Gamers and the vagina — the final boss?
Warning: Images below the fold and any linked content will be NSFW, and some of the words used may trigger inappropriate content firewalls.
I have to back up and getting a running start for this one, and ask the question “why do we game?” Because our motivations for gaming and liking the games that we do like may tell us about ourselves. I could be a much different gamer than I am: I prefer games that engage me intellectually over games that merely stimulate me visually, I enjoy twitchy games that have a sense of construction to them, I enjoy games that offer multiplayer co-op or low-key competition over high-stakes, high-adrenaline vs. mode. I don’t really respond to violence in games unless it’s comical: I’ve never responded to a spectacular head-splatter with awe when I could kill a guy by throwing a dead guy at him, or right-clicking on a chicken to make it explode.
I don’t feel that games influence our behavior, but I do feel that games have an ability to reflect who we are. Our decision to buy Game A over Game B is a construction of our choices and preferences at several levels. Someone who enjoys 3-round fighters may want to purchase every 3-round fighter published, but when it comes down to a limited budget, they will have to exercise some preference over which fighter they pick up. It may be that they would rather pick up the fighter that is as realistic as possible, or they may prefer to spend their money on the fighter that has the cooler attacks or bloodier deaths. It’s hard to dissect the motivations for that choice with much granularity. The game is just as likely to be a reflection of a person’s actual violent tendencies as it is simple wish-fulfillment or harmless escapism. And people may like different games for different reasons. Guitar Hero is probably the epitome of a wish-fulfillment game — I don’t know if there’s a gamer alive who doesn’t secretly have a notion of them rocking out to crowds of screaming fans when they get a 100-note streak for the first time. But just because I secretly wish I were the bassist for the next Awesome Indie Rock Band whenever I back up a friend on “Reptilia” doesn’t mean that I secretly wish I were a sullen emo immortal when I play Lost Odyssey or a member of The Rank chasing after certain doom in Castle Crashers. Attempting an even finer fillet of motivations based the statement “I play Soul Calibur” to determine the player’s views of race and/or gender would be pointless without getting into more detail about what they like about the game.
This is what frequently brings us trolls — pointing out that a person’s motivations for playing a particular game like Resident Evil 5 or Grand Theft Auto may not be simple escapism, and may in fact be a reflection of actual wish-fulfillment tends to get gamer’s hackles up. Pointing out that games can in fact provide wish-fulfillment or reflect real predispositions or attitudes in a less-than-positive way usually results in a reaction not unfamiliar to this blog. Tricky waters to navigate, indeed… but then ugly will find an out, so that’s always an easy way to tell if someone is playing a game for escapist reasons or because they’ve been ejected from the playground that is intellectual and moral honesty. Do they find themselves on the ass-end of a banning at gaming sites that actually have standards? Chances are they’re not playing games for simple escapism.
But the sometimes drawing a simple Motivation A to Game B line really is that easy.
Regular commenter Dungeon Keeper alerts me to the Cunt videogame out from Newgrounds. These are the folks who gave us the awesome Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, so this one really hurt–it’s not just some random bedroom programmer who spent a few hours programming his own twisted view of women, this was something that got studio backing. The point of the game “Cunt” is that you are a penis trying to destroy an icky, bug-infested vagina by shooting it. Instructions include the helpful text “Shooting vaginal openings will cause cunt damage!”
The cunt in question–which looks for all the world like a wizened creature out of the H.R. Giger convalescent home for aging genital monsters–will frequently sprog off “bugs” which will attack the penis, and shooting the cunt will indeed result in bloody cunt-damage.
The game developer’s loading screen exhorts us to not play the game if we can’t “deal” with graphic images of male and female genitalia. And indeed, if you can’t “deal” with graphic images of male and/or female genitalia then this game is certainly not for you — but the disclaimer immediately assumes that if a person is fine with images of male and female genitalia, then they’re automatically fine with depictions of female genitalia as a bunch of bug-infested badness that must be destroyed by male genitalia, which is another kettle of fish. Of course, anyone who clicks over to a game called “Cunt” thinking that it will be a fun, egalitarian sex-romp of a time is so completely deluded I’m surprised that the Concerned Women for America website allowed them off the ranch.
Of the numerous things that are wrong with this game — It’s not so much the objectification of the vulva — after all, the penis is just as detached as the floating Death Star of Pussy, but rather the very message that the vag is a disgusting, bug-strewn organ that’s out to destroy the penis. The inevitable “oh it’s just a harmless joke” defenses will blithely ignore that there is a very real subtext to the game. Men have traditionally feared the vagina, going back centuries. There are some tribes that do actually believe that when a man has vaginal intercourse with a woman that she will actually “steal” his manliness through her vagina, and that he must go out and replenish himself afterwards. In our society, the “fear” of the vagina is no more sophisticated: the very object that the male could not wait to penetrate and ejaculate into will become a source of entrapment when the woman attached to it declares that she is pregnant.
But as easy as it would be to point to a game like Cunt and say “golly gosh, anyone who plays this game certainly does have more than a few bound-for-your-personal-library issues with female sexuality,” (and holy shit, is it ever), we have to take a step back and survey the landscape, so to speak. Because this game is not unique, it’s not a one-off… it represents a very real and tangible culture of hatred of women that exists within the gaming community. After all, if the developers thought no-one would play the game, they wouldn’t have made it in the first place.
A few months back, I had occasion to review what was intended as a joke post for a gamer site for the game Vagina Hero, which was supposed to be like guitar hero in that you would manipulate a specialized controller to push a series of buttons in pre-set and esoteric order in order to bring the woman on the screen to orgasm. The proposed controller was about as classy as you’d expect:
I didn’t comment on it at the time because Ann at Feministing put it best when she wrote:
Now, I’m all for establishing the idea that a woman’s pleasure should be a priority for her sexual partner. But this “game” is less about women’s sexual pleasure than it is about establishing the idea that ladyparts are icky and confusing and “other.”
The original post’s author, Dan Landis, was obviously trying to riff on the tired old joke that women are nearly impossible to bring to climax (The unwritten aftermath of the joke being “why bother?”). The vulva is little more than a moist game of Simon: touch here, touch there, don’t touch there or you’ll have to start all over. Men, it would seem, do not have the same sensitivities. All a woman has to do to bring a man to climax is to simply grab and rub his penis — there will never be irritation or chafing, so attempting to describe how a woman’s clitoris might require a slightly different approach then just “grip firmly and rub the shit out of it until she orgasms” will naturally cause some confusion. (Anyone who didn’t detect the sarcasm in those last two sentences, please avoid commenting on this thread and save yourself the embarassment of looking like an absolute fool).
While Vagina Hero doesn’t offer the same tenor of misogyny as Cunt or the vagina punching game does, its worth pointing out that there isn’t much of a joke here if you try to turn things around. The reason this article is “funny” is because of the base assumptions that a) all gamers are heterosexual men, b) all gamers are frustrated sexually and would buy a porny game, c) getting a woman to climax is so complicated and difficult it’s less likely than beating Contra without the Konami code.
The thing is, none of those premises are true, and gamers, especially heterosexual male gamers, might want to think about what this joke says about them before they laugh at it. Not only that they’re sexually frustrated and the only way they’d be able to have one or more sexual partners is through a video game with downloadable content, but that they’re so completely ignorant about female anatomy that they would never be able to bring a woman to climax without a high score to tell them when they were doing something right.
But again, mostly, what these games reinforce is how the gaming culture views women, and the vagina in particular. It is something to be conquered, of no inherent worth of its own other than through the male player’s domination of it (whether that domination is the destruction offered via the real game Cunt or the orgasm offered via the joke game Vagina Hero). The fact that the game is… well, a game, which is ostensibly for pleasure, is married to the fact that the vagina itself is seen as an obstacle, something that must be overcome in order to achieve that pleasure, and certainly not attached to something that the male character is supposed to have respect for, much less any meaningful relationship. These two “games” ultimately exist not as intelligent and original concepts and mechanisms in their own right which offer the gamer an opportunity to explore the erotic boundaries of gaming, but as cheap knock-offs to successful, existing titles or venues that exist solely as a means to exercise the player’s hatred and othering of the female body.
September 1st, 2008 at 6:20 pm
The “moral” of the second game is fairly clear (as you stated in the post), but the message from the makers of the first game is very confusing - that vaginas are evil, parasite filled abominations so, er, have sex with them*? That the penis is some sort of weapon to be used against women? That sexual acts should never involve going anyway near a vagina (but looking at one from afar is a-okay)? Or I am overanalysing this - were the developers just motivated by “genitals = funny”?
Whatever was going on in their “minds” as they made this, I’d sure love to be a fly-on-the-wall at one of their therapy sessions (”And what do you see on this inkblot?” “It’s a deformed infected vagina spewing hundreds of insects that are all trying to eat my penis!” “O…kaaay…”)
* This game appears to be largely just “Vagina dentata - the game”, except with insects, not teeth. The Aesop of the classical vagina dentata myth was not dissimilar to this: women go around attacking men by having sex with them, then a man cures the woman… by having sex with her.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Are we sure Dave Sim wasn’t involved in the first game?
September 1st, 2008 at 8:16 pm
“If people can’t deal with X” they should avoid X is a commonly held view. It is of course a nonsense since what is happening here in this article is that people are dealing with X by decontructing and criticising what it really means.
The vagina dentata myth is a valid starting point for art or games (assuming you think the two are mutually exclusive) but all great art works by challenging ideas, not reinforcing them. Thus Ridley Scot’s first Alien movie is a brilliant deconstruction of tradtional male fear of women, pregnancy and vaginas. Ever notice that the single minded android (male) chooses to take a pornographic magazine, roll it up until it is a phallus than try to kill the female protagonist by ramming it down her throat?
That’s an example of good art in my opinion.
This game is just anger and hatred of women, no more, no less.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Ok. Man’s point of view here (just a little bit)
The vagina is not really “an obstacle” that need to be “overcome” in order to have pleasure, if it were that, it would be simple, let’s simply do what our grandparents did and ignore that woman have needs.
But because we *do* care about woman’s pleasure and we *do* want to saciate their needs (if only for something as stupid as bragging rights; but still, that giving a woman pleasure is a bragging point can’t really be that negative) that the vagina becomes this otherworldly thing.
