Actually Carlin didn't find rape to be funny. He found jokes about rape to be funny when phrased properly. I personally see no way to implement rape in the prison and not violate Carlin's Law of Rape Jokes. It has no real comedic value, it would serve no purpose.
This is beside the point, but "Rape Can Be Funny" is the exact name of track four on George Carlin's Explicit Lyrics CD. That's what I'm referring to when I say George Carlin's "Rape can be funny" skit. I quote from the track: "Fuck you, I think it's hilarious. How do you like that? I can prove to you that rape is funny." He later used what according to him was an actual story from a newspaper involving a home invasion to help prove his point. I didn't laugh.
Why couldn't we just have the prison without the rape? Let's assume it's abstracted out.
We can, and that's what I'm intending to do.
I don't quite see how it is perfectly okay to have a mini-game where you forcibly BRAINWASH people (a form of "mindrape"), but displaying the text "You got raped" is totally off limits.
How many potential players of LCS are victims of kidnapping, brainwashing, or political violence? How many even know someone who was? Yes, occasionally you'll see kidnappings on television, but it's very rare in America. LCS is set in an extremely stable country with very little political violence, and that keeps things a little silly when you step back, even if the action is played serious. Though themes in LCS cover a lot of horrific things, but most of them are sufficiently rare in the setting LCS takes place in, and among the target demographic, that they can keep it at arm's length.
The same isn't true of rape. Political violence is very rare. Sexual violence is not. Many people who have played, will play, or might play LCS have been or know someone who has been the victim of rape or other sexual violence. While for some people who will play this game, rape may be a distant thing, even funny to them, for others, it's painfully close to home.
I can guarantee you that if you add rape to LCS, a number of people would stop playing the game, myself included. In fact, I'd likely stop working on it.
That's the difference.