gamerisms:

“Oh man, I totally raped that noob!”

“We totally raped that boss, man!”

The word “rape” has become a part of gaming culture, and most noticeably online gaming. People use it in such ways as describing other gamers they’ve defeated in Call of Duty and bosses they’ve beaten in MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy.

I personally play World of Warcraft, and in the last two weeks have started noticing a disturbing upsurge in the use of this word. I don’t know whether I just started paying attention to it more or people are using it more, but it’s been happening. I have:

 - been kicked out of my guild for getting angry at one of the officers who told a rape joke.

 - had one of my friends tell me it was “bigotry” for me to ask them to stop using “rape” to describe PvP combat.

 - had one of our most active raiders be so attached to the use of the word that it almost cost him his spot.

The gaming community is primarily made up of white heterosexual males, which may explain this trend (but surely not excuse it). Since rape culture “rewards” men for being aggressive and not caring about so-called “Political Correctness”, perhaps nost of these gamers feel as if they can joke about it without anyone caring or being punished, because the most vocal section of the gaming community is just like them (i.e. white heterosexual male).

I don’t like this trend. Gamers are smarter than this. Surely other words would be more appropriate in this situation - like “owned”, “defeated”, or even “killed”. People saying that “the word ‘rape’ is just a part of gaming culture now and that will never change” need to rethink that. Surely gamers can find other words instead of trivializing a serious incident that happens to a lot of people. And the problem with the Internet is that one never knows who’s listening. You may think you’re telling a hilarious rape joke to your guild, but on the other side of the screen could be a sexual assault survivor who is violently triggered by your “joke”.

I personally have not been raped or sexually assaulted, but I know people who have been, and when people use “rape” in this way it is like equalizing what happened to them with a 30-second wait or the killing of a virtual boss.

So remember this the next time you want to use “rape” to describe something in a game - is it something as life-changing as actual rape? If the answer is no (and it probably will be) use a different word. Don’t contribute to the problem. And I encourage you, if you feel you can, to speak up within your gaming community to stop the spread of the word. I certainly don’t want people to speak up if they feel they can’t, but if you feel your community would understand your thinking go for it.

 - Taylor

P.S. If you reblog this post, please leave the trigger warning in the title there (even if you don’t use them normally) - I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about this blog (i.e. that we don’t use trigger warnings).

I hear this ALL the time over vent when my partner plays WoW. It triggers me a lot of the time, which sucks. It’s fucked that I can’t even sit in the same room with my partner when he plays without being triggered, let alone play myself.