“It’s kind of a part of the ‘culture,’ as problematic as it is to say.”

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I wrote a post a few months ago about sexism being seen as a part of video game culture. In it I went through the typical spiel of why it’s important and viable to study that area and so won’t do it again here. I would like to draw your attention to a interesting piece published recently about sexism in video game culture. The article is written by a woman who had been raped and still used the phrase “I raped you” to indicate beating someone in a video game. Her use of the phrase and her eventual rejection of it is dealt with. It is definitely worth reading. 

I particularly found it interesting when she describes mimicking raping someone else in the game. She says that “It’s kind of a part of the ‘culture,’ as problematic as it is to say.” This reminds me of the topic of my previous post where someone had said that “This is a community that’s, you know, 15 or 20-years-old and the sexual harassment is part of a culture and if you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community.” Of course the author of this recent article, Patricia Hernandez, is clearly aware of the implications and problems of what she is saying.

It is worth reading, but I would also encourage you to take a look at the comments section of the article. The issues many have with a perceived attack on their culture is contrasted by support of the author and even condemnation of her use of the word at any point. The support of the phrase was largely nonsense as would be expected, but even knowing of its use it was still shocking to read people attempting to justify it.

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