215 réponses à ce sujet

[Fast Jimmy]

What is this thread?

[Lexxbomb]

What is this thread?

Quickly dissolving into a Feminist theory laden vat of DIP

BEWARE AT ALL COST

[mikeymoonshine]

 

of course but i would rather the sex industry be abolished (or at least have people pay attention to this corruption and learn that something needs to change) and free millions of people than have it continue to exist just because "it's not always corrupt"

plus it's an industry, so even if there are parts of it that are not corrupt, supporting it is still contributing to the industry as a whole including the bad parts

 

 

Well that comment was specifically about the legal sex industry but ok. All you can do is try and regulate it to make it as safe as possible. Making it illegal will just make it worse. 

 

 

 

if they really truly acknowledged that the people in the sex industry as people and not objects, they would stop consuming porn and they would stop buying prostitutes and supporting the sex industry as a whole. 

 

Um no, that's not how people work. You can respect someone as a person and want to have sex with them. When someone provides you with a service that you want your main concern is that service (whether sexual or not) the fact that you are not as concerned about them as a person says nothing about your respect for them and their personhood. 

That's like saying I have no respect for my post man because all I care about is his deliveries. 

 

 

 

when they hear horrendous things about the sex industry and they turn their head that's when you know they don't respect those people. people like to say it's a fantasy but the thing is, it is happening to real people

 

If your talking about trafficking and sex slavery then again those practices are illegal. Legal pornography and other sexual services are not the same thing. It's different for your own child because you expect the worse but for someone who isn't your child you have no reason to assume that they are being abused or forced to do something. 

 

 

 

but you can be critical of society's view of sex, of the sex industry without being against people choice. 

 

Yes you can and generally I am critical of societies views on sex. 

 

 

 

what i am saying is that it's not all about choice. just because some people choose to do something doesn't make it empowering or a good thing.

 

But it is their choice that they should have a right to have, i'm not sure if "good" is the correct word to use seeing as allot of this is about different people's personal opinions on the matter. 

 

 

 

however sex-positive movement has this idea that sex is good, pleasure is good, any kind of sex is good as long as it's safe... very little critical thinking involved as long as buzzwords like "consent" "choice" and sometimes "empowerment" are used.

 

 Generalizing a movement in this way is not really a good idea. Anyway, these are not buzz words these are rights than many anti-sex feminists ignore. They are used to stress that women are people too and capable of making their own choices. 

 

 

sex-positive people love hearing about those who choose to be in the sex industry and how much fun they are having and how much they enjoy their job, but the thing is that the majority of people in the sex industry who are survivors of abuse and rape and desperately want out (especially ones that aren't from the us or uk, but women and children trafficked from places like africa, asia etc) are silenced and their stories and pleads for help are not heard

everything you consume affects you. porn affects peoples views on women, on rape, on sexual violence, on pedophilia, etc

 

They love hearing about those who enjoy working in the legal and usually safe sex industry because it shows that this is possible. What you are talking about is illegal and not something anyone is in favor of. getting rid of the sex industry will not solve these problems they will most likely make them allot worse. 

 

 

 

children are exposed to it without even wanting to be. some of the worst, most violent and awful kinds can be found and viewed on the internet easily, even if you don't want to see it, porn will pop up. it's everywhere and people are becoming very desensitized to it

 

Parents are perfectly capable of censoring the content their children view online.

 

Pimping and sex trafficking are illegal where I come from as they are in most countries. it seems like you are saying the sex positive movement supports these practices? 

[9TailsFox]

Don't mind as long in not forced to anything there same for pubs i rly dislike when my character does something that i don't want like drink (witcher and da 2).And rly i hope da will never be so stereotypical as witcher.

This I agents poisoning yourself, so don't like be forced to drink alcohol, and have option to say I agents drinking would be nice. Sorry Oghren you heard me right. But it not such big deal I just shrug an continue game.

[Hillbillyhat]

To counter your counter, I would say that "telling" does not mean subtlety, nor does showing mean "not subtlety." I would say you're falsely equating my position to be that showing is NOT subtle, and telling IS subtle.

 

Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to be a jerk, just arguing the point. I agree with your last paragraph. I fount the end of Act 1 in TW2, with the elven mother, to bring me some revulsion, which I suppose makes it successful. I thought they did a tremendous job with the end of of Roche's path in Act 2, when he...well, when you let him do what he wants to do. I felt there was serious gravity there. But it isn't always that way, sometimes it comes off tedious.

