Computer games are not what they were when I was growing up. Gone are the days of 64-bit spacecraft flying foxes, ocarina playing elves, and fire ball wielding Italian plumbers. Today, gaming in 2024, so little of my time is spent in the magical technicolored words of my childhood – and instead, it’s mostly 4K renditions of my body splattering into concrete, being garrotted by my enemies, and having my neck snapped like a twig. Don’t get me wrong – I agree – it’s intense, exhausting and can be stressful. But one thing it isn’t… is real. And such things can never be real, because computer games are, well, not real life. My digital self being smashed apart by a car travelling at 100mph; sending my lifeless body sailing into the streets of downtown San Franciso, is in no way comparable to the same event happening outside my house in real life. My head being stoved-in and ripped apart by a 10 foot zombie, is something I would prefer to experience in the world of PlayStation, and not at my local park whilst walking the dog. I have only ever been eaten by a t-rex, or launched out of an airlock, or cut into ribbons, or decapitated, in the gaming world. So when I read an article where a bunch of asshole boys harass a woman on Meta’s ‘Virtual Worlds’, and then this woman proceeds to call herself a victim of ‘rape’, whose experiences are comparable to those of real life rape… well, it annoys me. Because that isn’t real either. And comparisons between the two are not only profoundly stupid, but incredibly offensive. Comparing the traumatic, life devastating experience of a real life sexual assault, to the virtual experiences in the computer game, is wrong – both objectively and morally. Whilst as men, who by British law still cannot be ‘raped’ by women at all - no matter what happens - it is frustrating for its own reasons. So what do you think? Am I out of touch? Are the two comparable? And is this the conversation we should be having around the emerging, and very real issue of online harassment? What do you think? ~ SA prosecutions Images by Danie Franco, Frank Flores, Amal S, Getty and Michael Massen.  

2024-01-10