Post by redonihunter in Fighting against cowardace. The removal of No Mercy as pressured by an ANTI LGBT group.

Viewing post in Fighting against cowardace. The removal of No Mercy as pressured by an ANTI LGBT group.

OP is on a rant. I only understand half of it. But some things like that picture with the kid playing games and getting it from the adults and the young adult getting it from the older people with the same BS in different words, is how I see the situation. I saw it happen. I was there. ~~3000 years ago.~~

The main evidence that I have presented so far is logical: that if a person uses SA as entertainment, they must accept that it is entertaining, which means that they must, on some level, view it as acceptable.

That is not evidence. That is your hypothesis how this works. Exchange SA for murder and apply your hypothesis to all those crime tv shows. Crime is popular entertainment since like forever. So society should have accepted it long ago as socially acceptable. Is this so? No. Hypothesis rejected.

How would playing a game suppress such urges?

How it might do so? You play the game and control the events. You are playing. A pretend sitation in a safe environment. You do a bad thing. You might snigger and lough at the absurdity. Or you might feel bad for hurting some imaginary pixels. Either way, you might take away from it, how you would react in a real sitation and then have fun in the unreal situation and fool around. Not unlike some people go over imaginary discussions while in the shower.

the idea of "blowing off steam" to suppress desires has been accepted as false and damaging

Care to link me to some data about that? And what kind of desires are we talking about. I am not asserting that clinically insane mass rapists can cure their urges with that. I am merely protesting your assertion that playing such a game creates those urges or creates a demand for more, and the data I saw and my own experiences with games suggest that if any, there is the opposite effect of what you described. I for sure do not feel the urge to murder people. And I find guns abhorent. But willingly engage with them in a (virtual) play situation.

Secondly, I demonstrated that feeding addictive behaviors leads that desire to increase

Your premise is an already addicted person and you did not demonstrate, you asserted. Also, addicted to what? SA? Playing games?

The connection you try to make, is, that being addicted to a game with fictional content (or playing that game) will leap over to being addicted, or even try out that thing in real life.

But there is nothing "impossible" about sexually assaulting someone. It can be done. This is an important distinction.

Murder is also very possible. Or stealing cars like in GTA. Wait, so if SA is happening to furry bunnies, it would be ok? It is a game! People know that they play a game. It is a bit condescending to only allow them to see the difference, if it is about Orcs, but not allow them to see the difference, if it is about regular humans.

But this is why I don't think statistics can really tell us the full story. Why did you decide to round to x10? Seems pretty arbitrary to me.

It is. But saying x10 much is easier as 1.34 / 41.8, and it catches more countries. Actual numbers are here https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country

You can feed a lot of cultural and statistical bias into those numbers to even them out. But if video games about the crimes are relevant here, I would expect the numbers to be a lot closer together, or rather expect the Japanese number to be bigger and not to be x31 smaller. So I either accept that the video games are not relevant here, or I accept that it has the opposite effect of what you claim.

I do not know the situaion in other countries in regards to the availablility of such video games. Are they very popular in Britain maybe, because they have more than double the amount than the US?

You talk about the "novelty factor" wearing off. This means it becomes normal.

No. It does not become normal in real life! It becomes a seen thing in such games. It's novelty bonus fades. It contributes less to the entertainment.

We could go back and forth sending each other links to studies supporting our opinions for a very long time, and never get anywhere.

I am awaiting a link to something that would support that connection you try to establish. It did not work for fps games decades ago. And for SA specifically, the data contradicts the assertion. The place where those games are known to be readily available for adults has one of the lowest SA rates on the planet.

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Ho88it206 days ago (1 edit)

I see that LOTR reference :D

"That is not evidence. That is your hypothesis how this works. Exchange SA for murder and apply your hypothesis to all those crime tv shows. Crime is popular entertainment since like forever. So society should have accepted it long ago as socially acceptable. Is this so? No. Hypothesis rejected."

It is not empirical evidence. But I am not using the scientific method here because we are not conducting a scientific experiment, so no, this is not a hypothesis. It is a fundamental point that if you find something truly unacceptable, you will not do it. If someone is disgusted by spiders and finds their presence truly unacceptable, they will never get a pet tarantula, nor will they ever knowingly and willingly touch a spider. If they did so, then they would be accepting the presence of the spider in the very act of getting the pet. The same applies with SA. In the very act of entertaining yourself with a SA game, you are finding its contents (SA) acceptable. This is one main reason why I think itchio's removal of this game was acceptable: to encourage people not to accept SA.

