The Gaming World Vs. The Real World

Regina Lynn, the Sex Drive columnist for Wired Magazine, put forth an interesting editorial on the idea and execution of sex crimes in the online gaming world. (The article is linked within the title).

Titled "Virtual Rape is Traumatic, but Is It a Crime," Lynn examines the recent allegations of a rape occurance in Second Life, reported in Brussels, Belgium.

She writes:

Our laws say that an adult subjecting a teenager or child to sexual words, images or suggestions on the internet is preying on their mental and emotional state in a sexual way. Even if you never try to meet the minor in person, and even if you never touch them or expose your naked self to them, it is a crime to attempt to engage sexually with a minor.

If it is a criminal offense to sexually abuse a child on the internet, how can we say it is not possible to rape an adult online?

Lynn the points out that while virtual rape is quite traumatic (and points out a few examples of the argument, it still does not compare to the physical and psychological trauma of actual, physical rape.

She ends the piece by saying:

The truth is, anywhere people gather, we bring all of our potential with us -- for love, for sex, for community and creation, and for violence and destruction, too. That's why we still enjoy pondering whether cybersex is real sex and whether an online affair is more or less damaging to a relationship than a physical affair. It's a tacit acknowledgement that while the time-space continuum may change, people don't.

Rape is the ultimate perversion of sexual intimacy. Like sex, rape has mental and emotional elements that go beyond the body and the damage to the mind and spirit generally takes much longer to heal than the body.

But that doesn't make the psychological upheaval of virtual rape anywhere near the trauma of real rape. And I can't see us making virtual rape a matter for the real-life police.

It's a shitty thing to do to someone. But it's not a crime.

As I was mulling over the concept of rape in online gaming a few days later, I came across an article from BBC world news discussing a German investigation into a group on Second Life that was dealing in child pornography.

Obviously, this is not looking good for second life.

However, it is also a blow to everyone who lives, works, and plays online. The virtual world has done so much for so many - and yet, there is a very dark undercurrent taking root.

The fact that the virtual world provides so much anonynmity allows people to open up as they could not do so in the real world...however, the other edge of the sword happens to people like Kathy Sierra (note, link takes a while to load) and others who have found themselves on the business end of threating images and messages.

In an age where I can GoogleMap the exact location of someone's home, and get an aerial view of the surrounding area, it becomes harder and harder to laugh off crude remarks or semi-veiled threats. Even in the area of gaming, in which trash talking has been elevated to a high art, we need to take a moment to re-examine why we allow such abusive language to continue unchecked.

I'm not talking about normal jokes that come out in competition - phrases like "that ass is mine bitch!" are relatively begnin compared to people who make threats against a person's health or well being outside of the game. Or spewing misogynistic/homophobic comments simply because they are cloaked in anonymity.

We, the online community, have got to step up and start policing ourselves. If we do not, we may find that the real world will try to do it for us.