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Japanese ESRB Bans Rape Depiction In Games
eldavojohn writes "The Ethics Organization of Computer Software (EOCS), now 233 companies strong, and met in Tokyo yesterday to ban a controversial title from Japan known as RapeLay, an eroge game (something much more adult than the more popular dating simulators). It's gotten a lot of press as reviewers have noted at one point the player must force sex on a 12-year-old. More importantly, the large ($353 million annually) adult game industry in Japan will now need to stay away from rape in their games if they wish to remain a member of EOCS. RapeLay seems to be available on Amazon's UK and JP sites, sparking outrage and causing a former US Ambassador to Japan to write an editorial criticizing Japan, saying, 'Only Japan allows people to possess these hideous images without penalty. Six of the G-7 countries have found ways to protect the innocent from being prosecuted for possession of child pornography. Is it not time for Japan to find a way to punish the guilty?' Singapore's Straits Times has more details, pointing out that it's still not illegal to possess these materials in Japan. We discussed this and other games last month in an editorial."
Damn, the torrenting of this game is gonna skyrocket after the article. Teh forbidden fruit in action.
Because oh no, those poor imaginary cartoon characters need judicial protection!
Won't someone think of the imaginary children?
Since when has Slashdot trumpeted fascism? Now we're cheering outlawing things because they're offensive?
wellbeing of fictional 12-year-old? who cares!
rape game is disturbing, but hardly hurting anyone.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
Raping a character in a video game is no more real than killing said character. At what point will we become liable for murder when playing a shooter? Put simply:
There's no crime here, asshole. The only thing anyone is guilty of here, is pandering.
His point was, if this pornographic material spreads the ideology that women are sexual objects existing only for men's pleasure, which causes women to self-censor themselves and their ideas due to peer pressure, fear, or general brain washing, then it must be banned.
Sorry, I missed that. Can you explain the argument more? Cause all I'm seeing here is the old "frame it the way I see it, then ban it" bullshit that you criticized earlier in your comment.
Example: If a carnivore diet spreads the ideology that animals exist only for human consumption, which causes vegetarians to self-censor themselves and their ideas due to peer pressure, fear, or general brain washing, then it must be banned.
Example: If football spreads the ideology that physical violence is something men should be willing to tolerate and causes them to self-censor their outrage and appeal for legislative relief due to peer pressure, fear, or general brain washing, then it must be banned.
The argument is that if any activity is effective at spreading some perceived negative idea then it should be banned. So give me the activity you want banned and I'll frame you an negative idea you can use to attack it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Let's go back to the old NES days. The only thing that ever made people do was eat mushrooms and beat the shit outta turtles. Those were the days, young prepubescent CGI girls could safely wander the streets.
90% of video games involve depictions of violent crime, murder, war. Most people (with obvious exceptions, Jack Thompson), accept that they are FICTION.
Argue that these are disgusting, encourage degradation of women: don't say that they are in themselves criminal.
"Punish the guilty". Nice turn of phrase. Just declare something you don't like is criminal, assume anyone charged with looking at it is "guilty", and proceed directly to punishment.
Of course, I'd be happy to explain more. But, before I dive into this, let me note that I'm not totally sure if I agree with my professor. As a good student, I'm going to consider his opinion (and in this case, argue it), but not necessarily accept it as the truth.
Your examples point to a single idea (often capable of being practised alone) being put down. Example: The idea spreads that animals only exist for consumption, therefore vegetarians back down and self-censor themselves. The issue is, this is an ideological disagreement, not a discrimination issue. The idea is spreading contrary Vegetarian beliefs not existence and right/capability to express an opinion. Should the meat eaters get violent in repressing vegetarians, this is an issue entirely separate from whether or not to be carnivore/herbivore/omnivore.
The basic idea is, if you're spreading material that puts down a group of society specifically, not their ideas, but them, my right to say that under free speech is questionable at best. If I somehow begin spreading movies, using paid actors acting of their own free will, declaring the inferiority of "niggers," while not necessarily doing anything violent, most people would complain. However, should my movies/shows become super popular to the point where blacks begin to self-silence themselves because they are beginning to buy into the opinion that "those niggers" are incapable of intelligent thought, this would be extremely bad. Specifically, society is severely hurt when any major adult sector (male, female, black, white, asian, whatever) is silenced for any reason, self or otherwise.
Now, the important question when considering my professors point is, do women consider themselves to be less important in modern society due to the presence of violent pornography and these rape games? I honestly don't know. Sociology questions like this tend to be rather tricky. I would say, in the current atmosphere where most (non frat-boys) are ashamed to admit their usage of kinky/violent porn/videogames, no. If at any point it becomes normal for polite men in society to talk about their rape games, using lewd and aggressive terms towards the digital other gender, then we would begin to have an issue.
Perhaps this US ambassador should consider the comparitive figures for actual rape of real people who really exist in America and Japan.
