About the word "rape" in games - please take a look

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Just to clarify.

I'm not saying we should make rape jokes or talk about rape in the presence of someone who we know got raped. That's just a matter of human decency.

But that's not what some of you are saying, some of you are saying that we should never use the word rape, under any circumstances, period. Irrespective of context or intent.

But that's simply not how language works and it would far exceed the epistemic limitations of our brains. In order to never say anything that could potentially offend someone we would have to have full knowledge of what offends every single person on this planet.

One problem I have with arguments like the one in this thread is that they always presuppose that we are all the same, we all feel offended by the same things and it's just sooo obvious.

But come on, that's obviously bullshit.

Especially in terms of language context is often times all that matters. Calling a stranger a "dick" in an aggressive manner is very different from saying "What's up you dick" to a friend.

Now you, Yewthane, are trying to make some convoluted argument in an attempt to demonstrate that conversational context really doesn't matter and that it's all about the "deeper" meaning of the word. I just don't buy it, because that's not how we communicate with other people. Yeah if I call a stranger a cunt for no reason I'm just an asshole, if I call my friend a cunt in a joking manner the message is totally different.

You are clearly missing the point. There is a world of difference between some cussing not particularly related to anything, and emphasizing one's superiority by saying "I raped you."

If I say "asshole" to someone, chances are he's going to be offended because I was being mean to him. But who cares, if he deserves it.

If I say "cunt" to someone, chances are he's going to be offended because I was being mean to him AND I was willing to cross a line by being excessively rude. Again, who cares.

But if I say "I raped you" I put myself in a position of power and the other person in a position of utter weakness and I am suggesting that at any time that I want I can do with him whatever I wish.

The difference is, that by bringing in the word rape I establish a relationship. And this suggested relationship *can* in the worst case by association function as a trigger.

So why use it when it has a great potential to inflict true and lasting hurt? And its benefits are so shabby.

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Jojas wrote:

You are clearly missing the point. There is a world of difference between some cussing not particularly related to anything, and emphasizing one's superiority by saying "I raped you."

If I say "asshole" to someone, chances are he's going to be offended because I was being mean to him. But who cares, if he deserves it.

If I say "cunt" to someone, chances are he's going to be offended because I was being mean to him AND I was willing to cross a line by being excessively rude. Again, who cares.

But if I say "I raped you" I put myself in a position of power and the other person in a position of utter weakness and I am suggesting that at any time that I want I can do with him whatever I wish.

The difference is, that by bringing in the word rape I establish a relationship. And this suggested relationship *can* in the worst case by association function as a trigger.

So why use it when it has a great potential to inflict true and lasting hurt? And its benefits are so shabby.

I just fundamentally cannot agree with that argument, I'm sorry. Never once when someone said the words "get raped" to me in Counter Strike did I feel that they were putting themself in some kind of metaphorical position of power. I just shrugged it off. And I most certainly didn't feel offended or put in a position of utter weakness (what a load of nonsense).

My perception is totally different to yours here and this again goes back to one of the points I made earlier. Not everyone is the same, the argument presented in this thread presupposes that we all feel the same way about this. But, I reiterate, that's bullshit.

I mean, just to put this out there. You are saying I'm missing the point by giving your subjective explanation as to why "rape" is more offensive to you than other words that are commonly used to insult people. Bear in mind that in the very first paragraph of the post to which you replied I said exactly this:

"being offended in and of itself is purely subjective"

Doesn't that make your post just seem strange and nonsensical in the extreme?

You are giving me your subjective reasons for why you think rape is more offensive than other words (to you) in order to demonstrate that I'm missing the point with my statement that "being offended is subjective".

Which actually proves my point.

And I know for a fact that your reasons are subjective, simply because I (and many others) disagree with them.

Censorship is bad, in all forms.

Trying to coerce people into a certain viewpoint or to act certain ways is even worse. Especially when its behind the guise of being for the "good" or being higher moral ground.

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tramshed wrote:

Censorship is bad, in all forms.

Trying to coerce people into a certain viewpoint or to act certain ways is even worse. Especially when its behind the guise of being for the "good" or being higher moral ground.

"

Velocireptile wrote:

"

tramshed wrote:

Censorship is bad, in all forms.

Trying to coerce people into a certain viewpoint or to act certain ways is even worse. Especially when its behind the guise of being for the "good" or being higher moral ground.

"

SlixSC wrote:

Yewthane, you honestly don't understand what you are talking about. The argument is not wether or not words can be interpreted in a way to be offensive. The point is that being offended in and of itself is purely subjective...