 

No problem I'm just stating some reasons why Witcher 2 can easily be seen as more serious even when its a hit or miss. I'm not saying that showing is inherently not subtle though, because it can be however often it can be just straight up used for shock value. Sometimes its not since many games and movies can get it right. DAI might be better when it comes to certain events involving Leliana (she looks older, acts as if she's seen things and your actions can have serious affects on her personality). However just showing nudity is occasionally equated to "maturity" or "art" sometimes when its just for titillation. I have nothing against that but when people say its more than it already is will make me a little annoyed. Even gratuitous violence isn't really mature which is one of the reasons why people thought Hawke exploding everyone was dumb.

 

Now with telling well I do feel that its sometimes necessary and it can even be subtle, but it can be as blunt as someone saying "They were raped and killed." which may have some affect. Sometimes we do need a lot of the setting straight up explained, but it wouldn't hurt to show more of it later. Its interesting to read about Tevinter, but I would definitely be disappointed if we never got to see it.

 

Back to my point showing is better than telling sometimes, but to build up on that I think doing both is usually better depending on the circumstances. It helps give people some knowledge of whats going on and get to actually see it. Its one of the reasons why I like Bioware's codex in their games. Very interesting to be able to read a large amount about the world and then get to see it in the game.

[General TSAR]

Not wishing to divert the thread too far away from the boobs conversation,

but I was quite struck by what I found to be an intelligent analysis of the trope:
"Women as Background Decoration" by Anita Sarkeesian.

 

I found Anita's assessment to be a little unforgiving in places but

generally she made important points that should give any
(particularly male) gamer pause for thought and for that reason I have linked it here.

 

I think BioWare on the whole handle this matter a lot more intelligently than most.

 

She's a charlatan who doesn't understand and later insults sex workers. 

[Lexxbomb]

She's a charlatan who doesn't understand and later insults sex workers. 

despite the fact she dresses herself up as one... Seriously she puts on a lot of makeup and has the huge hoop earrings, all of these are identifies that anthropologists indicate are meant to be sexual activity indicators.

[Das Tentakel]

despite the fact she dresses herself up as one... Seriously she puts on a lot of makeup and has the huge hoop earrings, all of these are identifies that anthropologists indicate are meant to be sexual activity indicators.

 

 

[Ailith Tycane]

The most worrying thing is that she promotes the idea that gaming can change the way people behave as though it is well known fact. It's not there have been many studies into it and no strong link has been found. It's possible that some games may raise aggression in some people who become aggressive more easily but it still doesn't seem to be a long term thing or translate into any kind of change in behavior in the real world. 

 

For a series that is meant to be educational I think it's reasonable to expect more than a bunch of unsupported opinions and mistakes due to  a lack of research and understanding of the source material.

 

This is less an argument of "video games turn people into school shooters" and more "Media has an impact on already existing social biases" which means if you live in a society which treats sexism against women as not a big thing, and is sometimes encouraged, then seeing that kind of content in a game will just reinforce those beliefs with a lot of players just like seeing that same sort of content on TV or in a movie or in a magazine or book will also reinforce those beliefs about women. 

[Ailith Tycane]

despite the fact she dresses herself up as one... Seriously she puts on a lot of makeup and has the huge hoop earrings, all of these are identifies that anthropologists indicate are meant to be sexual activity indicators.

 

This is sexist and if I keep seeing comments like this I'm going to start reporting people. 

[Bayonet Hipshot]

I'm not going to argue too heavily, because I'll admit that I'm arguing from a play of relative ignorance. I've never played the Witcher, and I'm unlikely to ever play The Witcher. However, a couple of points, the first Witcher game had a system where you received trading cards for sleeping with all the female characters...freaking trading cards, if you don't see how that objectifies women then you have a problem. Second, just because a (probably male) writer decides to write fictional women who are consenting to show you their fictional boobies it doesn't mean that it doesn't demean real women.

 

But again, the problem with brothels in games (and this applies to DA games to a lesser extent) isn't that men have sex with women or that women have sex with women or men with men or whatever. That's fine, consensual sex is cool. The problem with brothels is that they aren't generally populated with characters, they're generally populated with NPCs who lack any depth to their character beyond the sex that they offer the player. When you sexualize these non-characters to a greater degree, it becomes more problematic than when (in DA) brothels are mostly included as jokey places. Again, I haven't played the games, but I feel skeptical of the ability of a game that reduced all of its female characters to trading cards to portray women in a positive light.