So, there is a bit of difference between the “cunt” game and the “vagina hero” joke.
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The “cunt” game can be easily seems as sexist crap of someone who would like the world were as it were 50 years ago, it’s made by someone who would like to ignore woman’s need, but, because women now are independent and can just tell the insensitive brat to fuck off, he really can’t; so, conscious or not, he makes a game about his frustration with this thing that he don’t compreenhed (<- word probably wrong, english not my real language, etc.)
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The “vagina hero” joke is not a joke about women, it’s actually about men, its target is to offend us for being innadequate lovers and not you for having complicated parts, after all, everyone with some experience knows that the vagina is not really that complicated, so what you said: “Not only that they’re sexually frustrated and the only way they’d be able to have one or more sexual partners is through a video game with downloadable content, but that they’re so completely ignorant about female anatomy that they would never be able to bring a woman to climax without a high score to tell them when they were doing something right. ” is actually the *whole* point of the joke, at least from my point of view, which I’m guessing is the entire male one but it can be just mine, but I’m guessing that no one who worries about the vagina being complicated thinks it’s icky, complicated maybe, but not the monster of the “cunt” game.
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And as a final thought (if you don’t already hate me enough), part of the blame of the vagina’s being “complicated” is the woman’s lack of sensitivity; yes, at least for my personal experience, as an almost virgin, some girls actually got angry that I was doing this that was not cool and not doing that which was cool, but hey, how the fuck was I supposed to know? I was willing to learn, I was willing to please you first and then me, but cmon, I don’t have one of those things, it’s not rocket science, but we have a lot going on in our minds, even “I really love her and if I don’t do this, she’s going to dump me”, so we get nervous, so we don’t know how to handle, so we get frustrated, so someone comes and makes a joke about a controller looking like a vagina so we can laugh at ourselves a little and convince ourselves that that was not the end of the world, knowing that other are as inadequate as ourselves make a little easier to make us less nervous next time we really want to impress that girl we like and, well, a joke about videogames is a good place to do that; so, again, I look at the “vagina hero” joke and I think about that magical time when I was almost a virgin and girls would get pissed off at me for being a crappy little nerd who spent more time with porn then with real people, but really, I’m laught at myself for being inadequate and not at you for having complicated parts.
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(feminists sometimes forget that being part of the “male tribe” isn’t just about oppressing, that it can also be very hard sometimes)
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 am
Cruithne, I couldn’t have put it better.
I just got back from PAX last night, and there was a flood of unexamined sexism and alienation of women that I intend to break down and dissect when I have the time and energy, but for now, this sates my need for a sense of community with people who don’t think I’m some sort of subhuman creature invading his space to kill his joy and take away the things he loves. The writers of Girl in the Machine quit, which is sad, because we need spaces for this kind of conversation. Thanks again, just for having this site.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:12 am
A recent interview sheds some (flickering, insubstantial) light on the development of this game:
I can kind of dig what he’s saying here… but then I scroll up and look at that screenshot again. Eugh.
Here’s a statement I hope I don’t have an opportunity to make again: I have no game design experience, but I’m positive I could come up with a better game in the “genitalia are hilarious” genre than this.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:14 am
Ah, if only I could program, I’d love to make a sort of wackily over the top role reversal hyper-misandristic game…but then again I’m a bit of a crazy self-loathing misandrist who thinks Zardoz is simply *hilarious*.
Uh, but to be a but less OT. I do wish there were more games which are less…immature…about human sexuality, but that’d probably require them to not be made by and for sheltered young men who’ve probably rarely interacted with women IRL.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:35 am
You know, if I just kind of “sat down” and wrote a game, and then discovered the game was actually a vile, hateful expression of nastiness toward the opposite sex, I think I’d probably call a therapist to get some impacted issues removed.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:34 am
Wow. I can’t believe that first game. The second’s just not funny. Both, I think, say more about their creators than anything else.
I was worried for a moment that it was The Behemoth that made the first game (because I like those guys and they seem decent enough). It being the publisher, Newgrounds, though, doesn’t concern/surprise me nearly as much. Less and less respect for publishers in general. With digital distribution hopefully developers will be able to do without them more and more. But that’s very off topic.
I’m also curious to know how exactly he’d go about being MORE offensive than that, as he boasts he could. Like, he didn’t figure the very *title* of his experiment in daydreaming might offend someone?
Yeah, this is just awful.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:27 am
Sblargh — please step outside of your own privilege for two seconds. If you’d READ the post, you would see that I was pointing out that those games were also offensive to men, but they are more offensive to women. In your rush to cry and hold up the boo-boo on your finger to me, you might want to take a moment to see that I’ve lost an entire arm.
This goes to show that no matter what a feminist does to mitigate sexism against women by acknowledging that yes, The Patriarchy Hurts Men Too (TPHMT), it will never be enough to satisfy some of these poor, downtrodden menz.
You need to check yourself right now. If a woman you were with grabbed your cock and started rubbing it as hard and as fast as she could, you’d probably tell her to quit it or back off before she burned off your foreskin. Just because a woman told you that what you were doing didn’t feel good doesn’t mean she “lacked sensitivity.” It means you do. Yeah, it takes time to figure out how to please a sexual partner. Women go through this too, if you can believe it. As much as men like to laugh and joke that all she has to do is lay down and spread her legs and they’re satisfied that’s not the case and you know it so just stop. Women have figuring what to do and you don’t see us making a big joke about how mysterious and complicated male genitalia is. No, we figure it out through trial and error and the help of our partners telling us what feels good and what doesn’t. It’s called communication. Any man who respects his partner isn’t going to go into the great moist unknown and think “I’m going to show her how this thing really works!” He’s going to rely on her cues and communication in order to help her get off. And if he doesn’t, or if he makes a big deal when she tries to instruct him or prevent him from doing something that doesn’t feel good, then he’s an insensitive jerkoff who doesn’t respect his partner and doesn’t deserve to be with her.
These games are harmful because they reinforce the same tired stereotypes that you yourself have bought into. It’s not women’s fault you’re frustrated.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:50 am
“These are the folks who gave us the awesome Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, so this one really hurt–it’s not just some random bedroom programmer who spent a few hours programming his own twisted view of women, this was something that got studio backing.”
The Behemoth is considered a full fledged studio now? To me they are still a small group of guys making arcade style games for newgrounds. And that site is not the most respectful of websites to say the least.
The Cunt game reminds me of all the Adult Swim type games. Just the type of demo they are going after I guess, the Family Guy/Adult Swim demo that finds that kind of juvenile dick and fart jokes funny.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 am
Demex — Newgrounds, not The Behemoth, which is still doing fine. But Newgrounds published Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers and now Cunt.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:33 am
Ya know, pickin on Newgrounds for displaying levels of maturity we normally associate with 13 year old boys is kind of mitigated by the fact that they ARE a bunch of 13 year old boys. At least that’s been my experienct with them.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Also, vis-a-vis Vagina Dentata —
The archetype of the castrating vagina is an interesting one. It definitely is the human condition to denegrate that what we have come from, but more than that, I just don’t see the same anxiety about vag teeth coming from men who actually respect women that I do coming from men who see women as disposable fuck-holes. If you have respect for a sexual partner, there isn’t a part of you that worries she’s going to get “revenge” because you’re not doing anything revenge-worthy. But if part of your brain feels guilt over the treatment of another, part of your brain (maybe not the conscience part) is going to start to empathize with that person and create a structure by which the vagina is capable of defending itself.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:29 am
Hi, this is my first comment here though I follow this blog pretty regularly and enjoy reading it.
I think Cunt is really intriguing for the sheer nightmarish Freudianness (Freudishness? Freudtasticality?) of it. Doubtless there are plenty out there who’ll just play it for yuks, but there’s something a bit Jeremy Irons-in-Dead-Ringers about it that makes the whole thing grotesquely interesting in a different way. The combination of the cute, cartoonish little penis, the sweet but sort of unnerving, Twin Peaks-ish music, and that giant, monstrous, strangely masculine looking, anthropomorphised vagina — I don’t know what to make of it all, but I’m glad it exists just because it gave me a bunch of stuff to think about.
I’d agree with Sblargh insofar as the Vagina Hero joke is just as much about men mocking their own childishness and inadequacy (although that doubtless depends on the man), but I think the effort taken to to make the article and accompanying image far outweighs the minimal funniness of the gag (plus the added question of whether they think mocking themselves constitutes a sort of postmodern get-out clause).
Also, you say, “this game is not unique, it’s not a one-off” and I realise that you were speaking more generally but I’m curious: is this kind of eurotophobia (had to look that one up) at play elsewhere in video games? The standard sexist narrative of the video game industry seems a slightly different beast — more on a big-tits-skimpy-clothes tip. Seems rare that you’d find a game designer dig this deep.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:32 am
Ugh, that Cunt game is really quite awful. I dont doubt this is something not everyone will agree with, but if the game was equal in its treatment of both male and female genitalia, Id probably just ignore it. Ive said it before, but I often have no problem with negative things being equal. It really does seem so vile though, and does in a sense tread on quite a horrible issue, as has been pointed out. I mean I dont believe I ever seen a game with the sole purpose involving mutilation of a penis. I remember seeing a ridiculous game about wanking off called Stroker I think, but thats not even in the same league as this (since its quite clearly that same kind of silly joke that guys might share).