"How it might do so? You play the game and control the events. You are playing. A pretend sitation in a safe environment. You do a bad thing. You might snigger and lough at the absurdity. Or you might feel bad for hurting some imaginary pixels. Either way, you might take away from it, how you would react in a real sitation and then have fun in the unreal situation and fool around. Not unlike some people go over imaginary discussions while in the shower"

Respectfully, I do not think this is how people are playing this game, and that you might be being a little intentionally obtuse. No one is snickering and laughing there way through this game because it is so absurd and amusing. And no on is playing it to try to learn about how they would react in this real life situation. They are playing it to masturbate, to fantasize. How many players of this game do you think are selecting the option to refrain from having forcible sex with the character in the game?

"Care to link me to some data about that? And what kind of desires are we talking about. I am not asserting that clinically insane mass rapists can cure their urges with that. I am merely protesting your assertion that playing such a game creates those urges or creates a demand for more, and the data I saw and my own experiences with games suggest that if any, there is the opposite effect of what you described. I for sure do not feel the urge to murder people. And I find guns abhorent. But willingly engage with them in a (virtual) play situation."

Perhaps I worded my claim a too strongly in my last message. But the whole idea of "blowing off steam" to suppress perversions (his term!) is rooted in Freudian psychology, which has been criticized for years for being pseudoscientific. And, even in Freudian psychology, there are nuances to this idea that phrase "blowing off steam" does not adequately cover. I encourage you to look into the widespread criticisms and nuances of [Freudian psychology catharsis theory] if you are interested in this (in the [] would be a good search term). I won't be dropping a ton of links, but the abstract of this paper might provide a decent starting point: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1985-26058-001

Additionally, I clarified that playing a game like this would not make all players desire to commit sexual assault. But it has an effect of exacerbating those tastes particularly in those who already show tendencies toward violence.

"Your premise is an already addicted person and you did not demonstrate, you asserted. Also, addicted to what? SA? Playing games?

The connection you try to make, is, that being addicted to a game with fictional content (or playing that game) will leap over to being addicted, or even try out that thing in real life. "

But how do people get addicted to things? Do they just magically wake up addicted to drugs or cigarettes or porn or anything? No, they become addicted by using those things. Have you every heard of an alcoholic who had never had alcohol? The connection I am making is that playing a pornographic game (porn is addictive) that contains sexual assault can lead people to follow that path that most addictions take (needing more to satisfy), and that that pattern, especially for those with other risk factors, can lead them to finding sexual assault acceptable, either by doing it themselves, or by not reacting when they know it has been done by others.

"Murder is also very possible. Or stealing cars like in GTA. Wait, so if SA is happening to furry bunnies, it would be ok? It is a game! People know that they play a game. It is a bit condescending to only allow them to see the difference, if it is about Orcs, but not allow them to see the difference, if it is about regular humans."

You didn't really demonstrate any problem with the point of realism being a factor. Something being more realistic makes it easier to immerse yourself in that fantasy. Being immersed in a fantasy about killing creatures that aren't real is one thing, being immersed in a fantasy about committing SA or a school shooting, like my point was talking about, is far worse.

And no, sexually assaulting furry bunnies is gross and certainly not ok.

It is. But saying x10 much is easier as 1.34 / 41.8, and it catches more countries. Actual numbers are here https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country

I do not know the situaion in other countries in regards to the availablility of such video games. Are they very popular in Britain maybe, because they have more than double the amount than the US?

Anything you feed in is arbitrary though. It's just what you decided to feed in. You can't possibly accurately feed all the factors in. Like I said, what about underreporting? What about the fact that the west is much more open about sex? What about the millions of other factors that determine the results that appear on that website? Did you read the disclaimer on the site you linked to under the heading "The Challenge of Tracking Down Truthful Rape Statistics"? That makes the point I am trying to make pretty well. Given all those factors, it makes sense that the impact of video games would be present but not visible, like a drop of rain in the ocean during a hurricane.

