Amazon Vs. RapeLay
Quick Disclaimer: This article is very NSFW. There’s talk of sex, politics, video game porn and other stuff your boss or parents don’t want you looking at.
Oh, noes!
Last week, Amazon.com removed the listing of RapeLay, a Japanese hentai game based on-you guessed it-raping young women. Apparently, many users saw the listing and wrote in with complaints over its offensive material. A few days later, Overstock.com and eBay also removed the title from their online stores for fear of being next in the path of mob-driven torches and pitchforks.
These outlets were never selling the game directly, but rather through third party venders. RapeLay has now been blacklisted from being sold on these sites through any one else in the future. A small victory, since while mainstream venues have denied the public, they still are (and always will be) available through hundreds of specialty shops.
Many bloggers from the corners of video game design to feminism circles are currently debating the morality of rape-themed games and how they reflect on Eastern and Western culture. Most of these people share similar views of disgust toward men while also having extensive experience in playing these types of games.
These most vocal of journalists covering this story, who are all women, have a very legit fascination for these perversions. Since women are the prime targets of the brutal victimization, there’s an inarguable bias and motivation to their position.
What I would first like to say for myself (a male) on the matter is that yes, rape is wrong. More so, game objectives that not only include rape, but also advocating forced abortion are wrong. But is pornography wrong? Are fantasies wrong? That’s a much grayer area.
It’s difficult to debate on the topic of “thought crimes” such as this without succumbing to slippery slopes. It’s probably more advantageous to view these fantasies as healthy or unhealthy, rather than “right” or “wrong”.
Deviant behavior does not manifest in a vacuum-it’s the symptom of deeper issues yet to be resolved. A single, root trauma or chain of events lead up to the person’s perversion. It could be an upbringing by an overbearing mother or one memorable night with a predatory “family friend”. Whatever the history, it should be by its treatment that we should face this societal cancer.
What’s also unfair is the ironic demonization of men in the aforementioned bloggers’ arguments about sexism. It’s unrealistic to ignore the existence of women who strangely revel in the fantasy of being raped. What’s to be said of them?
We’re all human and subject to the same psychological damage. For a woman, it could be a terrifying childhood weekend with a touchy-feely uncle who forever bent her emotional antennae. Or it could be that she grew up with an abusive father, damning the girl to a pattern of abusive lovers in the unconscious hope to reconcile an Electra complex. These women prone to victimization are in just as much need of therapy as predatory males.
The bigger hypocrisy is in what our culture glorifies rather than what we find offensive. For whatever reason, especially in Western culture, violence is casually accepted as entertainment while sex (even when consensual) is labeled as obscene. The simple image of nudity will send audiences wincing before any forensics drama or slash horror film. Grand Theft Auto was just another blip on Jack Thompson’s hit list before the “Hot Coffee” incident made it a household name on the evening news.
The attraction to gratuitous violence and pornography share a kinship in that they’re both symptoms of societal problems, not the cause. These predilections exist because people are drawn toward them, coming from whatever life’s origins directed them along that path.
Whether or not I personally believe a type of fantasy is healthy or not (in the case of rape-themed video games, I say it’s definitely not), I have to acknowledge a person’s right to indulge in them in victimless ways. It’s very similar to a story I’m covering over at GotGame, where a man faces a potential 20 year sentence for owning pornographic comic books. To forbid a person the ability to express themselves artistically is a violation of one’s First Amendment right.
At the same time, Amazon and the other online stores were well within their rights to block distribution of these games through their channels. Being denied means of distribution through a third party is not the same as censorship. Amazon (who should better know their customer base) was clumsy to allow these products to sit publicly on their virtual shelves for as long as they did.
Back to the point at hand, the market for brutal pornography exists because there is a sustainable consumer base for it. For every 100 deviants that get off from sick rape fantasies, at least one member will have the talent to lend toward creating artistic expressions of that material. And of course, the remaining 99 (who cannot create themselves) will pay hard-earned money in order to possess said material.
If we’re offended or ashamed that markets like these exist, then we need to focus on the real disease. Attacking the sellers or publishers of smut is not productive, since they’re not as politically invested as they are economically-they’re making a buck off of satisfying a demand. Persecuting those with that demand will only suppress them into hiding.
We should of course punish those who act on these impulses, but on some level we have to understand where they come from in order to properly apply preventative medicine. The grand obstacle of that appears to be our own pride. We have to face the reality that our culture has flaws and we must make changes within ourselves in order to mend them.
Bringing hentai games like RapeLay into the limelight is a healthy first step. “H-games” are of a genre frequently overlooked. In fact, RapeLay was released in 2006 and it’s only now making its way into discussion. Maybe it’s because they originate from a culture on the opposite side of the planet from our own or maybe because they tend to be terribly designed. However, the fact that they are a gigantic industry somewhere gives us pause for examination.
I hope that more journalists begin covering “H-games” so that we can better understand the people who play them. Some sites already offer featured columns for H-games, though usually as a lark. But if we’re even going to pretend that video games are to be taken seriously, then it would behoove us to cover the industry in its entirety.