That explanation for this game though, I dont know what the fuck is going on there. Im always willing to appreciate peoples intentions, but there is a line that when crossed, becomes ridiculous. He wasnt trying to be vulgar or offensive? I mean I look at that part and consider the explanation, and I think its like saying “I didnt pick up the knife and stab him because I wanted to kill him, I just wanted to do those things”. Of course Im not saying killing someone or offending someone are the same, its just that ridiculous doing of something with obvious consequences and then excusing yourself by saying that wasnt why you did it. Its just pathetic.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:50 am
Again, the fact that “the jokes on men” is secondary to the fact that the joke is, in fact, on women. To laugh and shrug that women’s anatomy is so gosh-darn difficult to figure out, is what men have used as an excuse to ignore their partner’s sexual needs for centuries. To say “oh, but men are the butt of this joke because they’re clueless” is like saying that the cleaning commercials on television are sexist against men because it shows men being messy and slovenly and not capable of cleaning a toilet. Yeah, it is sexist against men, but it’s also sexist against women because the flip side of that message is that it’s women’s job to clean up after the poor dumb men. So you have a light sexism of low expectations for the men, and the heavy sexism of high expectations on women. The low expectations, here, are that women are so finicky and tricky to get to climax. The high expectation is then on the woman to fake her climax so that her partner can feel like he’s managed to get her to orgasm, rather than bruise is fragile ego in actually assisting him in touching her in a way that isn’t too rough or chafing.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:50 am
I’d have to agree with Sblargh that it’s quite possible the women he was with when he was very inexperienced really were harsh and insensitive, rather than more caring and guiding. Not everyone is a good enough person to be patient and understanding about something like that, including women.
Although, it is also possible there’s really just a hurt ego involved. I wouldn’t presume to “accuse” (for lack of a better word) him either way unless I really knew for sure though.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:02 am
Rebecca — it’s possible, but not likely. If two people are fooling around, and the inexperienced one is showing their experience in a way that is uncomfortable, the person who is suffering as a result will usually attempt to move themselves in such a way as to “direct” the inexperienced person to be more gentle. If that doesn’t work, they’ll usually move to phase two, which is a verbal exclamation that they are experiencing discomfort, possibly followed by a “helping hand.” If the inexperienced person isn’t getting the hint, then it’s time to point out that it FUCKING HURTS STOP IT.
The Harsh And Insensitive tactic is basically saying “OK, you’ve ruined it, I’m not going to get off now, so I’m pissed off.” Women who still have a shot at reaching orgasm are not going to use the Harsh and Insensitive tactic unless they’re out of the game, so to speak, because as long as their partner is trying in earnest to get them to climax they’re going to continue in good faith. Nothing brings down the mood (for both partners) like being scolded for being a rotten lover.
If, however, the moment that a corrective action is taken, the partner ignores that action or gets pissy that his Awesome Manly Power to Cause The Fuckhole Pleasure is being called into question, you’re well on your way to Harsh and Insensitive territory.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 am
That explanation for this game though, I dont know what the fuck is going on there. Im always willing to appreciate peoples intentions, but there is a line that when crossed, becomes ridiculous. He wasnt trying to be vulgar or offensive? I mean I look at that part and consider the explanation, and I think its like saying “I didnt pick up the knife and stab him because I wanted to kill him, I just wanted to do those things”.
This.
I just don’t see the same anxiety about vag teeth coming from men who actually respect women that I do coming from men who see women as disposable fuck-holes. If you have respect for a sexual partner, there isn’t a part of you that worries she’s going to get “revenge” because you’re not doing anything revenge-worthy. But if part of your brain feels guilt over the treatment of another, part of your brain (maybe not the conscience part) is going to start to empathize with that person and create a structure by which the vagina is capable of defending itself.
And a thousand times this.
Also, you say, “this game is not unique, it’s not a one-off” and I realise that you were speaking more generally but I’m curious: is this kind of eurotophobia (had to look that one up) at play elsewhere in video games? The standard sexist narrative of the video game industry seems a slightly different beast — more on a big-tits-skimpy-clothes tip. Seems rare that you’d find a game designer dig this deep.
Personally, I can’t think of any other examples this… overt. But both seem to be coming from a place of “Women Are Strange An Alien And Men Need To Impose Their Will Upon Them”, which is a subtext that’s depressingly common in both gaming and Hollywood.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
>Mighty Ponygirl
“To say “oh, but men are the butt of this joke because they’re clueless” is like saying that the cleaning commercials on television are sexist against men because it shows men being messy and slovenly and not capable of cleaning a toilet.”
Right, it still sucks but depending on the audience they suck in slightly different ways. The structure of the cleaning commercial is top-down, presumably created by men and aimed at women, patronisingly saying to them, “Look at how useless men are. Poor women like you have to clean up this yucky mess — thank God for Whizzo!” whereas the Vagina Hero joke is probably intended as a joke between men so the structure is conspiratorial, more along the lines of, “I wish I was better at stimulating my girlfriend’s clitoris — if only it could be made into a video game, I might be better at it. Man, I’m lame — but also self-aware, and therefore a little cool as well.” As I say, not exactly any better and with added self-satisfied flourish at the end. The other reading of the Vagina Hero joke is the ironic one, which relies on the shared understanding between the writer and the audience that the “vaginas are so complicated” gag is an outdated comedy cliche, in which case the butt of the joke is the joke itself. Problem with those kinds of jokes is that (A) they’re a bit pointless, and (B) they’re often just a way of covering yourself when you’re actually making the original unreconstructed sexist joke in the first place. Seems to me that the cleaning commercial dictates to women whereas Vagina Hero ignores them.
None of this is intended to contradict your point, which I think I agree with. What you said just lit a light bulb and I had to riff on it for a bit.
>Rodowfa
“both seem to be coming from a place of “Women Are Strange An Alien And Men Need To Impose Their Will Upon Them”, which is a subtext that’s depressingly common in both gaming and Hollywood.”
I hear you. Writing about Anime and Japanese pop culture I’m constantly struck dumb by the lengths some people go to to make sure female characters are always “in their place” according to some arcane system. Without even coming at it from a feminist perspective it’s annoying and depressing because it’s like so much random furniture hurled into the corridor of good writing and characterisation.
With Cunt though, I totally understand why so many people are offended by it and they have every right to be for all the reasons that people above have explained better than I ever could. I wouldn’t want to second-guess the creator’s intentions (and in any case, once he puts it out on the Internet it ain’t his anymore) but as I said earlier, I find it interesting and it seems like the kind of thing that will provoke a wide variety of reactions, especially with the casual context in which it’s delivered, as a time-waster Flash game, which emphasises the rather dark psychology at play. Certainly lots of guys are going to just think it’s a great laugh, but for some others I’d guess that by its very grotesqueness it might make them ask themselves some questions about their own attitude to women. Others will doubtless be horrified, although I’d guess not all for the same reason (because it’s portrayal of women is so offensive, or because it exposes their own fears?) I think there’s something about it that will really cut to the bone.
On another tack, I would have been far more offended and much less interested if it had been a plump, rosy, cheerful cartoon vagina with coy, fluttery feminine eyelashes, that had to be pumped full of semen from a big throbbing rod of a cock. That kind of representation is far more didactic in the way it pushes the “men must impose their will” narrative and has a built-in “only a joke” defence clause designed to nullify adverse reactions in a way that I think Cunt would find much harder to deploy.
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Regarding the first game - I have nothing. That looks disgusting, and hateful.
Regarding the second game - Before reading the linked article, I was amused. It has been my personal experience that different women have different sexual preferences. I thought that this could be an amusing take on that, reinforcing the concept that there is no single sexual ‘manuever’ or ’strategy’ that guarantees your partner’s orgasm. (assuming, of course, that the partner is a woman)…
Then I read the linked article. I think I can sum up the ‘content’ in two words: LOL PUSSIES. This appears to me to be a simple glorification of high-school level ’scoring’, associating women with nothing more than goals to be achieved, and cast off to move to the next one. The clever concept of the genital controller is used to treat women like objects, and minimize them as compared to men.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
“Demex — Newgrounds, not The Behemoth, which is still doing fine. But Newgrounds published Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers and now Cunt.”
Yeah, Tom Fulp is the epitome of standards when it comes to games. Not like he would support something inappropriate. -_- Take a look at some of the games he actually made before he made Alien Hominid and you wouldn’t be as surprised.
But I still don’t consider this “Studio-backing.” Newgrounds would support any game (Torture game and other games like Super Columbine Massacre RPG and Kaboom!).
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I fail to see how that mitigates anything…
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Mitigates… not really. Explains, why yes. It is a site by and for the demographic that finds boys’ room stall poetry to be art. So it’s a bit silly to expect much by way of standards.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
it’s a bit silly to expect much by way of standards.
Au contraire, we never get standards until we make it clear we not only expect them but demand them. It’s when we let things go without challenging them or complaining that we really have no right to expect anything in the way of standards.
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Let me rephrase again then.
Why would you WANT anything from these clowns anyway? I compared it to bathroom graffiti very consciously. It’s organization by and for dumb kids with Flash and time on their hands and is thus has no interest for any thinking gamer, feminist or not.
Why even pay attention to them then? It is just the equivalent of a bit of bad dirty art in a high school boy’s notebook margin.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:04 pm
It does a bit because unlike what you said this was not backed by a strenuous review process that most studios/publishers have. This was a guy (with the help of someone else doing music and art) making a game that he wanted to make. I think it is a bit unfair to paint the industry and community in a way because of a very few who make offensive material. Like Duke said it is a site that makes its living mostly on bathroom graffiti style jokes and media controversy. Newgrounds has no standards or very, very low standards.
I doubt these type of sites will ever fully disappear. We need to work on changing the mainstream communities instead of worrying about the radical fringe.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Writing off ’small stuff’ as irrelevant is actually missing how ‘important stuff’ is actually made up of lots of ’small stuff’ adding up.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:21 pm
For some reason, I’m reminded of this.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Also it’s getting to the point where you can’t “pay attention” to anything you enjoy due to the ridiculousness presented above. So no, turning a blind eye does not help anything, as more often than not silence is taken to be an assent.
The first game is horrible, horribly executed and horribly designed. The second game reminds me of an image. In it a woman is depicted as a complicated switch board, the man is shown as one simple button.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:11 am
Yeah, I had to watch Teeth after this discussion.
Also, what Pai said.
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:28 am
Mighty Ponygirl
When I was reading the plot of Teeth it sounded like the myth of women. A lot of times mostly in the past to keep males pants on. They are told that a womans vagina has teeth that will bite you. A lot of the time this did more harm then good seeing how males later use it as an excuse not to oral a woman.
Also it feels like a mockery that the vagina bleeds after the dick shoots off in it. Like first time losing virginity or monthly periods.
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 am
Actually, Taos (BTW, if you want to continue posting here, you’ll use a real email address), the point of Teeth was very obviously that men should have respect for their female partner. Her “teeth” only come out when she’s not enjoying herself. It wasn’t the best movie in the world, but it was definitely feminist-minded.
