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’?

I do agree that it can almost certainly be confusing for young girls.

However, where it becomes difficult is that most of the toxic behaviour, especially teabagging, is carried out by adolescent boys. Usually like 13-14 years old. They're the most toxic/immature demographic by far IME. They're still children and really it's their parents responsibility to ensure they're not being a menace online.

The Xbox had a 'report' function and they were pretty good at banning repeat offenders. You had a score showing how other players rated you and it was clear who the bad ones were as nobody would ever bother rating you unless you were being toxic. If they enjoyed playing with you they'd usually send a friend request instead so they could invite you to future games.

I can't actually believe some of you are blaming a young girl saying take the head phones off for men's bullying and misogyny
And underage sexual harassment.

What world do we live in seriously.

Virtual reality is more immersive than a message board or a computer game. You can hear people's voices around you, see "them" move towards you. It's entire design aim is to try to make you feel like you're in that world.

It's not surprising that an adolescent might freeze when "surrounded" by several adult men being verbally sexually agressive.

It's widely acknowledged that sex and violence in films can be damaging, that's why we have 18 ratings, and that's just moving 2d pictures and sound. 3d moving pictures and sound that represent actual men targeting you personally in real time seems much more threatening.

Of course it shouldn't be called rape, and yes of course people can just exit the game and take the headset off. But that doesn't mean this shouldn't be taken seriously. As one of the speakers on the Woman’s Hour piece said, why should the onus be on women to withdraw, and curtail activities they enjoy, just because this is yet another space occupied by misogynist males?

I think some people's reactions to this are just thinly-veiled snobbery about computer games. You wouldn't think it was appropriate for bunches of men to gang up and sexually harass a young woman on social media. What's the difference?

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

I doubt it. There's a difference between shooting an avatar like you would in any shooting-type game and a bunch of male players immediately approaching the avatar of a female player and all simulating sex noises that she can hear through her headset.

The interesting question is what has changed that this is only being seen as an issue 25 years after it started? It's much less common now and teabagging was mainly a thing on the Halo games which aren't really so popular now - it's all Fortnite etc nowadays.

The heyday of teabagging was the early 2000s.

I agree that lots of unnaceptable things used to go unchallenged but I also feel people are a bit too easily offended nowadays too (note: I'm not talking about sexual harrassment but just in general).

I've been teabagged literally hundreds of times and used to just laugh at it. I had an all female squad who regularly played together and we were really good. Used to do low level competitions online etc. This is when I was like 15yo maybe.

I used to love winding up the adolescent boys after we'd thrashed them by turning on the mic and letting them know they'd been beaten by a team of girls. 😂 Used to love the trash talk. You'd have teenage boys trying to cuss you and call you every insult they could think of and you'd laugh and tell them they 'sounded like a virgin' or their balls clearly hadn't dropped.

Yeah, it was pretty toxic but we were teenagers and pretty immature.

Well this topic won't be going away anytime. Microsoft is launching immersive spaces so at work you have an avatar and you sitting in a meeting room so it feels more real. What happens if a male colleague in this immersive meeting touches your avatar inappropriately? Is that a disciplinary? Or not? because after all its virtual and no real harm was done. If its a 1-2-1 meeting how do you prove it happened?

On a side note, I only just noticed this emoji the other day and wondered what practical purpose it would serve other than insulting somebody for having a small manhood. 🤏

It's funny but kinda grim too.

I imagine there will be the facility to record meetings. It would make sense when collaborating. I'd say that anything that could be construed as sexually suggestive would be seen as a distinct violation of workplace conduct.

@2024GarlicCloves I know EXACTLY what you are talking about. I use to play Second Life for many years. I think people who have never played it cant understand how it can effect you brain. And that wasnt even Virtual Reality. I tried a Virtual Reality headset at Christmas and my first thought was how much more amazing it would have made Second Life. You are not weird like you've been accused. Most people I knew that played SL had anecdotes like yours. The one that I remember most for me was when a person came over to me at work (in real life) and I looked above their head to see what their name was LOL.

