Virtual Rape: Seriously? Seriously.

I'm not the expert on it.

But Dan Hunter at Terra Nova sure as heck isn't, either.

He referenced Wired's Regina Lynn's article, here. Lynn has studied sex in virtual worlds more than any author I've read, though if Stroker Serpentine were to write on the subject, I might change that statement. I have not been victimized in this manner, but I am a proponent of gender-equality. Virtual Worlds ought to be a good place for that to happen. When I read comments trivializing things like "virtual rape" like I read at Terra Nova, it upsets me. It's simple-minded to make some pithy comment like calling Lynn's story "drivel", or saying, "It's okay. It's not real.", or "Is virtual 'rape' the same as rape? Of course not, any more than PK is murder."

Oh, "it's not real", huh? If tens of thousands of users are online spending countless hours with each other, is that all made-up? If you pour your soul out to someone online, share sexual fantasy, and private things that you might only share with a spouse, is that not a form of infidelity? How many marriages initiate online? How many people get so wound up in this virtual world that it consumes their lives? It sure sounds real to me.

As to the comparison to player-killing, or "PK", this is a really lousy analogy. In any world I've ever gone to where death is possible, you enter knowing very consciously that death is a part of the game. If you are PK'd, it is because you signed onto a game and entered an area that is marked as "unsafe". No one volunteers for sexual harassment, or to be exposed to it.

Thought provoking was a comment, "If we define rape as a crime that occurs inside the victim's mind, we're crossing a very dangerous line." But while this initially sounded like a true rights vs. crime statement, I quickly realized the same can be true about real rape - victims are often too afraid for their life to resist when a threat of force is clear, and hence the "reasonable woman" standard. (see Ellison vs. Brady). There is clearly a difference in mindset between attacker and victim, to where the attacker more often than not has every expectation on them that they should know what they are doing is wrong, even though they may claim, "Oh, she wanted it" or some other trite justification.

I think Lynn's off in her assessment. She says "virtual rape" is not a crime, but I think she was just trying to make a distinction between real-world rape. "Virtual rape" could easily fall under sexual harassment law. She does, however, state how damaging this could be to a person, in real terms.

I'm always up for philosophical discussion of the nature of how interaction in virtual worlds applies to real world, and vice versa. However, the one-liners and brief dismissals I find in Terra Nova, both in the article and in the comments, are sad, and without any real substance of contemplation on the subject at hand.