Men don’t use “teeth” as an excuse to not oral a woman, they use all sorts of other excuses, but not teeth. Way before a guy tries to put his tongue to a woman’s vulva, he’s put his tongue in her mouth, which actually has teeth, hell a blow job is considered right up there with actual vaginal penitration, which involves putting the penis in the very same mouth… that has teeth.
It’s not about “fear of teeth,” it’s about respect. It’s about assuming that your pleasure is more important than hers, her discomfort is a small price to pay for your pleasure, whereas your discomfort is a deal breaker. Dicks don’t exactly smell rosy-fresh, but women will go down on their partners all the time, and yet when it’s men’s turn, suddenly “oh, it smells bad down there.” Not only is it an asshole thing to do to your partner, it’s also the sort of thing that makes women self-conscious about their bodies and it makes them inhibited and nervous when a man actually wants to go down on her. When you place your own pleasure over your partner’s pleasure or discomfort, you lack respect for your partner, and there’s going to be a part of your brain that is uncomfortable with using someone like that and you’ll start to concoct fantasies wherein the vagina defends itself. That’s where vagina dentata comes from, and that’s what this movie is basically about.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 am
“How can you say there’s a forest just because you’ve seen hundreds of trees clustered together? Right now you’re only pointing at a single tree.”
There’s more than ‘a very few’ who make, develop, enjoy, play and vociferously defend sexist and racist bullshit in gaming.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I think I’m just gonna give up typing something coherent directed at such bullshitiness that at worst is tried to pass as “being for the ‘lulz’ so it’s all good.” Seriously, did minds suddenly turn shit for brains in deciding that these were good/cool ideas?
September 4th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Rebecca — it’s possible, but not likely. If two people are fooling around, and the inexperienced one is showing their experience in a way that is uncomfortable, the person who is suffering as a result will usually attempt to move themselves in such a way as to “direct” the inexperienced person to be more gentle. If that doesn’t work, they’ll usually move to phase two, which is a verbal exclamation that they are experiencing discomfort, possibly followed by a “helping hand.” If the inexperienced person isn’t getting the hint, then it’s time to point out that it FUCKING HURTS STOP IT.
Also, from his comment, we really don’t know that the girls in question had more experienced with a partner. That whole sensitive communication about sex thing isn’t innate. It’s learned, like anything else. And let’s face it, our culture doesn’t exactly give girls and young women a lot of guidance when it comes to talking about our own sexual wants. It seems plausible to me that an inexperienced woman could be not enjoying herself in silence, hoping the dude would figure it out, when a line is crossed and she just blurts out something insensitive.
I’m not saying that’s what happened, of course. Not having been there, I really don’t know. But I do think a guy should be sensitive to the fact that women are generally taught from a young age that our sexuality is shameful and therefore shouldn’t be talked about. Which can make learning to communicate about our sexuality difficult at first.
Regarding the games themselves, I don’t have a whole lot to add. Many people above, and Might Ponygirl’s post have said most of what I think about them.
I will say, as an artist, the “I wasn’t really thinking about the content, I was just drawing” is probably what happened with the first game. It’s distressing that he thinks that’s an excuse not to be critical of it. As an exercise, letting your control down and drawing with your subconscious is useful precisely because it opens up a true part of yourself of which you are not really aware.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:12 am
>laterose
“It’s distressing that he thinks that’s an excuse not to be critical of it. As an exercise, letting your control down and drawing with your subconscious is useful precisely because it opens up a true part of yourself of which you are not really aware.”
This.
A big problem with the game is the way the “warning” at the beginning is phrased in such a way that the person who is offended by the game is made to feel that it’s their problem for “not being able to handle it”, when surely if you make something like this, offense and criticism are going to be the natural response of vast numbers of people.
There’s a difference though, between saying that the game is reinforcing the misogynistic mindset that seems to gambol freely through the gaming world, and saying it’s revealing it. I think the “it’s just a bit of a laff” excuse becomes more difficult to play with a game like this so the more the trolls try to defend it, the more blatantly they condemn themselves. The person defending Cunt is forced to either implicitly admit to all manner of psychological problems or to try weasling round the issues by saying they just like the gameplay or something (which I think most people who’ve played it would have trouble doing with a straight face).
Regardless of his intentions, by letting his subconscious run free like this the creator has put defenders of video game misogyny in a difficult position. I’d be interested to see someone try to straight up defend the content of the game.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:48 am
dotdash — having rubbed elbows in “the artistic community,” I can say that if someone isn’t open to criticism of their “art,” then they aren’t an artist, they’re someone using the art label to hide behind in order to crank out shit. The artistic world is the most critical, nit-picky, “what’s the meaning/what’s the message” group you will ever. encounter. The symbolism of every aspect of the “artistic endeavor” is picked apart and commented upon. Putting up a “well, if you can’t handle it then you’ve got a problem” on the door to your exhibit is just a cop-out.
If he had just opened up his brain and doodled down his issues with female genitalia being a scary, bug-infested attacker of the phallus and held that opinion privately, there’s not a lot anyone can say about that, if that’s really what he feels, that’s between himself, whatever partner is unfortunate enough to be with him, and hopefully his therapist. But then, to commit time, money, and resources to DEVELOPING that experiment in automatic doodling into a videogame is taking it to another level and removing it from the level of “this is something that I did casually as a meditation on genitalia” to “I’ve spent hours programming and tweaking this and concentrating on it.” To then seek a PUBLISHER to put that product out to the public removes it entirely from the “this is a personal experiment” option. Then, you’re actively involving other people, and actively pushing your “personal experiment” out to the public, who will react to it. In this case, you’re also sharing your particular issues with the female body for all the world, and then making some obnoxious statement that anyone who takes exception to that depiction just “can’t deal.” That’s a juvenille statement, and automatically expells you from the “this is art” excuse.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:06 am
>Mighty Ponygirl
I agree with you completely about the “if you can’t handle it” attitude — I was really just echoing the point you made in the original article with what I wrote above.
I take your point about art, but I’m not suggesting it is art or that the creator is an artist. I write about pop culture (usually music actually, but I blog about various geek topics too) and think the idea of “art” obfuscates more than it explains so I try to steer well clear of it. Whatever one person thinks is art, there are thousands of people who think it means something else, and discussions about it just get bogged down in semantics. Is he using the “this is art” excuse? If he is, then he’s obviously failed to convince you with it, and I’m not interested in what he thinks it is, so he’s wasting his time with me too. I hate people who make stuff (game, book, music, painting, whatever) and then try to tell the audience how they should feel about it.
You say he is now, ‘actively involving other people, and actively pushing [his] “personal experiment” out to the public, who will react to it’ and this is the bit I’m interested in. He’s made something that, as you pointed out, reveals a lot about the misogyny that exists in the gaming world, and now people are (inevitably) reacting to it. This is a feminist blog and presumably the readers are mostly sympathetic to feminism so we’ve all seen in the comments here how this sector of the public reacts to it. My comments are geared more towards how the game might be viewed by other kinds of people, who don’t think they are misogynistic but subconsciously identify with a lot of the themes that you criticise on this blog. My guess is that for many people this game will, instead of reinforcing an anti-woman mindset, actually work against it by exposing so blatantly the psychosis at the heart of this gaming misogyny.
Just put yourself in the shoes of one of the guys who sometimes comes trolling on here defending sexism in games, and then imagine trying to defend Cunt. Now imagine you’re a reader of this blog who doesn’t feel strongly enough to comment but might have some vague sympathy with the “just a laff” attitude, and imagine reading the comments of someone trying to defend the game.
None of this makes it any less offensive to you of course, and I’m not saying it should. I’m also not saying the creator of the game is some hero of feminism and that we should raise equestrian statues of him and garland him with flowers. I do think that the existence of Cunt in some ways strengthens feminism’s position on sexism or misogyny in gaming though.
I notice that no one is trying to defend its content here. Have there been people trying to do so that were just too obnoxious and had to be filtered out in moderation? If not, I’d speculate that it’s partly because they know it’s a battle they can’t win.
Sorry, this was waaaaay longer than I’d meant it to be.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:47 am
dotdash — I see what you’re saying (and btw, I was expounding on what you’d said earlier, not attacking it, in case you felt that I was, which I can understand).
Here’s the thing, though. I’m not seeing non-feminist gaming forums discuss Cunt critically. If, as you say, the game device would serve as a sort of misogyny wake-up call for people who hadn’t really thought about their relationship women women’s sexuality and gaming’s exploitation of that, then you would expect to see discussion on that. You would certainly expect the game’s creator to at least attempt to point that out, rather than just shrugging it off and saying “this came from the depths of my brain, deal with it.”
The problem with misogyny is that it’s a system, and the build-in defense mechanism is to ignore that there’s a system to it. So your average male gamer with his own privilege and misogyny but who doesn’t actively fantasize about blowing up women’s vulvas is going to look at this and say “wow, that’s messed up,” but he’s going to point to that of how his own relationship to women, by comparison, is fine and dandy. “At least I’m not actively blowing up cunts.” Or, if he does find himself thinking a little too hard about how his own privilege and expectations and views of women might be challenged by this game’s over-the-top misogyny, he’ll just shrug it off with our favorite refrain of “it’s just a game.”
The point is that these men (and a fair sprinkling of women too) are very invested in the fact that “they’re not misogynists” and that stuff like Cunt and Vagina Hero happen in a vacuum where the jokes are sprung fully-formed out of no existing culture or double-standards. This is where they feel safe, and people tend to not like feeling “not safe” so they don’t challenge this stuff.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Right, and I doubt very much that in the end it will have much impact. People tend to just believe what they want and seek out things that confirm those beliefs (thank the Lord for google!)
One thing though: you say, “you would expect to see discussion on that” but I’m not sure you would expect discussion. If a guy was disturbed by this game, I would expect him to either (A) try to avoid thinking about it, (B) overcompensate by forcing himself to think it’s hilarious. One thing prejudiced people rarely do is start internal discussions about it. Discussion for them is either about making a big circle jerk where everyone says the same thing, or active confrontation with opponents aimed at shutting down debate rather than furthering it. Any effect the game has on them will likely be strictly internal.