"No. It does not become normal in real life! It becomes a seen thing in such games. It's novelty bonus fades. It contributes less to the entertainment. "

This goes back to what I said before. What you do for entertainment is a part of your "real life", and it affects your perceptions and way of seeing the world. It's not fake, you really did participate in that entertainment. You are not a different person when you are entertaining yourself than you are elsewhere.

"I am awaiting a link to something that would support that connection you try to establish. It did not work for fps games decades ago. And for SA specifically, the data contradicts the assertion. The place where those games are known to be readily available for adults has one of the lowest SA rates on the planet."

I will provide a few resources here, but as I said before, I will not go back and forth playing the statistics game. I do this so you see that there is support for out there for my link between using sexual assault for entertainment and accepting it in real life. Remember that science and statistics cannot tell you if the results of playing this game are good or bad, it can only observe trends based on a limited set of variables. We need to use our logic, common sense, and moral/ethical judgement to decide what to do with the trends that we pull out of them. And, we can notice cause and effect using logic without some kind of scientific experiment.

Nevertheless, here are some studies to show that there is scientific evidence supporting a link between sexualized video games and real-life sexual behavior, which leads naturally into my more specific claim about sexual assault:

Effects of sexualized video games on online sexual harassment (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ab.21811)
Playing a Videogame with a Sexualized Female Character Increases Adolescents' Rape Myth Acceptance and Tolerance Toward Sexual Harassment (https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/g4h.2014.0055)
Violence Against Women in Video Games: A Prequel or Sequel to Rape Myth Acceptance?(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260512441078)

So there, you have some links to go through. And I have already addressed your claim about Japan. You cannot possibly accurately account for all the variables in national SA stats, therefore, your claim that the Japanese rape games have no impact (or no impact causing rates of SA to go up) on the SA stats relative to other countries has no compelling evidence to support it.

Again, all these negative impacts of a SA game on the players are only part of the point. The other part is again, that itchio is allowed to, and indeed is right in, removing this game from their site.

One final thought. This is a bit of an emotional argument, but I think it can tell us something. I will assume you are a man. Imagine yourself in this scenario: Imagine you are someone who plays this game. Now, imagine going to a woman close to you, like your mother, or girlfriend, or sister, etc. and trying to explain how you entertain yourself by playing a game where you sexually assault a woman. A woman who, by what I've heard, is your stepmother. Doesn't sound like a pleasant conversation. She would likely feel disrespected, creeped out, disgusted, and, if she cares about you, would likely be quite worried about you. And how would you feel doing it? Would that not be awkward and shameful? I think those natural emotions that every normal person would have should tell us something about how we should perceive a game like this, and whether we should play it.

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redonihunter202 days ago

But I am not using the scientific method here because we are not conducting a scientific experiment, so no, this is not a hypothesis.

You do not need to do "an experiment", to have a hypothesis. You claim something works a certain way. So you propose there is a mechanism at work. That is a hypothesis. No matter how you would call it.

Are you proposing also, that your hypothetical mechanism is unique to the example at hand? If not, your mechanism should be at work at other situations. It is not evident to me, that this is so. So I recect your hypothetical mechanism. Psychology actually is a science. If that mechanism exists, maybe you can point me to an article explaining the mechanism. And real psychologists would have used scientific methods to study that mechanism, btw.

I do not think this is how people are playing this game, and that you might be being a little intentionally obtuse.

That is the thing. You only imagine how or why people play the game. And you base your reasoning based on that assumption. But ultimately you do not know. Actually, it does not even matter why or how they really play it. The mechanism you propose how that game existing and being played to do harm in the real world are just not true. This was debunked decades ago with the ego shooters.

English is not my native language, so I am unsure what you mean with obtuse. If you mean playing dumb by it, no I am not playing dumb. You could not imagine a situation different from your assumptions, so I provided one when asked.

I could even unfairly go further and unfoundedly proclaim that playing the game reduces SA crimes by a mechanims that I would proclaim does exist. And you could use my own arguments against me. Our assumptions about how this works and why people play it are assumptions. Basing calls for action on such assumptions is unsound. To not play the game myself, I do not need proof. To call for a platform or the government to ban it, I would want proof. Solid proof. It is too easy to just ban everything you do not like. And some people indeed try to do so. I am offended, therefore I am right, is a mentallity I despise.

