Raped in the metaverse

[rickyrickygrimes]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/05/metaverse-sexual-assault-vr-game-online-safety-meta

does anyone on here go into the Metaverse? What is it? How does it work?

And how can someone be raped in a virtual world? I’m not disputing at all that it was a traumatic experience for the girl this happened to. Is there actually an offence of ‘virtual rape’?

Ridiculous.

i think your thread title could be more sensitively worded

Sounds horrible… Real life is bad enough!

You can easily be 'killed' in the metaverse, especially as a gamer, yet no one seems too perturbed by that?

I’m also wondering… what were her parents thinking? Did they just assume that it was supervised or regulated in some way?

Have any of you bought VR headsets for your minor children, and do you supervise them in any way?

The article has no details. What is alleged to have happened? Do avatars in the Meta virtual world have genitalia?

It's not a new concept, I remember second life (an earlier virtual world) and a similar story from 2007:
https://www.wired.com/2007/05/sexdrive-0504/

@Rollercoaster1920 apparently not, but there is some preset movement (waving hands or something) that can be used to indicate thrusting 🤷‍♀️ idk. So the avatars surrounded the young girls avatar, and did this movement at her 🤷‍♀️

has anyone here actually been on the Metaverse? What’s the attraction?

I was listening to a program about this in the radio. What they did say is there’s an option to have a bubble around your avatar so nobody can touch you. (And obviously the minute you feel uncomfortable you can exit the ‘game)’. So it’s all a bit confusing.

Something to do with lots of male avatars pouncing on the female avatar and touching her but they didn’t go in to detail.

I mean, are you so engaged in the virtual world that what happens there feels ‘real’ ? 🤷‍♀️

Isn’t the problem here the fact the girl is under 16 and it was adult men engaging in sexual communication with her?

People need to be very cautious before dismissing this as ridiculous, it is not the same as an assault in the real world, but neither is it something that should be deemed acceptable in the VR/online world.

We understand that being sent violent images or descriptions is traumatising, so would this be.

To be honest a lot of your questions could be answered with an online search, unless you are deliberately being obtuse

The crime of rape has a specific definition which this would not fall under. Online sexual contact with children has its own category which is likely what this will fall under. this is no different to creepy men on any other social media platform, I think you’re taking the metaverse as a red herring and thinking it’s some new phenomenon.

@alcohole

What does ‘engaging in sexual communication’ mean? were they saying sexual things to her that she would hear through her head set?

can she take the head set / ear phones off?

Why would she be somewhere that this can happen to her? Do parents think VR headsets are just a toy?

Sorry for all the questions, I really know very little about this and am trying to get my head around it.

Does Second Life still exist? I used to know a woman who was absolutely obsessed with the game, and lived all her weird and not so wonderful fantasies through the actions of her avatar. I preferred playing Sims.

Why do you need to get your head around it? What benefit does it give to you?

There was a good article on this on women's hour on radio 4.

Discussing how using VR as a female character can get sexual harassment within seconds of logging in where male characters don't. To what extent it can cause trauma, particularly in a child. The language to use (one interviewee said rape wasn't appropriate as a description).

Apparently some VR environments have the option to prevent close contact of virtual characters in order to avoid this, but children were turning it off because they wanted to high 5 each other. Turning it back on couldn't be done quickly enough if 'attacked'.

I found that more informative and interesting than this article.

@alcohole

i promise you, I am not being obtuse.

So VR is just another means by which creepy men will get access to young girls? And it’s no different to social media? I guess it’s one more step towards a ‘real life’ experience for the creeps that do this. 😕

I don’t have girls, just boys and they aren’t on any social media (not interested).

It’s not rape though. And it could have been immediately stopped by her taking the fucking headset off. How offensive to actual victims to call a virtual reality game rape!

Well put @Fiddlerdragon

Turn the flipping game off fgs!

So many crazy things we are having to take seriously lately. Madness.

I assume the police are investigating the sexually inappropriate conversations with a child is abuse. God knows how they catch the culprits but could be linked to IP addresses.

very stupid to let a minor chat with strangers on the Internet full stop. You can pretty much expect filthy talk. A school mum told me her 9yo had been chatted up sexually by an adult and had been banned from her ipad. I had to gently explain the usual safety measures parents. My dc are 10 and 13 and can't talk outside of their invited circle. Easy enough for a paedo to infiltrate this but I do question who people are and remain in the room when they are online.

As for the 'rape' the child clearly needs the device confiscating until they realise they can leave / take the headset off.

Apparently some VR environments have the option to prevent close contact of virtual characters in order to avoid this, but children were turning it off because they wanted to high 5 each other. Turning it back on couldn't be done quickly enough if 'attacked'.

This puts the burden onto the victim - so as a child you can't go about the game nicely giving high fives, without being attacked.

The same as the police advising women leave social media, if harassed, the focus is never on making people stop harassing, but always on making victims alter their behaviour.

Dreadful attitude, of course society should take this behaviour seriously.

You ignore it if you choose, but the police are right to be concerned.

Apparently some VR environments have the option to prevent close contact of virtual characters in order to avoid this, but children were turning it off because they wanted to high 5 each other. Turning it back on couldn't be done quickly enough if 'attacked'.

If this is the case, why are children in these environments in the first place? Some where that they need to be wrapped in a safe ‘bubble’?

@LightSwerve I think it is more "you cant stop people saying or doing things, but you can changed your reaction to it".

We cant stop pervs - they are everywhere. Prick Andrew is testament to that. But we can change our (and especially our children's) availability to them.

Yes, we shouldnt have to, true. But we do. Sad though that is.

I haven't read the article but DH is now rather worried about all the people he has "killed" in online computer games ...