 

Edit: Basically, I don't have an inherent problem with brothels in game. My problem comes when brothels are included solely as a method of delivering eye-candy to the straight males that generally play these games (and tbh, they'd be equally problematic if the presented men in these ways).

 

".....doesn't mean that it doesn't demean real women".

 

Of course it doesn't. In Dragon Age my character almost always goes around killing thieves, bandits, mercenaries, etc where almost all of them are males.

 

So since my character does that and I am sure everyone else' character does that, does that mean Dragon Age games are demeaning men ?

 

Does it mean that my Warden and my Champion am misandric and I only see men as murderers, thieves and killers ?

 

Or does it just mean I am playing a video game which is a form of entertainment and it does not affect my decision on how I view people in real life in the same way me watching movies does not affect my decision on how I view people in real life ?

 

Do I need to quote the list of research that has been done to prove that there is no relation between deaths in gaming with violence which we can extend and apply to sex and objectification ?

 

The problem with brothels is that they aren't generally populated with characters, they're generally populated with NPCs who lack any depth to their character beyond the sex that they offer the player. When you sexualize these non-characters to a greater degree, it becomes more problematic than when (in DA) brothels are mostly included as jokey places. Again, I haven't played the games, but I feel skeptical of the ability of a game that reduced all of its female characters to trading cards to portray women in a positive light.

 

By that logic, that means everywhere else in a Dragon Age game has a problem.

 

The Deep Roads are just populated with darkspawn, deepstalkers, large spiders all who are NPCs who lack any depth to their character beyond their role as XP givers to the player.

 

The taverns are populated with druken people and bartenders, all whom are NPCs who lack any depth to their character beyond their role of just being there or being quest givers. 

 

The caves and hideouts are populated by bandits, apostates and slaves, all who are NPCs who lack any depth to their character beyond their role as XP givers and victims of spells, swords, arrows and cross class combos. 

 

You see the problem with your statement ? It makes no sense. 

 

Games are a form of entertainment. Like any other form of entertainment, it puts certain people in certain roles. Since these NPCs filling in these said roles from XP givers, quest givers and eye candies. Sure the women are objectified but so are the men. This happens in both Dragon Age and The Witcher.

 

Geralt, Hawke, Warden, Sten, Alistair, Zevran are all tough, ripped, buff characters. So are some of the male prostitutes. Many of the bandits, thieves, slavers are males. 

 

So does this mean men in Dragon Age and The Witcher are objectified and sexualized as eye candies and reduced to bumbling evil fools who need killing and who, when killed, give XP and money ? 

 

Or does it just mean these characters are in the game because game is a form of entertainment and to be entertaining you need to be appealing to people ? Does it just mean that this is also perfectly fine as long as nothing bad happens and everyone has a good time ? 

 

Tell me, has there been any research done or conducted that somehow supports the fact that The Witcher and The Dragon Age games have caused men to violate women, objectify them as pure objects ? Has there been any research done or conducted that somehow supports the fact that The Witcher and The Dragon Age games have cause women and men to view men as one directional and evil beings ? 

 

Games are, at the end of the day, a form of entertainment and entertainment is there for people to have a good time. Nice looking women prostitutes and women on cards do not in any way demean the women in the real world since there is no evidence for it. Buff looking bumbling males as enemies or just as males in general in games do not demean men in in the real world since there is no evidence for it. 

 

If there was then those male developers at CDPR would have been facing plenty of criminal charges now. If that was the case then plenty of game developers everywhere would be facing lawsuits and criminal charges. But they don't.

[MisterJB]

Damn it, I thought we would be suggesting witty names for the brothel; instead there is a discussion about the sex industry.

[Ailith Tycane]

Games are, at the end of the day, a form of entertainment and entertainment is there for people to have a good time. Nice looking women prostitutes and women on cards do not in any way demean the women in the real world since there is no evidence for it. 

 

Yes it does, and yes there is. 

[mikeymoonshine]

This is less an argument of "video games turn people into school shooters" and more "Media has an impact on already existing social biases" which means if you live in a society which treats sexism against women as not a big thing, and is sometimes encouraged, then seeing that kind of content in a game will just reinforce those beliefs with a lot of players just like seeing that same sort of content on TV or in a movie or in a magazine or book will also reinforce those beliefs about women. 

 

That seems to be an issue with the entirety of the media though and generally those views have to be there to begin with to be reinforced. 

 

 Anyway I was talking about her claims that there is a good understanding in the scientific community that games affect you even if you don't think they do and that the more you think they don't the more they will affect you. This really isn't the case.