No one is snickering and laughing there way through this game because it is so absurd and amusing. How do you know? You can't know that.

And no on is playing it to try to learn about how they would react in this real life situation. I did not claim that people are playing the game with that intention. You are misrepresenting what I wrote. You asked how a hypothetical mechanism to supress urges could work. And I outlined how you would mentally deal with such situations in a safe environment of playing a game. Like you can have an imaginary conversation while having a shower.

So yeah, maybe they are playing it to masturbate, (which is also only an assumption), but they also might learn something about how they feel about a topic. And maybe confirm that they reject it in real life, but tolerate it in a fictional setting. (You asked for a mechanism. I provided one!). Oh, and about that assumption with the masturbation, they might also play the game to "preheat" with kinky fictional taboo things for the deed with their partner.

catharsis theory. That would be therapy for those clinically disturbed people I specifically said I am not talking about. You proposed some sort of build up, where people playing the game would develop and increase an urge. Blowing off steam would mean to decrease the urge. Both mechanism are equally unfounded without further proof. They are claims being made. It might be so for some and completely different for others. It might even cancel out. Point is, your way of thinking is not the only possible way. You are not right, just because you came up with a mechanism that sounds plausible to you.

But it has an effect of exacerbating those tastes particularly in those who already show tendencies toward violence. Unfounded. Cite proof for that mechanism. Or I can equally unfoundedly claim that it suppresses such tendencies. Playing games can decrease your stress. If you are stressed out, you might resort to violence if provoked. If your stress level is lower, that danger is lower. So playing games can lower violent behaviour. (The other half is, that playing games can also increase your stress. Overall I assume that the net effect is lowering stress, since it is a recreational activity. In other words, we would not do it, if it were not fun.)

No, they become addicted by using those things. Have you every heard of an alcoholic who had never had alcohol? The connection I am making is that playing a pornographic game (porn is addictive) that contains sexual assault can lead people to follow that path that most addictions take (needing more to satisfy), and that that pattern

That is not true. You need a thing that is addictive to begin with. Porn is not. Alcohol is. Trivially you can get ~~addicted~~ obsessed with anything. I want to try another absurdity argument. If porn is addictive, it stands to reason that sex is. So are married couples not actually in love with each other, but addicted to each other?

So not only is your premise is wrong about games being addictve as such, but also your following mechanism of wanting more and more and mostly fallacious is the step you make into the real world. If someone would fall to obsession ("addiction") with playing porn games, they would want more games. Better games. Games that cater to their tastes better. Or play the game a lot. They would not suddenly being addicted to the things depicted in the game. Why should they? Where does this step in logic come from? It does not work that way! If you think so, find actual scientists that wrote about it. It would be hell of a feast for psychologists, if it were true. They would be famous for proving such a thing and all sorts of content restrictions could be made with scientific reasoning! Laws would be named after them.

I will have to read your links at a later time as I have other things to attend to now.

Your appeal to emotion at the end is what I am complaining about:

Fiction is not reality, but it is easier to fight. Why fight how women are treated in certain countries, if you can have an easy win by bashing an adult game? Who would publicly proclaim to like and play the game? So, not much opposition to be expected and making the world better by bashing video games it is.

Bashing the video games is not the solution to the world's problems. Bashing the real world liars that manipulate people might solve some problems. It sure would help if people look out for faulty reasoning and ask again and again. So much in real world actual news is based on one or another person in power telling the public bascially lies. And they believe it because of emotion or because it fits their personal views.

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Ho88it200 days ago

As I mentioned, this will likely be my last response, then you can have the final word if you wish.

But I am not using the scientific method here because we are not conducting a scientific experiment, so no, this is not a hypothesis.

I think you missed the point. It is not a hypothesis because it is not something that needs further investigation. It is not really something you can reject based on the gathering of evidence because it follows directly and entirely from the definitions of the words I used. Did you see the point I made about the pet spider? By getting the pet spider, they are accepting the presence of a spider. Meaning that they do not find the presence of the spider unacceptable by the very definitions of the words. If you entertain yourself with depictions of sexual assault, you are accepting the presence of sexual assault (accepting here means saying "it's acceptable", or appropriate, or not bad enough to utterly reject). The same logic applies. And it doesn't matter if it is a depiction of fictional events or not in this case because without the real events in the background, the fictional scene would have no meaning. The spirit of the act is present in a depiction of sexual assault in a way that it would not be, say, in the presence of a picture of a spider.