Perhaps a comparison would be if you had a black avatar and a group of people ganged up on you in VR and acted out a KKK lynching while saying horrible racist stuff. They aren't really hurting you, but it would still be very distressing, and the attack is motivated by the same beliefs and feelings that are behind real life racist attacks.

Likewise, a "rape" in VR is not the same as a real life, but could still leave you feeling very upset and traumatised and might make you fear what people in real life might do.

As I said to @2024GarlicCloves who kindly answered my question already - thank you but now I need to find the brain bleach.

And yes, I agree it's the intention (and the imaginative process behind it) that matters most, though I'd personally rather not look at the graphic either.

Fantasy give people rein to express their intention without insisting that they take responsi bility for what they want or for its effects on other people. For the same reason game actions can cause real distress to the victims of that intention, especially when they're obviously targetted or outside normal gameplay. That works even for very low fidelity media such as text. People can and do hide behind a fantasy or a game to violate real boundaries that protect other people.

Interesting that you express this as "it's when you..." and not "it's when your game character...." That in itself shows just how slippery the mental boundary between game character and game player can be.

I looked above their head to see what their name was - I can so imagine that 🤣🤣

I wish people had floating names above their heads! 😁

I had an all female squad who regularly played together and we were really good.

Very different experience if you were usually all alone - one girl playing against a slew of men or one girl on a team of boys.

Fair point, although I'm pretty thick skinned tbh. Not that other people don't have the right to be offended.

I'm not sure where I stand on it all tbh. I don't think we should be making excuses for dodgy men but I do think it's better if we can see them for what they are and move on in some cases. I don't mean ignore it but instead not let them succeed in demeaning us.

Of course this isn't always possible as we're not machines and can't just dictate how we react. However, I do also feel there's sometimes an element of people getting upset because they think they should. I recognise this in my nephew. My sister coddles him a bit and honestly speaking he's a bit of a wimp. He'll cry at things his sisters never would.

When I was with him recently he accidentally knelt on a bit of Lego and looked at me expecting me to say "oh, your poor thing". Instead, I just acted like it never happened and he carried on playing. 100% my sister would've made a fuss and he would've started crying.

Maybe not a perfect example but I'm sure people will get my point. Serious online sexual harassment from men is unacceptable and concerning but 13yo boys teabagging people for lols really isn't the end of the world to me. Yes, they should be told off by their parents if caught and maybe temporary banned from playing but I'm kind of glad I came from the era where you would just teabag them back and wind them up. Nowadays I wonder if I'd have been told it was sexual harassment/a violation of human rights etc and been mightily traumatised. Probably not tbh but I think a lot of today's youth would.

A mate of mine told me she recently saw a male youtuber literally crying in a video because somebody had teabagged him on Call of Duty. Had made a video complaining it was 'the most toxic thing he'd ever experienced'. I guess I respect people's right to be offended but I kinda felt he maybe needed to man up a bit too in all honesty.

I'm pretty thick skinned tbh.

I already figured that out.

Nowadays I wonder if I'd have been told it was sexual harassment/a violation of human rights etc and been mightily traumatised.

Conversely, many thinner skinned young people would have been traumatised but not fully understood why until very much later. Especially if they liked to play the game and weren't expecting the nastiness. A lot of them would feel guilty for not just being able to blow it off. And many of them would have dropped out. But when you're all together with the remaining tough nuts you all give each other strength.

I came from the era where you would just teabag them back and wind them up.

Yes, it seems to have suited you very well.

I kinda felt he maybe needed to man up a bit too in all honesty.

Never let it be said that all women have empathy. 😂 Seriously though, there is more than one way to man up. There is your way to man up - don't care, do it back and do it worse. Or maybe it could have been his opportunity to man up and try to make the change he wanted to see, for other people's sake as well as his own.

Sorry if that sounded a bit dismissive. I've had a few drinks tonight so I'm probs being a bit more blunt than usual.