On the other hand, a debate about this game might conceivably work as a wake-up call to someone with no strong views who hasn’t really thought about it. If they were to see partisans of both sides arguing over such a provocative game, such a person would be more likely to favour your side and it might possibly let a chink of light through the door that might then shine on other instances of misogyny that they wouldn’t have considered in that way before.
In the end, for all the offensiveness of the content, Cunt is never going to be a weapon in the misogynist’s armoury. Just bringing it up in that context is more likely to put them on the defensive (arguing that it’s “sprung fully-formed out of no existing culture” is also a defensive argument). I can “defend” its value on here only by saying its value lies in the negative things it reveals about the minds of many in the gaming community (although I think there are some aspects of its execution that, intentionally or otherwise, make it effective in revealing those things). I recently watched the first episode of an anime called Strike Witches and it struck me in a similar way.
Oh, and completely take your point about the “at least I’m not that bad” response.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Oh, when I said “internal discussions” above I meant discussions within their interest or peer group. When I say “strictly internal” later, I mean unvoiced, within themselves. Sorry — bad style.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Don’t know if you find it interesting enough to warrant discussion, but Game Politics has another article with comments highlighting average gamer misogynistic bullshit.
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/09/04/european-parliament-concerned-about-gender-stereotyping-games
Here’s a choice one
“Really?
How many women are portrayed as rapists?
How many women are portrayed as child molestors?
How many women are portrayed as the abusers in domestic violence?
How often are women portrayed as gangs (not just gang members but whole gangs), especially as the head of gangs?
How many get portrayed as deadbeat Parents?
Now…
How many are portrayed that way in video games?
Yeah… women got it REAL BAD being stereotyped against.”
*sigh*
September 5th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Yeah, I had to delete a real gem of a troll out of moderation last night. He’s one of those types who likes to pretend that women had it on easy street before feminism, and that misogyny is because of feminism. Yuk Yuk!
September 5th, 2008 at 8:41 am
urgh, this reminds me of another ‘gem’, Gameplayer’s top 20 games to use the next gen pubic hair rendering….
http://www.gameplayer.com.au/gp_documents/080708-Pubes.aspx?catid=Features
hilarious! haha, haha ha…. uuuuuugh…..
September 5th, 2008 at 9:04 am
MPG, that is some classic misogyny, back before they changed their formula. Were race riots because of the civil rights movement?
September 5th, 2008 at 9:19 am
*snort* yeah — “if only women would just lay back and LET us rape them and stop making a big fuss about abuse and double-standards and equality, we wouldn’t have to rape them so much!”
The stupid burns sometimes.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Anyone got their sexism bingo card handy? Grab your dabber and go for the black-out.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Take “portrayed as” out of all the troll’s sentences, Ohma. Watch their heads explode.
But yeah, can’t blame them. I mean, how tiresome to see yet another sequel to Deadbeat Dad sell out at GameStop.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Goodness, that cunt looks menacing. Thank god there’s a penis around to rape it! I feel much better now.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you for posting this Ponygirl! I can’t tell you how angry I’ve been at the way vaginas are portrayed as monsters to be destroyed in games and television shows. And the picture in your post just makes me want to vomit. Having been called a cunt, it’s like, “Oh, that’s what those guys think of me… How nice…”
Furthermore, I think if we were to have a completely misandryist game published, there would be an outcry. For example, if the object of the game was to destroy the “evil” dick, trying to squeeze as much blood out of it as possible until it’s limp and defeated, I have no doubt there would be protest. And I think there would be just reason for one, but the fact we don’t have the same reaction when a cunt is looked at in that same way says a LOT about our society and culture.
One last thing… it doesn’t matter if this game was published on a site like Newgrounds. Sure, it’s an idiotic site for immature guys. But the idea that “boys will be boys” and we can’t expect better lets it continue. I like this site for the fact that it calls out on that kind of BS.
September 6th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Take “portrayed as” out of all the troll’s sentences, Ohma. Watch their heads explode.
Sadly the guy who said those things isn’t really a troll, but a respected commenter over at Game Politics. I used to follow that site back when it was on LJ and he was there then. As I recall he was pretty popular because he could use big words when arguing against Jack Thompson.
I really wish Game Politics had a harsher anti-sexism moderation policy. My sense is the people who run the site would like to keep it professional and respectful debate, but even the people who are capable of respectful debate devolve into nonsense whenever gender issues come up. Every. Damn. Time.
Tangentially, that comment thread has a few pretty good examples of women selling out women’s rights for a pat on the head. Want a bunch of guys to tell you how awesome you are? Just post a comment there saying I’m a woman and I think the portrayal of women in games is just dandy! No room for improvement there! I don’t know what those feminists are complaining about! Of course the guys *will* ask for your photo in addition to telling you you’re awesome. -_-
September 6th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
“Sadly the guy who said those things isn’t really a troll, but a respected commenter over at Game Politics.”
Yup, and that same level of intelligence is on display in the forums where the rest of the regulars hang out. It’s all “Blah blah blah minorities cause bigotry, blah blah blah libertarianism is awesome, the invisible hand of the free market will fix *everything* blah blah blah”
It really would be nice if GP had like, *any* moderation policy, it seems like the only comments ever got deleted are ones from JT when he was in full on crazy ass mode.
“Of course the guys *will* ask for your photo in addition to telling you you’re awesome. -_-”
Heh heh, the funny thing to me is that I used to get that over there like, a lot from a couple posters, which was weird because I’d done nothing to give the impression that I was female other than have an avatar of a cyborg flapper girl, and I guess like, advocate against sexism? (because seriously, who else but *females* would do that?!)
September 6th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Ohma, it’s kind of like the trolls or even quasi-trolls who come here without realizing that a good number of us posters are dudes.
And then they never stick around long enough for the “no, for serious, feminism will benefit men, too. That’s not a joke.”
And yes, I always love the streak of militancy and hardcore Randian conservatism* that runs through geeks. Do they realize in all of these struggles that the guys making message board comments are not, in fact, the movers and shakers? That they are the little guy in the equation? It would make me laugh if it didn’t depress me so goddamn much.
*I would also like to point out that even though I am, in fact, a big ol’ whiny liberal, I can at least respect traditional conservatism. I don’t agree with it, but I can understand, intellectually at least, where people are coming from. Neo-conservatism and Rand’s shit? I have no fucking clue.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Neo-conservatism and Rand’s shit? I have no fucking clue.
At least it inspired Bioshock.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I think if that ever crossed the minds of those GP posters/trolls, they’d exploded.
“You mean that awesome game is a backlash against guys like me….?”
BOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!!!!!
September 7th, 2008 at 11:02 am
If they wanted to keep it professional and require respectful debate, they would. They don’t. That tells you all you need to know regarding how much they give a shit about sexist commentary.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:04 am
“When I designed the theme for the C word I just kinda opened that part of my brain and let whatever was there to come out. I didn’t censor or overthink what came out, I just drew it.”
What the hell? The first thing the guy thought of when he ‘opened’ his mind to the vagina was a wrinkly old man with bugs crawling all over it? I can’t even get to the symbolism with the penis, I’m too confounded by how messed up that is. Someone get this guy a psychoanalyst so he can work through some mommy issues, stat.
As far as the Vagina Hero thing goes, at the risk of getting chewed out, I thought it was faintly amusing when I first saw it. I guess I saw it as a joke on nerdy heterosexual male gamers. Then again, I’m a lesbian, and lesbians joking about being the ‘experts’ in that arena is not unusual. Believe me, my gay male friends do the same thing with the penis. Sure the level of effort put into the picture outweighs the quality of the joke, but the internet has proven that there are many, many people out there with plenty of time to waste. I understand the deeper issues people have with the game, but it seems like most of those are variations on the game reflecting issues with our society’s view on female sexuality, not the game making a strong statement in and of itself.
There are of course alternative interpretations of the VH game, like being good at pleasuring a woman is an admirable skill, with great rewards for those who master it. It could even be argued that this is the closest analogy to guitar hero. This would further imply that pleasuring a woman is itself a reward. I’m not saying that this is THE correct interpretation of the game, nor am I saying that this is my interpretation of the game. I’m saying that how the game is interpreted likely depends on the preconceived views of the beholder.
The one thing I have to completely disagree with in the discussion is the reaction to Sblargh’s description of his early sexual partners. It’s a dismissive assumption to say, no, you are wrong about your private experiences based on my general perception of how people behave in bed.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:18 am
If they wanted to keep it professional and require respectful debate, they would. They don’t. That tells you all you need to know regarding how much they give a shit about sexist commentary.
That’s a good point you have there. I don’t know. They have two posts recently that make me think GP does think there’s something to this feminism thing. One about people who like the recent EU call for eliminating sexism from advertisements, admittedly GP doesn’t really comment on it, but the fact that he felt the need to point out that it’s not universally hated makes me think he’s pro eliminating sexism in general, if not from his own comment threads. And another, stronger, post where he calls a game designer out on calling Palin a MILF. He even goes so far as to point out that using sexist language against one woman hurts all women.
But then, both comment threads are pretty much entirely filled with people damning feminism, falsely claiming that appealing to women gamers will only result in more imagine babyz type games while destroying gaming, and complaining that they should be able to judge any woman’s fuckability at any point, and the women should be grateful when they are deemed fuckable. Also I went to check out their comment policy, and either I imagined the ‘no-sexism’ clause or they took it out, ’cause it certainly isn’t there now.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe they just don’t give a shit. Maybe it’s more like what Ponygirl said in the open thread, and they’re just afraid to make a better stand against sexism because they probably will alienate a large chunk of their current readership. They could feel really bad about all the hateful comments, but still they’re not doing anything about them. Which would still suck. I’m not completely certain which option sucks more.
September 8th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Ah yeah, the whole idea that “girl games” will somehow pollute gaming as a whole.
I remember in one of the Penny Arcade books, where Tycho was talking about Nintendo and how they confound the self-identified hardcore gamer. I think the wording was something like, “Nintendo, unlike virtually every other gaming company, does not cater to every petulant whim of the hardcore community.”