I do not think this is how people are playing this game, and that you might be being a little intentionally obtuse.

That is the thing. You only imagine how or why people play the game. And you base your reasoning based on that assumption

...

with kinky fictional taboo things for the deed with their partner.

The players of this game are obviously masturbating to it and using it to engage in sexual fantasy. That's the point of the game. I guess that is an "assumption", but it is an obviously true one. Like assuming that if there are dark, stormy clouds above, it will rain. When people look at porn, they are usually masturbating to it, but they are nearly always at least getting sexual thrills from it. That's what I meant by obtuse, or yes, playing dumb. If you truly don't think that this is why people are playing the game, it's hard to move the conversation on from there.

On catharsis theory, my entire point was the the idea of "blowing off steam" by playing a game like this to reduce likelihood of real-life sexual assault is, at best, based in Freudian pseudoscience. It was in response to a claim about using a game like this to vent these desires. I claim nothing more than its basis in pseudoscience, not hard science. You, meanwhile, in your next paragraph, seem to affirm this pseudoscience when you talk about venting stress.

"But it has an effect of exacerbating those tastes particularly in those who already show tendencies toward violence. Unfounded. Cite proof for that mechanism. Or I can equally unfoundedly claim that it suppresses such tendencies. Playing games can decrease your stress. If you are stressed out, you might resort to violence if provoked. If your stress level is lower, that danger is lower. So playing games can lower violent behaviour. (The other half is, that playing games can also increase your stress. Overall I assume that the net effect is lowering stress, since it is a recreational activity. In other words, we would not do it, if it were not fun.)"

This is a pretty basic principle in criminology. People who possess multiple factors that lead towards criminality are more likely to engage in criminality.

But that quote is actually besides the point of my argument at large. It is not only about a game making you more likely to commit sexual assault, but it is also about a game influencing thoughts of players to make them more accepting of sexual assault in general, even if not committed by them. You haven't shown any flaws in my case for SA video games doing this, and I have illustrated repeatedly how entertaining yourself with SA makes you more accepting of it, and how being accepting of something makes you more likely to be alright with it happening. All you've done is say, "this other thing might be true" using logic that I thereafter demonstrated problems with, and handwave that may claim has been debunked in the past without truly engaging with the points I am making.

Additionally, you basically just described that cathartic "blowing off steam" effect I mentioned earlier in your talk about stress, which as I mentioned, is pseudoscientific.

No, they become addicted by using those things. Have you every heard of an alcoholic who had never had alcohol? The connection I am making is that playing a pornographic game (porn is addictive) that contains sexual assault can lead people to follow that path that most addictions take (needing more to satisfy), and that that pattern

Many would disagree with you on porn being addictive. But let's not say addicted, let's go with obsessed. The point still stands. You don't become obsessed with something you have never had or seen before. The obsession has to start with some kind of contact. How can you be obsessed with something you don't know exists?

As for your point on married couples, you are right: comparing porn addiction to marriage is absurd. Love and addiction are not even close to synonymous, and cannot be interchanged with each other like they are. I don't think your argument from absurdity demonstrates a logical error in my point. I also would not say that sex is addictive in the same way that drugs or porn is.

"So not only is your premise is wrong about games being addictve as such, but also your following mechanism of wanting more and more and mostly fallacious is the step you make into the real world. If someone would fall to obsession ("addiction") with playing porn games, they would want more games. Better games. Games that cater to their tastes better. Or play the game a lot. They would not suddenly being addicted to the things depicted in the game. Why should they? Where does this step in logic come from? It does not work that way! If you think so, find actual scientists that wrote about it. It would be hell of a feast for psychologists, if it were true. They would be famous for proving such a thing and all sorts of content restrictions could be made with scientific reasoning! Laws would be named after them."

They should not, maybe we should ask, "Why would they?" They would because the things in the game would lack all meaning if it were not for the real-life version of those acts. The point of the game is to approximate or simulate the real world thing. Doing the real world thing is a more extreme version of doing the thing in a video game (this is the "step in logic"). It follows the exact mechanism I described, and that you mentioned above. The addiction I am concerned about is not necessarily to the game, but to the thing the game is depicting.

