2
« on: July 14, 2013, 01:15:15 AM »
So I've been thinking about how I want to respond for a few days. I guess first of all I want to say that this might come out kind of harsh because it's an emotional topic for me but I want to make it clear that I think Caleb is really cool! He seems like a good guy and I don't think he thinks rape is okay or anything. Second I can't really comment on Lover in the Ice too specifically, since I don't remember the actual play clearly enough for critique (besides THAT PARROT) and was too unemployed to back the kickstarter enough for the PDF. Third I'd like to state that I have been raped before and that obviously is the source of a lot of what I am writing here.
When rape shows up in fiction, especially if it isn't handled sensitively, I am reminded of being raped. It isn't a gigantic panic attack thing but it makes me feel uncomfortable and sad and sick and I am immediately taken out of whatever story for a while. It is worse in games for a couple reasons: Games are improvisational things, so it's harder to have things happen in a tasteful way. You usually identify more with a character you control than a character in a book (players say "I slap the mayor", not "Doris, champion of Pelor slaps the mayor").
The argument against that being important would be something like "That sucks for you, but you can't expect the world to change for you." But I don't think reactions like mine are rare. Most of the other survivors I know have similar feelings, and a lot of people have been raped. One of six U.S. women has experienced an attempted or completed rape. Even if only, say, half of those people are really uncomfortable reading about rape that still feels like a lot of people to shut out. And 90% of the people who are effected are women, so it seems sort of extra bad to me to do something that mostly hurts a minority.
So why is murder less offensive? Well, rape happens a lot more. To be blunt, murder victims aren't around to be offended. Death is something everyone has to deal with eventually, too. The biggest thing is the different ways our culture deals with rape and murder, though. You can die in an awesome way! You can be brave or honorable and be awarded a posthumous medal. You can tell people someone you knew died. Even something as bad as torture has movie scenes where the hero is badass for getting through it. If you're raped, at best you get pity and at worst you are blamed.
So should rape never be a thing in stories? Well, no. But I think using it just to make things more grim or scary is kind of tasteless. I guess to be honest it kind of bothers me that it shows up so often in your writing. Like, the Know Evil episode where the women were being forcibly impregnated was way too hard for me to deal with (and it kind of bothered me that the only thing people wrote about it in the comments was along the lines of "haha, pretty grimdark"), it kind of sucked to not hear Thad as Hunter S. Thompson because I figured out that scenario was related to Lover in the Ice and stopped listening. There was a game Drew ran where your character was threatening to rape someone's wife, and it kind of sucks hearing someone you like say those kind of things. It's like hearing your sweet old grandma be really racist or something. I guess one thing about the Amante in particular is that "men rape because they just get so frustrated and can't help themselves" is a myth that people actually use to justify rape.
I guess what I want is: If you're going to include rape, have a really good understanding of what it is and how it might effect readers, and label it so people who need to can avoid it. Also you've done some good things with handling the subject! You portray it as a horrible scary thing, never make it "sexy", and it was really great how you didn't make SAIROC almost getting date raped a joke or anything. Also you're a lot better about it than a lot of RPG writers I've seen. (fucking Cthulhutech, oh my god)
Extra things: The deep ones didn't rape people, they bribed them with gold basically. The horror in the Lovecraft story was basically a metaphor for white people having sex with other races because he was pretty racist.
Also I've heard "It's a horror game, you should feel as uncomfortable as possible" and that's silly. It's a game you're playing for fun with your friends, not a tribal manhood ritual. You're not a worse gamer because you have limits.
Sorry this was ranty and kind of disconnected!
Show Posts