Given your lowest common denominator approach, we would have to conclude that if someone found the words "death" or "grandfather" offensive because their grandfather recently died, the very existence of that single person would be grounds enough for us to ban the words "death" and "grandfather" from public disourse entirely.

Now you are saying that there are people who are offended by some of these words and that should be grounds enough to either ban these words altogether or regulate their usage. But you always skip the part in which you demonstrate how exactly you got to that conclusion.

Because the underlying assumption here is that if some people are offended by something, their being offended has to take precedence over my "not being offended" and everyone around these offended people has to alter their behavior in a way to make them feel less offended.

Blatantly ignoring the fact that "being offended" is not some objectively measurable state of mind...

I've edited your comments a bit, specifically I've removed some paragraphs since those kept likely suffice for the main points you have raised. To which I have to respond that previous comments did in fact touch upon these issues, in particular the claim once again that language is 'just words' and as such entirely subjective. Well foremost language is not entirely subjective, that would render it arbitrary, so instead we can safely assume that language is "inter-subjective". In other words, language is a shared system of meaning. Now the point you make is that not everyone is equally offended by the same words or uses of those words where for example in this discussion the topic has been on rape but also branched out to encompass the use of other words and related ideas.

to answer the specific challenge of meaning not being objective that would overlook the essential meaning of words that is activated whether or not the intention of the speaker or hearer coincides with the essential definition. There are quite a few ways to go about elaborating this point, I'll briefly respond to the claim that I 'always skip the part which demonstrates how I got to that conclusion', since earlier comments alluded to well-known psychological processes involved in language and concept processing (see my second reply as a further clarification of my original comments - "there remain core semantic qualities which produce both conceptual and even physiological effects"). That offensive words produce a heightened physiological effect can be readily taken as an indication of the 'inter-subjective' relevance of meaning and moreover how language contains essential meaning that is processed before contexts would presumably modify offensive terms. Likewise with priming procedures that gear a person's range of responses to sentence production or the interpretation of behaviour.

the last example is probably the most accessible and useful for this type of discussion since there is practically no limit to research demonstrating behaviour that can be primed by word exposure and of particular interest even words that are presented below the conscious threshold (i.e. unconscious word priming).

even as a simple explanation of the nature and effects of the language this description seems a bit excessive for present contexts but for the significance of the issues discussed it is useful to be aware of how intricately language can influence behaviour (in addition to this I think concept and schema formation is obviously relevant but I leave that to anyone to either look into for themselves or discuss here).

to return to the central topic, rape is a serious issue, those that carelessly use the word as a metaphor are still invoking the essential idea, although granted I'm sure many don't fully realise how this use affects others or even themselves. Likewise it is actually prudent to be careful concerning how one talks about death and family members, and in this situation treating these experiences or events as a source of humour can obviously be funny but risks considerable insensitivity to the individual's disposition. So I would not casually endorse joking about family members, friends or other close relations, where comments can be unintentionally callous even if every second comedian liberally makes use of such material. That is not the same as saying that we should not talk about serious issues, the emphasis is about being responsible and using language respectfully.

I never claimed that the various definitions of words are subjective. And wether or not they are is irrelevant anyway. My point was that how we react to words and our being offended or not being offended by specific words is purely subjective.

I'm not sure if you were consciously strawmanning my argument or simply misunderstood what I said, but I'll just give you the benefit of the doubt here.

Your argument, as I understand it, is that some people have certain negative psychological reactions to specific words and we should thus ban these words. My counter-argument is that the vast majority of people (myself included) do not share these same reactions. The word "rape" simply doesn't bother me at all. Unless people are making rape jokes in the presence of someone who they know got raped or specifically insulting rape victims, there is no context in which we could just "ban" the word from everyday conversations. (again I just get the impression that you want to play "word police", what's next thought crimes?)

What matters here IS the context, when someone in CS kills me and goes "you just got raped", everyone understands that the person isn't refering to the act of physically raping me. I simply shrug it off and move on.

This almost nazistic approach of wanting to ban words from everyday conversations is shocking to me, honestly.

At the risk of repeating myself here, your argument that this word is offensive and should thus not be used is nonsense, because most people simply aren't offended by the word at all, myself included.

Or here is a nice analogy, replace the word rape with the word owned ("I own you"), shouldn't that word be banned too given that it is highly insulting to slaves and the person using the phrase "I owned you" is advocating slavery?

I mean come on, this argument is so ridiculous.