And if I show you some psychologists, what then? I think you will just reject their claims. The whole field is fraught with so many variables that we could each just hand-wave away all evidence shown to each other, just like with statistics.

As for the emotional argument, you can complain about it all you want. But you have not answered it. I don't think there really is a good answer to it. It is effective because there is truth underneath the emotions of shame you would feel. To be entertained by playing a game where you SA a woman is to be entertained by playing a game where you sexually assault someone like a sister, mother, girlfriend, etc. And that is shameful indeed. Even if it doesn't affect your life in any other way (which, I believe, it would).

In summary, I think that Itchio was justified in delisting this game because they don't want to be associated with a SA game, and because their platform would be facilitating access to something that would make SA more acceptable in the minds of players, whether committed by them or by someone else. And, I think that everyone should refrain from playing such games because they can contribute to desires that will have negative effects in their life

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redonihunter199 days ago

By getting the pet spider, they are accepting the presence of a spider. Meaning that they do not find the presence of the spider unacceptable by the very definitions of the words. If you entertain yourself with depictions of sexual assault, you are accepting the presence of sexual assault (accepting here means saying "it's acceptable", or appropriate, or not bad enough to utterly reject). The same logic applies.

If spider and sa are interchangeable to demonstrate the mechanim, let's use another word.

If you entertain yourself with murder by reading novels, playing games or watching shows about it, you accept the presence of murder. It beomes more appropriate, to the point where you would not utterly reject it.

But murder is too harsh. Let's take a less severe crime. Like theft and breaking the speed limit.

If you entertain yourself with content around theft and speeding, like gta or fast and furios movies, you accept the presence of those things. They become more appropriate, to the point where you would not utterly reject them. Stealing a car? No big deal. Speeding? Bah, they do it in games and movies all the time, so I can do it too. It is appropriate behaviour after all.

Any increase in speeding and car thefts after release of a new GTA or a new movie? You could see such things in statistics and back up your line of thought about acceptance from seeing things to accepting them and finally imitating things. It is minor crimes, compared to sa, so the barrier to do them in real life should be lower, and it is a lot more popular, so a lot of people were exposed to the bad influence.

Copy cat crime from fiction does not exist. It would be easily prooveable, and someone would have done so already and they tried and tried. Copy cat crime from actual crimes sadly does exist. The number one factor for shool shootings is to report in the news about a school shooting.

Doing a crime in the real world has a barrier. You propose a mechanism that lowers that barrier, over "accepting" that crime's "presence". By seeing that crime in a fictional setting no less. In short, you take away the ability of adults to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

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Ho88it193 days ago

I heartily disagree on the copycat crime not existing point. And either way, the point about normalization still stands.

Don't be blinded because you don't see an uptick in crime rates after x game is released. Just like with the Japan statistics, a million other factors can hide the impact of a game on nationwide crime rates. It does not mean there is no relationship between this game and SA normalization and criminality in individual cases.

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redonihunter200 days ago

Your first link is behind a paywall. And the abstract ist dubious. "After gameplay, they had the opportunity to sexually harass a male or a female partner by sending them sexist jokes." Sounds a lot like they were begging the question by setting people up to confirm their bias, by nudging the participants to do some sexual harrassments.

Your second link is also behind a paywall. It is not relevant here. They studied minors for startes. The discussion at hand is about adults and adults only fictional entertainment. They talk about some rape myths in their abstract that were more accepted. Whatever accepted would mean and whatever selected myths they were using to tempt the 57 children after playing a selected educational game for 15 minutes loaded with sexual topics.

Your third link is again behind a paywall. It is vague about what was studied exactly, or how. Some rape myths again. It does not say which. Or how significant the result was. Significant in context only means that they think it was not due to chance.

Those studies have nothing to do with your suspected mechanisms according to their abstract. They studied different things. From what I understand they basically showed people/children sexually loaded content. Not even actual adult games. And their findings would be, that the "acceptance" of rape myths would increase by an unknown amount. It was not big enough to brag about in the abstract. No headliner material, like: people are twice as likely to believe this sex myth, after playing a sexualized game.