Surely this difference is far too big to be explained purely as a reporting bias. 34.20 compared to 1.48 per 100,000 people, first figures I found. It's pretty clear that giving potential rapists the ability to do so in a fictional environment where they do not hurt any real people is a good way of making them less likely to do it for real. "Don't hurt anyone, that would be bad" is a better way of getting people not to hurt anyone than "revealing your fantasies makes you damned whether you hurt anyone or not."
If I somehow begin spreading movies, using paid actors acting of their own free will, declaring the inferiority of "niggers," while not necessarily doing anything violent, most people would complain.
And rightfully so, but to ban the production of such films would be against the concept of freedom of speech. Ironically, self-censorship is exactly what has caused the withering away of such stereotyping.. yet your professor's argument is that self-censorship is something we should avoid, and do so at the expense of freedom of speech. Overcoming fear and peer pressure has always been a barrier to saying anything worth saying and without free speech protection we're just adding another barrier. The most effective measure to speech you don't like is not banning it, but speaking out against it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I'm normally not a fan of government getting their tentacles into everything but I suppose in this instance turnabout is fair play.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
In order for something to be a crime, it must be demonstrated that it causes harm, suffering, or loss. There has to be a victim. Now, the victim could be argued to be society as a whole, but I've not seen any actual proof that rape games make people rape or violent games make people violent.
I have played the game mentioned in TFA out of curiosity. It was linked to on a forum I frequent. It wasn't disturbing to me at all because I took it for what it is: fiction. Fictional depictions of death don't disturb me either, and I think any reasonable person would consider death worse than rape.
Rape is terrible, so is murder. Those crimes are even more disturbing and tragic when they happen to children. But that's not these people are arguing against. Raping children (or anyone) is ALREADY illegal. The opponents of this game are not arguing against rape, they are arguing against free speech but are confusing the debate by painting the other side as being pro-rape. Stop confusing the issue and argue on the facts. You are talking about banning a form of expression. What is being expressed is a terrible thing, yes, but freedom of speech doesn't just protect things you find agreeable. Polite speech doesn't require protection.
Censorship is always worse than what is being censored.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
I think pretending we don't have these fantasies is unhealthy, and someone repressing their sexual feelings probably contributes to an inability to channel their more violent desires into harmless channels. If the thought of raping a schoolgirl turns you on - buy your wife a uniform and play together. More likely than not (55% chance) she's into the same thing.
IMHO: Fantasizing about rape is no more likely to make you a rapist, than reading SF novels will make you an astronaut.
Nice job. This is what I always say as well. I love GTA, but am absolutely against real violence. I've never been in a fight, always preferring to find a peaceful way out. I certainly don't steal cars and use them to run over pedestrians, despite that being one of my giddy pleasures in GTA (GTA is satire, folks).
I'll go one up, though.
I've actually played the game in question, to see what the fuss was about.
It's the silliest, most pathetic thing I've ever seen. It's not even fun. It's not even funny. It's just dumb. It didn't make me want to feel 12-year-olds up on the train; it made me want to geek-slap whatever losers thought it up. I suspect that the only people who play it are the creepy shut-in otakus that populate the greasy periphery of Japanese culture. They hate women because they haven't figured out that being unwashed, boring, and lacking any interest in society doesn't really result in chicks flocking to your door.
There is no reason to ban much of anything. I'm all about coming down like the wrath of god on people who abuse children and/or take pictures of it, but I can't see how those pictures make the problem worse. I think that we all get pissed off at what is represented in those pictures and in games like this, and, lacking an appropriate outlet, we go after the easy target: the people who have the stuff. It's ridiculous, even when we're talking about actual images of actual people.
If we want child pornography to be illegal (we do!), then you go after the people who make it. If we want drugs to be illegal (we do--for some of them), then we need to go after the people who provide them. If we want to determine some entertainment to be obscene (I don't have a problem with that, actually), then, once again, we really only need to concern ourselves with those who produce it. All these arguments that people consuming or possessing these things we don't like is the problem because it leads to this, that, and the other are bunk, as far as I can tell. It's just a lot easier to find these people, because there are so many of them, so it looks like something is being done.
What's being done, however, is a bunch of probably-harmless losers getting their lives ruined and then forced to live on the public dime in jail. It's ridiculous. Even more so when we're talking about cartoon people.
"Those who have those urges towards children may feel prodded seeing the depicted acts to try them in the real world."
Research suggests otherwise. People need a harmless and legal outlet for their urges; for teleiophilic adults, options include sex with another consenting adult or adult pornography for those who can't find a partner. For paedophiles, the already short list of harmless and legal outlets is becoming ever shorter due to the moral crusaders who seek to ban everything which they find offensive. Shotacon/lolicon are one of the few outlets which are still legally available in some countries (although cartoons are quickly being criminalised). If you ban everything which may arouse paedophiles, you'll be left with people who simply ignore the law or people who are dangerously bitter, angry and hostile towards society.
Policy advisors would benefit from actually doing research with responsible paedophiles rather than making assumptions about the effects of certain stimuli. Listening to childrens' charities is a huge mistake, as charities have a motivation to make things worse in order to encourage further donations from naive, shallow citizens.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
Experienced tentacle monster. Will rape for food.
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