Also, I’ve been trying to get a bead on why, precisely, the discussion of “fuckability” is so prevalent. I mean, I recognize the overwhelming sexism of the internet, but look at pretty much any streaming video that involves a female in some capacity. You will have at least 5 posts that are nothing more than “I’d hit it.” I can see the overall sexist landscape that creates the mindset that this is acceptable, but what I don’t think I quite get is what is driving the individual to comment in that particular instance.
I mean, let’s assume that we’re GOKU678578, average internet user, and we’ve just gotten through watching a youtube video. It was one of the exhibitions of olympic beach volleyball. Now, what is it that actually motivates you to then comment about how much you’d like to have sex with said athletes? Are you trying to convince yourself you’re straight? Do you honestly think that other people give a shit about said opinion? Are you under the delusion that you might eventually have an opportunity to have sex with one of the women in the video after they read your epic Starship Troopers/Harry Potter crossover fanfic? I’m making fun of people like young GOKU678578 (who I did make up, although there’s a good chance he exists), but I am serious in that I honestly don’t know what drives people to make these comments. Again, I recognize that it’s fueled by the sexist environment on most of the internet, but what is the actual impulse in the lizard part of their brain that gets their fingers to type “I’d hit it.”
September 13th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
C*nt (the Game): Gynophobia and Misogyny…
Warning: Some of the linked content and possibly some words in this post are not safe for work (NSFW, in case you didn’t know)….
September 15th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I really enjoyed this article and found myself agreeing with a lot of it (I’m also male by the way). Thanks.
September 20th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
This was a really great post. I never was able to write about Vag Hero on my own blog, and I really like the way you relate that to the Cunt game. Superb analysis–thank you!
September 20th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I thought that everyone knew that classic games like, say, Gradius, where a tiny ship shoots at a “core” that is emitting deadly enemies and the player is instructed to “shoot the core” to defeat the enemy, were already just a hair’s breadth away from a sexually offensive in the first place. The ship is a mighty little penis, and the core (frequently surrounded on two sides by long “leg-like” protrusions) is obviously a vagina. The skill of pattern memorization and reflexes simulate sexual prowess, and the exploding enemy afterwards simulates the throes of orgasm. It is not a stretch at all to make it literal.
This doesn’t change the fact that this particular game is disgusting, but from another perspective, it’s putting a grotesque face on something that was already highly sexualized. Whether or not the game was meant to anger in this sense, it certainly has spurred discussion. I DO come from that world where jokes exist in a vacuum, and video game-related ones especially, so this has been an eye-opener.
September 20th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
hey Mighty Ponygirl, its Edmund (creator of cunt). id love to talk more with you about my game, and maybe answer some questions that came up in your article ( i did love the article btw). I cant seem to find a way to contact you via e-mail, im assuming that’s probably the man keeping you down, but I hope you read these comments and catch my e-mail address.
incase you cant get it from this submission my e-mail is [administrator has removed].
-Edmund
admin response You can say whatever you need to say here in the comment forums. I am going to remove your email address, I do not feel that this “discussion” should happen in private.
Of course, the little toss off “that’s probably the man keeping you down” doesn’t really get you off on the right foot around here. It’s obvious you’re dismissive to criticism and completely justified in your own mind.
September 21st, 2008 at 5:55 am
“In your rush to cry and hold up the boo-boo on your finger to me, you might want to take a moment to see that I’ve lost an entire arm.”
The vagina took your WHOLE arm!?
September 21st, 2008 at 9:49 am
Female anatomy is the ultimate desire because of men’s instinct to procreate which is a more constant concern (look at all the studies of “how many times a day does a male/female think of sex”), though not a ‘greater’ concern. Because of the burning passion to touch a vagina that is present at every waking moment except for the 30 minutes or so post-orgasm, vagina is seen as a constant goal, and its desire something more important than long term goals such as money, the 8 or so goals to satiate hunger per day, the goal to satiate thirst, etc.
Because of this, why not make fun of our own desire by making what’s always on our mind our adversary. It’s like making a game where you make your favorite sandwich and it comes to life and you fight it to the death! I don’t think the game designers were thinking “women are disgusting and filthy and must be destroyed by our penises,” they were most likely thinking “we always want women, but if a vagina is bug-infested it is disgusting and is therefore something both desired and reviled! Perfect villain!”
The vagina is the hook for the game, something quirky to make people click.
If you wanna cry sexism and say its unfair that guys think this way, cut off their balls, kill their sex drives, and they wont be tragically enslaved to thought of sex.
If there was a game made to destroy penises, I would laugh at the thought and click it to see if it was funny/fun. I’m not the type to say “oh there’s a penis and a vaginSOCIAL COMMENTARY AND AN OPPORTUNITY TO TALK ABOUT FEMINISM AND MYSOGYNY!”
admin response So you admit you have a strong desire to cause bloody cunt damage? You’re supposed to delete those spam mailings, you choad.
September 21st, 2008 at 9:56 am
Just came across this little game with its recent attention on Kotaku. Played a few levels of it, it seems to have a nice little mechanic and questionable content.
I can understand how this appeals to a certain segment of the population. A certain amount of the male population is afraid of women no doubt about it.
They represent commitment and responsibility, abandonment of childish behavior that some males hide behind. Children dont have romantic relationships. So why do males hide behind this childish behavior? Fear of not being able to live up to the unrealistic ideals of manliness that society foists on them. I know plenty of men that still act like children because the feel the can never live up to societies image of what a man is.
Much as society forces sexist and demeaning notions on women it also forces unattainable stereotypes on males.How many people hide behind the notion of “if I dont really try, I cant really fail”?
Young males indulge in “college humor” and would find “Cunt” funny because women not only represent commitment and responsibility but being involved in a healthy relationship involves opening up emotionally to your partner, and as we all know men dont show emotion. Unless its manly anger. Women make men weak. Make them FEEL things. We can keep it all bottled up like the fine upstanding man we are pretending to be…right up until we fall in love. So we must avoid that at all costs! But wait every real man has a woman. There for men must obtain women but not fall in love with them, because that will make him weak. It’s a pretty small jump from there to objectification of women.
It’s pretty logical that they would vilify something that not only challenges them to accept the responsibility of manhood, but will also makes them weaker.
Cunt is the sort of childish outlet for those conflicting feelings that some men have. Equally conflicted men will also find it appealing. This doesnt even begin to deal with the point that everything above is focused on males and is pretty self self centered, “Cunt” and indeed the type of male I described above are self centered. Neither for a second will think of the females perspective. Thats another whole kettle of fish though, and I’d like to hear some reactions to this particular line of thought first.
Admin response What about the menz?
September 21st, 2008 at 11:23 am
Great article. I find your interpretation of this gaming issue to be interesting, and sheds light on a topic that usually is shied away from.
To the person who posted about being mistaken as a female on the internet:
Same. For some reason, just because I like to pick a female as my avatar, the internet instantly assumes I’m female as well.
“These games are harmful because they reinforce the same tired stereotypes that you yourself have bought into. It’s not women’s fault you’re frustrated.”
While it’s not women’s fault per se, it is the specific woman’s fault that sblargh had such encounters. As you have said, it’s all about communication. If the woman whom sblargh had a relationship with didn’t give him the communication he deserved, it is that woman’s fault. Do not make it seem like all women communicate with perfect precision, because you know it’s never true.
September 21st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
“Edmund McMillen Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
hey Mighty Ponygirl, its Edmund (creator of cunt). id love to talk more with you about my game, and maybe answer some questions that came up in your article ( i did love the article btw). I cant seem to find a way to contact you via e-mail, im assuming that’s probably the man keeping you down, but I hope you read these comments and catch my e-mail address.”
Edmund, the first thing I thought when I saw your game was ‘female gentile mutilation’, the inhuman and disgusting practice of cutting off a little girl’s labia, clitoris and other sexual organs and sewing her shut. The second thing I thought of was rape. I doubt (I hope, I pray), Edmund, that this was what you intended when designing the game but if one of these possibilities didn’t dawn on you when you were making a vagina an end boss that a penis attacks, but it should have crossed you mind at some point. If you are not aware of the amount of hatred and violence women’s bodies and that parts that define them as women are subjected to (or if you knew and simply ignored it), you have no right to use that kind of imagery.
September 21st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Stu,
While there are probably some college age guys who vilify the vagina for the reasons you listed, I think there are most definitely those out there who do actively hate women that it would appeal to also. There are plenty of males who are bitter against the female gender, thinking that it owes them something. I’m not accusing sblargh specifically, but for instance, there are many dudes who, when they are slighted by a particular woman manage to conflate her with womankind entire.
Dave Sim is an extreme example, but he has plenty of admirers.
http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/tangents.html
Another similar example would be rape jokes. Sure, more than likely a lot of the people who chuckle at these do so because rape is such a taboo subject that it provides a cheap shock, some immature titillation. But, unfortunately, with statistics like these: http://www.ibiblio.org/rcip/stats.html with low estimates of 1 in 6 women being sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, there’s a reasonably good chance that some people who laugh at rape jokes are laughing at it for much more sinister reasons.
And remember this, even if it is, “just a joke,” it’s a joke that degrades women on a very base level. This is not a “women like shopping” or “women sure do nag, amIright?” kind of degrading, this is one that reduces women to being sexual objects.
And yes, before anyone brings it up, jokes about Polish people being stupid are also fairly degrading, but less so when you look at the associated statistics. I’m not saying a joke can never come at someone else’s expense, but you should also look at the assumptions and context of the joke to see what’s really being said.
Oh, and Kenny, it isn’t just female avatars. A lot of people assume that feminists are universally female, when, particularly on this blog, there are quite a few males too. Off the top of my head there’s me, Cruithne, thebends, and falconer at least, and Cesar is one of the co-bloggers who occasionally handles the admin responses when MPG is unavailable.
September 21st, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Heads’ up, we’ve been Kotaku’d…
September 21st, 2008 at 2:27 pm
The “Admin responses” of putting words into your mouth that you never nearly spoke means my first day of posting on this blog is my last day of posting.
Actual discussion here is frowned upon, the point of view of the author is the ‘right’ point of view, etc.