Also, would not sexually loaded advertismentents, tv shows, movies, books do exactly the same? Or for that matter, scantily clad real life women? I heard that one before, as it is used by some to justify forcing women to cover up. So men would not think about them and do bad things. I assert that if there is any such linkage of making men do/think bad things, it will be stronger with the actual women, than with pixel women in games. And I think that is actually one of those rape myths - that men that see such women are tempted and can't help it. Thinking about this, your point sounds like such a rape myth. That people are not to blame, but games are. Ban the games, so people are not corrupted anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_myth That what the victim is wearing can lead to a sexual assault That men are unable to control themselves once they become sexually excited

What you need to find is the spillover from fictional crime to real crime. You will not find that, because it has been debunked. And you can debunk it yourself by observing history and games and other media. A crime does neither become accepted by society, nor more common, just because there is media about it. Media has been around for a very long time, so there is "data" about it.

Just let's look at a popular media, the bible. Let's look at the things that Lot guy has been up to. Like offering his virgin daughters to a mob to have sex with. Or drunkenly fathering children with his daughters later. As for rape myths and rape, that book is full of those. If you want to ban media because it corrupts people by having certain content in it, start with the bible.

That was another attempt to show you the absurdity of your logic. If it were sound, you could apply it to other media and other crimes. Including the bible. But it is not sound. Watching a show about murder does not make you a murderer. Playing a game about sa, does not make you commit sa. And reading the bible does not make daughters have sex with their fathers to have children.

Nevertheless, here are some studies to show that there is scientific evidence supporting a link between sexualized video games and real-life sexual behavior, which leads naturally into my more specific claim about sexual assault

This is a misrepresnation of what the studies claim to show. They do not show sexual behaviour change. Not even regular behaviour change. They did not look at behaviour at all. You do know they had children as participants in one of those studies?! And you go here and claim the studies showed sexual behavior change. What they did claim to show, that some participants answered a question about some "rape myths" with more "acceptance", after they had them engage with sexualized games.

And no, there is no natural progression from one thing to another. You try to invoke a slippery slope from fictional content to real life behavioural change towards imitating the crimes. But this is a fallacy, because there is no proof of mechanism for this. You would find a lot more studies and even meta studies about this. And better studies. With a lower p value than 0.04. Which they did with 57 12+ year old impressionable kids. The barrier is 0.05 to be even worth reading at all. So with the most impressionable participants, I would expect a lot higher confidence that there even is a mechanism. Oh, and the mechanism they would have shown, would only be: show kids near naked ladies in a game, and they are slightly more prone to believe cherry picked rape myths. Probably the ones about clothing.

As I said, this line of thought was tried decades ago with the ego shooters. They do not make players into killers. And now people come along and claim that playing a game about sexual taboos and crimes make the players into perpetrators of such things. If this mechanism were true, we should ban the Bible first - and people did and do kill and do other bad things, by justifying it with that book, so there is that.

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Ho88it200 days ago(+1)

Exactly the point I was trying to make. You find my studies dubious, and I find yours dubious. We've gotten nowhere, just like I said would happen.

The paywalls are irrelevant in this case. The abstracts get the point across. I found studies that found a connection between sexual material in video games and real-life behavior. Which is what I claim exists with this game.

The Bible is a horrible comparison to this game because the point of sexual accounts you mentioned in the Bible is not masturbatory, or to be entertaining. You are supposed to be horrified by what Lot did in those cases. Not entertained or aroused by it, like with you are with the sex in this game. Because of this, it's a bad analogy. The portrayals of sex in the Bible you mentioned are not remotely comparable to this game, therefore, you have not demonstrated any absurdity in my position.

The studies found a connection between sexualized content in video games, and the real-life thoughts and attitudes of the subjects about sexual behavior. I claimed that there is a connection between the content of this sexualized video game, and the real-life thoughts and attitudes of its players. And thoughts lead to action in many cases. You can't really do something without thinking about doing it.

I already addressed the point about "ego shooters" (assuming this means FPS), so I won't make it again.

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redonihunter199 days ago

I do not recall linking to any studies. I linked to some statistics and made an inference between the low real life sa numbers in Japan and the rather high availablitily of adult games that feature sa. It is not a taboo topic in adult games there.

