Video: TYT: Rape Culture - Do Kids Trivialize the Word "Rape" in Gaming?

Gamertag Radio writes: "Rehtaeh Parson and Audrie Pott were two teenage girls who committed suicide in separate incidents after pictures of their rapes became viral and they were mercilessly bullied by their peers. It may seem unthinkable that kids would use something as traumatic and devastating as rape to "slut shame," bully, and harass another teenager, but it obviously does happen. How did teen rape culture come about, and how could rape be treated so trivially? Cenk hypothesizes that a small portion of the blame could be due to kids casually throwing around "rape" as a verb to not mean a sexual assault, but as some form of "owning" someone, or badly beating them, say, in a video game. Is that true? Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, and Ben Mankiewicz are joined by John Iadarola (TYT University) and Kim Horcher (Nerd Alert) to discuss."

[TopDudeMan]

It's just a word. What it represents is horrible, but at the end of the day people are gonna say whatever they want. The way they say it, it's clear they aren't talking about sexual assault, so I see it as no harm done.

[horne242]

Kudos on commenting first. I wasn't going to touch this one with a ten foot bargepole. I think its disingenuous to kids to assume they can't differentiate between the word and the act. They can. So its all rather moot imho

[3-4-5]

They know better..but they don't care and they think that makes them cool by not caring.

[Bakkies]

The word was trivialized by feminists, false rape accusations are encouraged these days. Brian Banks sat 10 years of his life in jail and then when the accuser admitted she lied, she wasn't even punished. The cry wolf phenomena.

If they are against rape so much, show me one feminist who lobbies against prison rape. They are even changing the definition so men cannot be raped.

[cleft5]

False rape allegations are indeed one of the worst things that can ever happen to a man. With that said, those false allegation make up a very small percentage of the cases so I can't agree that this is what trivializes rape.

[Bakkies]

Indeed you are right, it's only a small part, it comes down to the definition of rape by the law.

If a women consents to sex, then later on says she was drunk, then she was legally raped. If a women consents to sex, then later on regrets it, it is legally rape. etc.

If a very high percentage of women says they were raped, because they were drunk one night, then it trivializes the word rape and trivializes the victims who were violently assaulted.

Rape by definition has become something that happens all the time in clubs. I don't believe any women who were violently raped can even associate with someone who had sex while drunk.

[grassyknoll]

I don't know what world you live in, but convictions for rape stand at 2% in the UK (rape is in sociological analysis one of the most unreported crimes too). I'm not suggesting false rape claims don't occur, but rapist's getting away with their crimes is a far bigger phenomenon.

[snarls200]

the staute of limitations probably ran out on her crime

[ijust2good]

I work as a project worker in a supported housing...i can tell you that i have come across afew girls who have accused other men of false rape.

The funniest one happend a few months back when this well known delusional young women cried "Rape", called the police to scheme i worked at. She was crying to the police that the man who raped her is still in her flat. The police came to the scheme and went to her flat and took the supposedly rapist out the room and handcuffed him naked. He had no idea what he had done wrong.

The police had requested to take alook at the camera after the guy had been put in the police van as they can gather up evidence..guess what they saw. They saw her making sensual gestures toward the accused rapist as she was seen on camera taking the man to her flat. She obviously felt guiltily as she just had a separation from her ex, she obviously needed some attention

She apparently had cried "Rape" before which have also been taken to court but she didn't win cause her claims were not reliable. Apparently even forensic team refused to come see her early in the morning just after the supposedly "rape incident" happened cause she was well known to them as a bullshitter.

[cleft5]

Rape is just a word, but it is a powerful word. That power has traditionally come from a person being sexually victimize and it shouldn't be taken lightly.

So I can understand the concern and complaints of people who don't like the word being used out of that context. At the same time, even in the gaming culture the use of the word "rape" means that you where completely destroyed and humiliated.