I think an important thing to remember is that youngish children, even adolescents really, shouldn't be playing these games. The Call of Duty series is maybe the closest equivalent to the Halo games nowadays in terms of toxicity. I just checked the age rating out of curiosity (I was sure it was Cert 15) and it's actually certified 18+.

It's really not a particularly gory game despite obviously being violent (objective is to kill the other team) and although it's rated 18+ you'd realistically see much worse violence in a film certified 15+. This makes me wonder if the age rating reflects the fact that you're interacting online with strangers via microphone with no real policing (you can report people after the event but nobody is monitoring in real time).

Interestingly, Nintendo (who have always been more family focused) don't offer a live chat function in their online games and I'm guessing this is why.

Online shooters have always been full of adolescent kids. There was even a term for the pre-pubescent ones - "squeakers". Even a lot of the pro players/streamers that compete in competitions for money are <18yo. However, you can set parental controls on most consoles blocking voice chat and online play etc.

So, whilst it's defo not excusable for teenagers to act the way they do online I do feel that parents need to be a bit more clued up than many are. Often it's just "here's the PlayStation you wanted for xmas" and they're left to their own devices.

That said, I'd defo say that overall gaming brings youths together more than it causes trauma. I've never met a gamer in real life that had any issue with interactions online. I've seen plenty of trash talk and arguing but that's typical teen behaviour tbh.

I feel like a big part of this is avoiding letting young or vulnerable kids online unsupervised. This isn't victim blaming. It's just potentially not a suitable environment unless you're well into your teens and able to give it back. Playing Minecraft with mates from school is probs OK. Playing online shooters with random adults and older teenagers maybe not so much.

But I wouldn't change my teenage years for anything. I'd probably hate being a teenager today tbh.

What a fucked up world we live, sometimes think society would be better off without the existence of the Internet and social media.

I'm not so sure. There are millions of people benefitting from the internet for every case like the above.

@TheZoehan your posts are very masculine, and I don't know if you can hear your lack of empathy and authoritative tone; it's a very male stance and contributes in general to poor mental health in men. For example "Serious online sexual harassment from men is unacceptable and concerning but 13yo boys teabagging people for lols really isn't the end of the world to me" here you don't seem to see that a line needs to be drawn and that 13yo boys accessing the game need to be told this is not "normal" behaviour or funny in anyway, but assault. In your last post you say it isn't a space for children, yet somehow it comes across that you don't mean these 13yo boys, but the girls who should be turning off because they get offended when assaults are simulated upon them.

It is actually sad to read your posts as it does feel as if you have been largely desensitised to some very poor behaviour. I certainly hope none of my children ever find things you mention funny or acceptable.

Try framing the legislation for this? FGS we are now heading into the territory of legislating against thought and imagination, despicable as some is

@Sunflowergirl1 how is this thought? This is a group of males acting out what they want to do to a child in an area that is not policed in any way. Why are we moving increasingly online without any controls like this? Why do some people not want people to be held accountable for bad behaviour, especially against vulnerable people. It all smacks of those who say "in my day we never had autism" (hint, you did but diagnosis of it didn't happen) or "in my day we used to play with fork in an electrical socket and be happy" (and child deaths and disfigurements were rife) - there is such a thing as progress and growth should be done in a way that benefits all, not holds us hostage to the worst parts of human behaviour.

There should be an immediate penalty built into the game for sexual harassment. A button that only female players have, when pressed, the other offender/player disappears from the game. And is locked out for 24/48 hours.
Otherwise there is no incentive for the offenders to stop.
Other player's avatar exploding in the game could be optional.

No, a thought is inside your head. You can think anything you like inside your head. If it was a thought only, no one else would know it had been thought.

What is being discussed is an action. Actions have always been subject to law since laws were first introduced.

It’s well documented that people being sexually assaulted can freeze - it takes a while for the brain to register what is going on and what protection mechanisms are their best option. Yes maybe she could have taken her head phones off but she clearly wasn’t expecting this attack and might have experienced trauma before she took her headphones off.