putting themselves out there.

[Weinstein] said that, and it really put me on the spot to come up with a reason. "Why not just give them American names? It's America, it will confuse people." I said "They are American -- they're based on my family, so they're Hispanic, but they're going to be speaking in English. It's going to be for everybody." But no one had done it before, so there was nothing to point to.

"But why?" They couldn't understand why I was doing it that way, and I couldn't come up with a good answer. And I realized, wow, if I wasn't Hispanic, I would have folded, I would have changed the name. That's why there weren't more scripts like that. Somebody would have asked them at some point "Why are you doing it that way?"
« Last Edit: May 26, 2014, 02:50:15 pm by palsch »
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MDFification

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #132 on: May 26, 2014, 03:09:13 pm »

@palsch
Sorry if my post implied sex with an impaired person isn't really rape. I've got plenty of friends who've had sex while drunk; for some people it was hardly a bump in the road, but for others it was devastating. You can't get consent from someone who isn't sober, the same way you can't really get consent from someone who isn't mentally/emotionally mature enough to evaluate the risks of sex.
Where I live, most of the sentiments expressed in the statistics you quoted are unthinkable. I realize fully that most people aren't fortunate enough to live somewhere like that.

@Vector
I'm not American, but those statistics still horrify me.
Equating cat-calling with rape is something I've never seen a person who wasn't a living example of Poe's Law say. I'm not trying to tell people who've been raped how they should feel, and appologize if it came off like that. I just think that people who feel vulnerable/live in a culture of fear suffer more trauma when victimized than people who feel empowered, and minimizing trauma to people is something we have no reason not to do.
Spoilers in case of triggering; my experience
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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Glowcat

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #133 on: May 26, 2014, 03:10:19 pm »

Basically, I just want to ask the majority of the folks on here to take a moment to imagine something. I mean, really, no arguments, no anger, just… close your eyes for a moment and allow yourself to imagine actually being in one of these situations.

Spoiler: If you’re male… (click to show/hide)


Spoiler: If you’re white… (click to show/hide)

There are plenty of other types of diversity, but you get the idea.

Building off that...

Unfortunately simply imagining isn't enough, because while people might be able to temporarily imagine hypothetical scenarios where they're in a minority they never get a sense for being trapped in it.
And neither do they get the full sense of marginalization that happens across society. This is why they'd even put for "make your own games" as a solution when the systems which control the production of games tends to overwhelmingly favor the dominant group. Sure, obscure Indie games can shuck off the mold, but the criticism around these issues need to be (imo) directed at AAA games and their production since those games have the largest reach.

An example of why hypotheticals aren't enough by themselves: Men don't tend to understand the difference between sexual objectifying and sexual desire, so when women object to constant sexualized imagery crafted for the male gaze they dismiss such concerns based on not ever experiencing that dehumanizing influence. They see it all under an umbrella of "sexiness" and conflate expressing one's own sexuality or recognizing it with having one's sexuality and body appropriated for heterosexual male titillation. It's not that women can choose to play slutty avatars but rather that they're forced to, and they're forced because the game wishes to play to heterosexual male demographics.
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MDFification

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Re: Video Games and the Fun-Diversity Dichotomy
« Reply #134 on: May 26, 2014, 03:22:39 pm »

An example of why hypotheticals aren't enough by themselves: Men don't tend to understand the difference between sexual objectifying and sexual desire, so when women object to constant sexualized imagery crafted for the male gaze they dismiss such concerns based on not ever experiencing that dehumanizing influence. They see it all under an umbrella of "sexiness" and conflate expressing one's own sexuality or recognizing it with having one's sexuality and body appropriated for heterosexual male titillation. It's not that women can choose to play slutty avatars but rather that they're forced to, and they're forced because the game wishes to play to heterosexual male demographics.

Regrettably, this is all true. There is sexual dimorphism in the brain; female sexuality is flat-out more complicated and poorly understood (by science; while male arousal can be reliably predicted, predicting female arousal is a lot less reliable) than male sexuality. Society tends to look at sexuality in general through a male lens, which doesn't make sense; women have a lot more factors at play in their arousal, so what is to males not a big deal is to females trivializing and objectifying.
Sauce, more sauce and yet more sauce.

It can't help that society caters so much more to male sexuality than female sexuality, but men really don't and won't get it. If males were in the place of females for sexual objectification, they really wouldn't mind all that much; to us its probably more understandable since our minds work that way anyway.
Not to trivialize male sexuality; we're not just sex machines. We have feeling, experience romantic love, and value our relationships just as much as women do. There's just... kind of a disconnect for men between love and sex. We still need and are capable of both, but they're not so intertwined.

Neither sex (some individuals, maybe) can really get inside the others head very well in this area. It makes it hard for the both of us to be respectful. Men are trained form birth to think they're lesser if they actually acknowledge their emotions and don't just ignore and repress negative feeling (besides anger), of course, and being disrespected from a position of strength is nowhere near as serious of a deal.

« Last Edit: May 26, 2014, 03:24:16 pm by MDFification »
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