to be horrified at the casual use of the word 'raped' in online gaming?

[intheshitegarden]

dh was telling me about his latest exploits on world of warcraft when he said he was 'raped' by some monster or other.i was confused and shocked.he explained that everybody uses that word as a term for being attacked.

i am horrified by this,AIBU?

no your notmy dh always plays xbox online and ive never heard him say anything like that!

That is a very nasty colloquialism. Yuk.

No, not unreasonable at all. That's downright nasty. Presumably teenagers would play it?

it wasnt used on the game he used to play,but is commonly used on WOW from what i can gather.

i asked him not to say it in front of me as i find it very offensive.

the game is a 13+,thats why i was confused.i know there are some dodgey games out there but wow has swear filters fgs!

It's insinuating it's way into everyday language as another word for 'mugged' and so on. Unpleasant, but it's the way language evolves alas.

Agnes

It has evolved from these various meanings:

rape1 (rāp)
n.
The crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse.
The act of seizing and carrying off by force; abduction.
Abusive or improper treatment; violation: a rape of justice.
tr.v., raped, rap·ing, rapes.
To force (another person) to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse; commit rape on.
To seize and carry off by force.
To plunder or pillage.
[Middle English, from rapen, to rape, from Old French raper, to abduct, from Latin rapere, to seize.]

raper rap'er n.

So strictly speaking, it is not incorrect, however, it is less commonly used in such a manner in our society these days.

From a personal point of view, the word "rape" is not a dirty one, and shouldnt be made one as such.

It is the crime that is vile - not the word. I feel that if the word was less demonised, then it is just one tiny step closer to people being able to come forward when they have been raped - and be able to say so in such terms.

No YANBU.

It's not girls that are using it either is it? I don't think adolesent and twenty-something male gamers talking about how they "raped" someone in a game will lift the stigma for rape victims. What it does is trivialise the crime.

OMG that is quite awful.

pathetic. How dare they demean victims of actual, real-life sexual violence in that way?

No-one has used 'rape' as a synonym for plunder and pillage for a very long time so that argument does not hold water.

I'm not arguing against it all - just to make myself clear.

Simply pointing out the origins of the word, and saying that from a general point of view, it is difficult for rape victims to say the word.

This can be a huge obstacle in reporting the crime. The shame felt by a rape victim is tremendous, and there are very few words in our language that people find difficult to say - most are usually graphic swear words.

No other crime invokes such a thing.

I doubt online gamers are particularly expert etymologists, tbh. Or very interested in empowering rape victims through language.

I wasnt suggesting they were

Although, that is a rather sweeping generalisation edam.....

I am simply airing my personal views on the word. Can I not do that?

I agree with you Yvaine, not sure how that is relevant to this thread however.

These blokes should not be trivialising rape by using the word in this way. What they are doing probably makes it even harder for victims to speak about their experiences.

Message withdrawn

They've all probably watched so much "rape" porn (it's popular) that they've lost their moral compass.

Glad you and your colleagues gave the guy a hard time.

meh i use it fairly often portray the fact that i've been fucked over etc (normally regarding the high price of something or my workload or when i have been well and truely beaten at something).
it's probably wrong but i don't really think about it in terms of demeaning rape victims it's just a commonly used term among a lot of guys these days. i'm not trying to justify it just saying that it happens.
(and no i don't watch "rape" porn)

"it's just a commonly used term among a lot of guys these days".

I've never heard anyone use the word in that context.

Not once.

as i say i know a fair amount of people who would use it and i doubt any of them are giving a second thought / intentionally attempting to make some statement about rape victims. it might be an age/geography/any other factor thing, but i have used it in the past as have friends and i will most likely use it again in the future.

I used to work in a sales office where a lot of the guys there would use the word rape to describe being charged an unreasonably high price.. I think it's quite common in these circles.

I was of course incredibly offended by this originally, but after a while I got used to it. I did get them to stop it eventually though, lots of threatened beatings seemed to do the trick :-p

I play WoW, as do many of my mates, and nobody has ever used that term to me. If they did I would call them out on it and report them to a GM if they didn't apologise as I'd find it extremely offensive.

( I do, however, frequently encounter people using 'retard' or 'gay' as an insult, and call them on it too. Silly little boys, most of them, and they need telling).

Not being unreasonable. I heard a (very nice) friend of DP's using it in the context of being beaten at cards (it was bridge, ffs) and was absolutely shocked, and pulled him up on it. Absolutely not acceptable to use it in this context, as it trivialises it and makes, to an extent, a joke out of it, I think.

personally i think it's being over-sensitive. unless you pull people up on their use of other crimes as a comparison for something that has happened for them. i don't think people who say "i'd murder a steak" or "this traffic is murder" are trivialising and making a joke of murder and murder victims. nor do i think that people describing the high price of something as "daylight robbery" are poking fun at victims of crime.

I agree with whiskeyandbeer, there are a lot of words I dont like, but that are used in everyday speak as a meaning for something else.
Rape, Murder, Bugger and many more.

I use the word rape if I have been exploited in a sale, and I am by no means trivialising the actual physical sexual meaning of rape.

I don't think it's oversensitive to react to the use of such a word. It can bring up horrible memories when you're just (for example) sitting at work getting on with things.

IMO It's just unnecessary..