So it's not like the word is being changed to anything positive. Because of that I would say that the word isn't being trivialized by kids. Beyond that, you wouldn't go out in public and say: "Oh I totally got raped last night." So the power of that word still has it's original meaning only now it has some additional meaning, that isn't positive, for a different circumstance.

With that said, it shocked me when Tina Wood said on the gaming reveal for Gears of War Judgment that she got "raped" referring to playing mulitplayer matches against the developers of the game. Obviously we all know what she meant, but it was disturbing hearing her say that. Needless to say, Tina Wood is not a child.

She says this at about the 2:20 mark in the Gear War Judgment Event. This is the link to a youtube of the event http://www.youtube.com/watc... To be clear, this is not my youtube account.

[IQUITN4G]

The word clearly means something else in a lot of people's minds and they surely wouldn't say it if they truly knew the extent of what they were saying. The actual act of this sex crime would soon become apparent to anyone that suffers it informing them how they then use the word

The one thing as already pointed out is how it can leave people open to making very awkward tits of themselves and then of course they never use the word again in this way

I would disagree that people wouldn't publicly say the same use of the word because ignorance in the first place prevents a lot of people knowing what the word is in it's other use

[Heisenburger]

It had happened to an old friend of mine. So obviously my stance on this doesn't need to be spelled out.

However it means(not the actual word) different things to different people. Calling a black person the n word is one thing, and referring to a white guy as the same doesn't mean squat.

When I hear that word(or read it for that matter) I have to push bad thoughts out of my mind. Yet some people giggle when they hear or see the word.

I just simply do not associate myself with people who find that humorous. Along with use of the n word and the c word.

I'm twenty-four years old. And anybody who is my age and still finds that stuff funny isn't somebody I can get along with.

You know what I mean. You can't change people around you. You can only change the type of people that you are around.

Hell my roommate is going on thirty-two and he can be a prick sometimes(JK!).

[taquito]

i also hear people saying things like;

"dude we sh!T all over you"

-does this mean fecalphelia is going to go rampant all over the great white world?

i constantly hear male gamers saying to other male gamers;

"suck my di@k"

does this mean widespread homosexuality is going to erupt?

and even if 2% of those that say these things actually did the things they were saying

there would be a lot more moms getting lucky....lol

[MadLad]

Never thought I would see a TYT video end up on N4G.

[KillrateOmega]

I play online all the time and am really into competitive multiplayer gaming. I'll be honest, I don't shy away from using the term 'rape' when I'm playing. I don't use it often, but when I do, there is no moment of hesitation.

I'm well aware of the real-world connotation and meaning of the word; however, when I use it online it has a similar meaning (utter humiliation), but I'm not using it to indicate sexual assault and violation.

I am quite able to differentiate between the word and the actual act and, contrary to popular belief, most other gamers can as well. So does my usage of the word mean that I'm a horrible, insensitive person? No, in the eyes of others maybe, but no. It simply has a different meaning to other gamers and I in that particular situation.

The word 'rape' is hardly the first word in history to have different meanings/uses...

[Jagsrock]

do people trivialize the word "kill"? I can't even count how many times Ive heard somebody on a sitcom of some sort say " I'm gonna kill you" or "you're so dead" etc to another character out of anger, yet typically you hear the laugh track right after it's said. However do you really believe that most people don't understand the gravity of the word. It's all in the context as I think you could ask this question about a lot of words. I'm not condoning the use of the word however I do feel like context is just as important as the words that were said because the meanings can clearly change. Saying "you're gonna get raped" during a halo deathmatch is the equivalent to saying you're gonna get wrecked/owned while saying that in public to another person at a bar or social gathering is offensive, creepy and altogether bad. At the end of the day I feel like most people realize this and can comprehend the difference so it really shouldn't be that big of an issue.

[BX81]

I personally can't stand it when I hear people throwing that word around like it's nothing. To me just because you think it's ok to say because you're just using the word, not the word plus it's actual meaning doesn't make it ok. It's sad that our society has evolved to this point.