If those abstracts were all you could find, that would fit my narrative: that your proposed mechanism does not exist. It would be a big deal, if such a mechanism would be proven to exist.

The professional debate for this is going on for about 50 years now. And if they could not prove it for so long, I say, it is because it is not true!

You can use modern tech to get a a summary. Ask these or similar questions to an AI. They are good at summarzing written works. Just be sure not to beg the question so the system only tells you what you want to hear. The system actually did a good job of highlighting this from both sides, but the bottom line is, that there is nothing to it.

What is the current scientific consensus about the relation of depiction of crimes in video games and players commiting those crimes in real life?

tl;dr None. "No Causal Link Between Video Game Violence and Real-World Violence"

Is the scientifc consensus different for pornographic games that feature sexual assault?

tl;dr Still none. Researchers are worried, but "causality remains unproven: there is no definitive evidence that playing these games leads to actual sexual violence."

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Ho88it193 days ago

Just a quick reply (so much for the last word lol). They were not all I could find, they were the result of some relatively short research into the topic. "Causality remains unproven" is not equal to "mechanism does not exist". Like with the stats on Japan, it makes perfect sense that the impact of this game would be concealed up by thousands of other factors. I make the case that it still exists, and therefore, developing/playing/hosting this game is bad.

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redonihunter192 days ago(+1)

so much for the last word lol

I got you covered.

The thing with the causality is this. They did find factors contributing to those crimes. Hard links. Not suspected links. Proven links of causality.

So you have a thing where you can easily find factors contributing to it, without any doubts.

And you have a suspected contributing factor where for decades people were actively trying to prove a link, but could not, what can be the conclusion to this? You need to consider both together. Active search without result for one factor and unquestioned results for a lot of other factors. If they could identify and blame the other factors, why not that one factor?

My conclusion is, that this factor is just not contributing. It might even be slightly negative, based on my own experiences with video games.

The science consensus is the same, but they phrase it as causality unproven. Remains unproven is even stronger, since it hints that they tried several times.

One can of course be of the opinion that those games are somehow bad. But the activists did not stop at giving the game a bad rating and maybe a concerned comment. Or better yet, ignoring the game and let it simmer in oblivion with all the other incest games with questionable plot devices. They faked evidence. They riled up a mob - with lies. They bullied credit card companies. They bullied game platforms. In the name of fighting fictional content with unproven bad consequences they justfied doing all those things. I believe that is a severe non fictional problem.

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Ho88it186 days ago (1 edit)

I definitely disagree, and I think that games like this do play a factor in how people view SA, and I think that it is fair for people to share their opinions on platforms hosting questionable content. But I see that you don't agree, and, while I wish you'd change your mind, I know I can't make you. Thanks anyways though.

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redonihunter185 days ago(+1)

Oh, you could change my mind. Bring forth sound arguments. Not wishful thinking. Games with bad things in it that might be a bad influence have been around for a long time. So I expect hard data backing up those sound arguments.

The possibility of bad influence is recognised by the fact that those games are adults only. And those adults can and unfortunately do those bad things all by themselves without ever playing a video game.

Of course it is ok to share opinions. But what those activists did was a bit more than that and with a bit of lying and harassment. And I am not ok with either of that. No matter their noble intentions. It especially infuriates me, when people do bad things because they act righteous.

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vampirichare199 days ago (3 edits) (+1)

The main issue honestly is that murder isn't seen as normal in society. You don't usually joke about murder. SA, specifically the SA of women, is normalized to the point we as a society ask "well, what was she wearing?" or "she was drunk, what did she expect to happen?" Walk up to a random guy on the street, crack a joke about spiking women's drinks or about how it's "their" fault they get assaulted, seven out of ten times, you'll get a laugh. The other two, you may get a look but he still won't tell you that you're wrong for it. He won't speak up. He just won't laugh. Additionally, why are we defending a rape fantasy game anwyay? Matter of fact, why are we defending rape as a sexual fantasy? Fantasy or no it is morally reprehensible to want to do that in any capacity, regardless of whether or not you actually do it. People will dog on me for this, but if you fantasize about raping people, yes I think you're either a sex/porn addict or a horrible fucking person and should see a psychiatrist either way.

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