I have a loving girlfriend who thinks I’m the best thing that has ever happened to her, I take the time to please her and to learn more about what pleases her sexually, as well as to meet her other needs. I have never attacked her vagina like an end boss or caused “bloody cunt damage” like the inane moderators of this forum would like to imply, and it’s childish to insert such words into a serious attempt at discussion.
Those who came here from Kotaku should turn back and leave this blog to feminists looking to stroke their egos about how everybody wants to keep them down…
admin response — I’m just pointing out that you seem to be defending a game that is absolutely about causing bloody cunt damage. It may be that your loving girlfriend THINKS you are the best thing that ever happened to her, but I would wonder how you could respect a woman while defending a game like Cunt.
September 21st, 2008 at 2:33 pm
MPG, need you forget that we’re only 2 days removed from International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day? Couldn’t we at least get a “batten down the hatches, make fast the mizzenmast?”
Also, I like it when we get tagged three weeks later. I think this time around the center square in the bingo card will be “Assuming that this Blog hasn’t talked about anything other than this individual post”.
I think it’s time to make ready some Feminist 101 links.
September 21st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Feminism 101 is only good for people who come here to argue honestly… I say we hang these scalliwags from the yardarms and let the gulls peck their scurvy eyes.
Yarr!
September 21st, 2008 at 2:58 pm
admin response — I’m just pointing out that you seem to be defending a game that is absolutely about causing bloody cunt damage. It may be that your loving girlfriend THINKS you are the best thing that ever happened to her, but I would wonder how you could respect a woman while defending a game like Cunt.
And I’M just pointing out that I came here with a well-formed opinion expecting a higher level of dialogue from self-proclaimed ‘feminists’ than I would in other parts of the interwebs instead of having words put into my mouth and insults like ‘choad’ thrown at me in the form of snarky admin comments attached at the end of my post.
I’m surprised moderators are allowed to behave that way on a site that looks otherwise legitimate.
I’d defend games with ‘bloody cunt damage’ the same as I defend games that involve slaughter of legions of men (no female characters in war games… how sexist!)… With a discussion of them as games, not as actual things that I perform.
Simmer down and mature… not all of us defending the game are idiots or ‘out to get you.’
Don’t put something like this in a public forum to create discussion if your only goal is to insult dissenters like you are children.
admin’s response: I thought you already /ragequit? But you fail at reading comprehension. One can defend games where the primary purpose of the game is not the destruction of the female body because the primary purpose of the game is not the destruction of the female body. You’ve failed at reading for comprehension, I’ve already talked about the nature of gaming as either 1) simple escapism, 2) catharsis or 3) wish-fulfillment.
September 21st, 2008 at 3:08 pm
C, I’d also like to point out a very important distinction.
Your comparison to a game about a sandwich doesn’t quite work. A sandwich is an inanimate object which exists only to be consumed.
A vagina is connected to a woman, who is a person. It is not an object to be pursued and consumed.
I’ll go ahead and give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren’t implying that.
Also, I’d like to point out that a lot of what you said is a perfect example of how feminism benefits men as well. Men are NOT simply creatures of base desire, and we are more than our phalluses. One thing that feminism ultimately desires is to stop treating men like we’re enslaved to thoughts of sex, because we aren’t. This is where the equality part of feminism comes into play.
September 21st, 2008 at 4:14 pm
bg,
Thanks for the response. You gave me plenty to read there and you have a good point that there definitely are individuals out there that “do actively hate women that it would appeal to also”. Maybe it’s just the social circles I run in but I have met very few individuals that activley hate women. In fact only one springs to mind at the moment and he is a tragically stand out example of how bad it can get. The number of men that I know who resent the female gender and “think it owes them something” is mercifully small. Maybe I’m just an optimist at heart but I like to think that sort of nasty misogyny belongs in older generations, not to say it isn’t present in younger generations but it is thankfully in decline.
Looking at the target market this game was aimed at, being released on newgrounds.com, I think its fair to say it was probably aimed more at the juvenile male end of the spectrum rather than the individuals that truly have a problem with women. I would not defend Cunt in any way, shape or form. It is a disgusting game but I can understand some of the motivation behind it. The sort of attitude behind “Cunt” is definitely a problem and one that is not easy to rectify. That perspective, I can imagine, can warp into true hatred of women over time. Tackling it involves society readjusting how it views gender as a whole as well as challanging sterotypical roles for gender. Perhaps if we tackled the causes of mindsets such as the one that I suspect was behind Cunt mysogny would be come something far rarer.
Perhaps it was not intended but you seemed to drop into a defensive mode in the latter half of your response, I gather you get some grief on this site, I didnt post here to get into a debate about mitigating how offensive Cunt is, or rape jokes for that matter. I simply wished to discuss that line of thought that was running through my head and get some some constructive feed back, which I might add you very kindly provided. I do think that your argument about associated statistics and context is a quagmire that could quickly devolve into an argument that goes no where though. In my experience everyone has some sort of joke that just pushes their buttons, and few will be willing to admit that another sort of joke supersedes their personal suffering in terms of offensives.
September 21st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Honestly, when I look at this game; I can only say I’d love for people not to read into things so much.
It’s juvenile, very juvenile. However, to call it a representation of the male fear/hatred for the vagina is going a bit far.
More likely, from what I see, it’s a representation of the “If you put eyes above a vagina it looks like a scary face” which, if I visualize the same, it sort of does. (Naturally, putting a pair of eyes above an anus, a melted cheese sandwich or the bell-end of a penis does the same)
Then the developer probably took that idea and just went with it, adding more sexual references and jokes into the mix until it turned to something he found funny.
It’s in pretty poor taste, it really grosses me out with all the bulging veins on both sets of genitalia and whatnot. But to call it offensive to women and a glaring representation of the male view of women is giving it far too much credit. Rather, I’d say something like this is best undone in it’s message if it’s simply viewed as the childish joking about the body parts it’s taboo to talk about or show in public.
Admin’s response Translation: can’t you feminists just pipe down and let us fantasize about blowing up you women’s disgusting pussies in peace?
September 21st, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Hi C.
As someone who discovered this site on the tail end of the Fat Princess controversy I have to disgaree with your claim of censorship.
You’ve been allowed to saw what you want to say, but you’re confusing the right to speak with some right to speak without being challenged on what it is you say.
This site exists for a specific purpose, the terms of engagement are clearly laid out for anyone who wants to take the time to read them.
You have expressed your opinions, others have disagreed with your opinions and taken you to task on some points your raised. This is what we call a dialogue.
September 21st, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Stu,
I wasn’t really getting defensive, I was more going ahead addressing some common rebuttals. But yeah, a lot of response to previous posts have been things like, “Geez, it’s just a joke, get over yourselves,” so the natural state of response is somewhat confrontational.
I also think that it’s important to remember that as with anything misogyny and hatred of women aren’t a fixed “on/off” switch, they’re a spectrum. Every person with misogynistic tendencies does not automatically buy fully into Dave Sim’s batshit insanity, but they might agree with a few points here and there.
I think another basic problem is that, yes, newgrounds is a place where good taste and humor go to die, and I think you hit on it well when you mentioned that the creation of an environment for these kinds of things can lead to more explicit misogyny.
“That perspective, I can imagine, can warp into true hatred of women over time. Tackling it involves society readjusting how it views gender as a whole as well as challanging sterotypical roles for gender. ”
That’s one of the big pushes for feminism that you hit on, and it’s one of the reason to even bring up something as small as this game. Not only is it a reflection of societal issues, it also then proceeds to reinforce those same issues. Sure, for the average gamer who might play this game for 2 minutes for the lulz, it would be minor misogyny, just a drop. But this kind of stuff doesn’t exist in a vacuum. A flood is still made up of a bunch of little drops, and unfortunately, for gaming culture, those little drops are everywhere. This game is a particularly obvious one, but it’s nigh-ubiquitous. I’d also like to point out here that I’m not saying that you said this wasn’t a problem, but I’m half talking to anyone who might be coming this way from Kotaku for the first time.
Also, I always recommend any new visitors here check out the Feminism 101 Blog, linked on the right side of the front page under Feminism. It is an invaluable resource for learning about the basics of feminism, as well as many responses to frequent arguments against it.
September 21st, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Naw, Cruinthe, I wasn’t taken to task for anything I said, assumptions were made and I was called a name by an admin.
Thanks, though, bg, for assuming I’m not a ‘choad’ or some idiot… I’m a medical student who deals with complex ethical questions (and vaginas), and I assure you my reading comprehension is above average. Also, thanks for… going somewhere with your critique of what I said.
In response, I might say that, in a way, a bodyless vagina CAN be something to be ‘consumed’… it is something there is a base desire for, something that satiates a sexual desire. There would not be artificial vaginas if there wasn’t a sort of desire for this detached pleasure.
However, a vagina attached to a person is very different… it brings a humanizing quality and attaches social relevance other than that of a body part. A la nobody would ever attempt to touch somebodies vagina without permission, but if there was a floating 3D vagina at a museum, I might put my hands on it and inspect it. How many ‘final bosses’ are floating eyes etc. that are completely dehumanized, and how different would we feel if there was a face attached?
I would say that if this game, “Cunt,” had a body and a face attached to it, I would have been very bothered by it, thinking “is this rape? what is this game asking me to do?” but instead, it was a stylized vagina with eyes that looked angry and huge comical pustules of diseases.
I think this is more social commentary on how people look at STD infected individuals as opposed to how we treat women.
Also, (and this whole reply is to bg, not to the person who insults/hides behind ‘admin’s response), I will say that while I am not slave to the desires of my loins, I, and possibly every man, will always have desires that need to be deflected or rejected to function as a respectful and loving person.
I don’t think that ‘equality’ is necessary, nor a goal of mine in any way. We are all different, we are all unequal, but we should all be TREATED equally.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Id love to be a part of this comment convo.. but i dont know what i could say that hasn’t already been said on either side.
Is the game a satire on misogyny in video games? yes.
Is the game a cathartic artistic expression of my own misogynistic subconscious ? probably.
regardless of how you take the game its nothing more then what it is, a game, a small art piece and a tiny piece of who i am, even if its not really a piece most would look at as something to put out there for people to judge.
Am i a misogynist because i made a game where you kill a vagina with a penis? i dont think so.
Am i a misogynist because there are small parts of me that are misogynistic? id hope not, because that would make all men misogynists.
Im a married man. my wife and i are actually celebrating our 9 year (not wedding) anniversary next month and i in no way hate her, my mother or any woman i know personally. My sister and i were raised by my mother and grandma, i personally have very high respect for women and back all womens rights.so my first thought when releasing this “game” was, im sure most women out there who would be offended by this would be big enough to just laugh it off and see it for what it is, a bad joke.
Both my mother and wife have played Cunt, and both got a laugh out of it.
But when it comes down to it, i made cunt because i wanted to prove that i could make anything into a game. im an independent game designer/artist and sometimes it just feels good to make something that no one would ever publish and wouldn’t get any press (i guess i failed on that aspect).
Is the game saying or doing anything positive at all? no.
Is it my responsibility to make games that just push morals and equality? no.
Im an artist who usually bases my work on cathartic expression, i know that might sound pretentious but its just what i do. I sat down and designed a game in 9 days about a penis fighting a vagina and got a ton of attention.. yet when i made a game based on maternity no one cared. sad how that works.
Is this game just a piece of shit flash game for aingst filled frat boys to giggle over? yep
Is the game art? id like to think so.
_Edmund
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:20 am
bg,
My apologies for misinterpreting your post. Text can be so subjective. On your point of misogyny/sexism being a spectrum rather than rather than a switch, I couldn’t agree more. However I doubt that society will ever remove that spectrum, I believe it will always remain somewhat present.
As for Dave Sims “Tangent” like any piece of work like that it has nuggets of sense in there, that are twisted to his own ideological ends. Most of it though is just insane ravings. I believe that statement could be interpreted to infer I have some sexist tendencies (I may well do, but not consciously), but I don’t think its that simple. He appropriates social issues and uses them to garner support, he’s doing the worst possible thing - obscuring the issue. “Tangent” doesn’t engage in the Feminism debate it neatly ridicules it and justifies ignoring it.
I have to be honest I’m not terribly well informed on Feminism (bet nobody spotted that ;)), so I would appreciate feedback if anyone disagrees, but to my mind the problem is cyclical. Sexism and misogyny aren’t just perpetuated by men because of some innate nastiness, society reinforces and even demands this sort of behavior. When I say society I mean men and women. Male behavior would radically and rapidly change if it wasn’t supported, tolerated and encouraged by a majority of women as well as men. Until we reassess how we expect both sexes to behave this will always be an issue. The vast majority of the population have little to no interest in engaging with this issue, in their minds “If it aint broke, dont fix it. Its worked so far”.
I think this is why we will continue to see works such as “Cunt” for a very long time.
Oh and thanks for pointing out Feminism 101 btw, fascinating read.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:45 am
Stu — this is incredibly important for you to understand: women who “tollerate” male misogynist behavior do so because they have internalized the hatred that they see, and hope that if can prove just how much they hate women just like the boys do, they’ll be seen as “one of the guys” and spared the worst of their attacks. Because trust me when I say this (I only have threads and threads of ad-hominems directed at me and my posters to back this up) — expressing a dissenting opinion, no matter how mild will earn you a violent backlash. For example — expressing dismay over the game mechanic of Fat Princess (not, mind you, calling for its banning, or even calling for a boycott, just saying “this is disappointing, maybe there could have been a better way to do this”) got me a flood of posts calling me a “FAT NIGGER BITCH” and being called a “fat, carpet-munching dyke,” among other pleasantries. When women see the sort of treatment in store for them should they dare object to the way that they are treated, is it any wonder some of us throw in with the people who are doing the abusing, in the hopes that we might scrounge slightly better treatment? Let me just finish by relating a true story conveyed by Margeret Attwood*, she got a group of men together and asked them “what are you most afraid of from women?” and the men replied “we’re afraid they’ll laugh at us.” When she got a group of women together and asked them the same thing about men, the reply was “We’re afraid they’ll kill us.”
*It may not have been Maggie A herself, it might have been her relating the tale, but this is who it’s usually credited to.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:55 am
edmund mcmillan, you have hit the trifecta. You’ve given us “It’s just a game,” you’ve gone on to declare how you have a loving wife (”some of my best friends are cunts!”), and then ducked and weaved to say that it’s not just a game, it’s ART!
First of all, it’s EITHER “just a game,” OR it’s art. You can’t have it both ways. And since you’ve ducked behind the “it’s art” excuse as a wrong-headed attempt to avoid critical analysis of the game, you earn an epic fail for the reasons I’ve already stated numerous times on this blog, not to mention this thread.
And I’m sorry but “Is this game just a piece of shit flash game for aingst filled frat boys to giggle over?” filled me with rage. I dunno what sort of “angst-filled frat boys” you run with, but having lived in several college towns I can assure you that any “frat boy” who would giggle over your game is not “angst-filled,” they’re filled with privilege, and these are the same “angst-filled frat boys” that would throw parties specifically so that they could get women too drunk to say no, or slip roofies into their drinks. Oh, but we must give something to the poor, angst-filled frat boys, they suffer so! Quick, let’s give them a game where they cause bloody cunt damage, that will surely alleviate the horrible angst of being so wealthy that they can piss away tens of thousands of dollars on college taking general studies classes and raping drunk high school girls and beating up gay townies! Won’t someone think of the frat boys?!
Please.
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:45 am
Mighty Ponygirl,
In the case of misogyny I totally agree with you. Also I’m quite sure that if you asked men what they most afraid of from men they would also probably respond “that they will kill us”. Violence in male society is an issue in and of its self that permeates many issues not just feminism, but this isnt the place to discuss it.
That specific statement was intended to refer to the support of societal sexism, I should have been more clear. It is my experience that both women and men actively support the current structure of society. The argument of acquiescence on the part of women is to escape the threat of violence doesn’t really extend to female reinforcement of “lady like behavior”. Many males express total bafflement at the nastiness with which women reinforce societies views on each other. It is also somewhat mystifying when females reward males for specifically sexist behavior and even misogyny until one looks at the deeper motivations. As a society we encourage males to act in this way to one degree or another and we encourage females to respond to it in a positive manner to one degree or another. Both sexes lead by example to younger members of the sex, depressingly neither sex seems to be doing a very good job.
I note with interest your rebuttal to the “angst filled frat boys” argument, I lack the cultural context to effectively evaluate it (We dont have fraternities here), but for our nearest equivalent over here (who are not know for using “rufies” or getting women so drunk they cant say no) I think it does hit Ed Mcmillan’s target market. Not that I’m saying its a market that should necessarily be served, just that there is a fair jump form his silly flash game to date rape at least in my experience. Also the argument of wealth being specifically linked to misogynistic or sexist behavior seems to me to be inaccurate. Its a problem that permeates society and isn’t restricted to money or class.
I flicked through the “Fat Princess Thread” and I have to say that it wasn’t pleasant. I cant imagine such a reaction could happen out side of the internet, I’m not sure what it is about this medium that encourages people to act like jerks.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:04 am
Stu — women are nasty to one another because they’ve been conditioned to believe that their only worth is based on the sort of man they can snag as a partner — so they look at other women as competition for a finite number of “keeper” men. Enforcement of “Lady-Like Behavior” is important because the one doing the “enforcing” is placing herself in a position of authority over the other women, to reinforce that *she* is more lady-like and “desirable” to men than they are. It’s really not that mysterious.
And I must vociferously disagree that there is a “fair jump” from playing and LOLing at a game like “Cunt” and drugging women or getting them too drunk to say no to sex. In order to find a game like “Cunt” funny, one would have to have such a low respect for women and their bodies that they absolutely would see getting a girl too drunk to say no as a perfectly reasonable means of getting sex out of her. These are also the types who would argue that she shouldn’t have gone to the party in the first place if she didn’t want to get raped (or worn that skirt, or those heels, whatever). The name of the game in and of itself is breathtakingly offensive and objectifying of women. And I wasn’t saying that “it’s a matter of class,” I was pointing out the complete intellectual fallacy of his argument that the game was just something for “angst-filled frat boys to laugh at,” in that the very concept that the sort of frat boy who would laugh at Cunt could have “angst” to begin with. Rather, ed was attempting to describe the sort of entitled, misogynist asshole who would hold a rufie party as some poor, downtrodded “angst-filled” soul who needed a good Destroy The Pussy Game to make his life feel less painful. Bullshit.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:06 am
Also, the Fat Princess thread was not just “oh, the internets.” Women are street harrassed in that manner all the time. And rape is not a mythical thing. Hatred and violent rebuke of women is not something so rare it’s worth dismissing because the internet is such a strange place where human behavior is altered into something unrecognizable.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:37 am
Mighty Ponygirl,
You right when put like that it really isn’t that mysterious. It is quite objectionable that society steers women into this kind of behavior, but it does lead back into reinforcing sexist and misogynistic behavior. The problem isn’t just how men are behaving but how women are behaving, in order to solve the problem we have to look at how both are raised and educated.
I’m not defending “Cunt” and I’m not saying anyone could possibly need a “Destroy the Pussy Game” to make their world less painful. What I am saying is that there is a far cry from an immature socially incapable “boy” (I cant bring myself to describe them as men) who would find such a game as Cunt to be funny and one who would even contemplate rape. They may have a disgusting lack of respect for women to laugh at this game, that doesn’t mean that they are closet rapists. Plenty of males (see my first post) are afraid of women that doesn’t mean that if they indulge in vilifying women or vaginae that they are misogynistic enough or cruel enough to rape someone. Just that they are small minded scared little peons.
Perhaps I’m looking at life through rose tinted glasses.
Having said that I can fully admit that there are going to be people exactly like you described, I just dont think it is likely that they are the pervading type. Those that will laugh at Cunt because they genuinely think rape is funny and that women deserve it are out there, but Cunt doesn’t seem to be aimed at them. I think your looking for arch villains in a room of petty pickpockets.
In my opinion branding anyone who laughs at Cunt to be the sort of person who is likely to drug and rape a woman is remiss of you. I’m not going to defend them but its a leap to suggest that they are the sort to carry out one of the worst sorts of crime.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:16 am
I really didn’t mean to imply that it was “oh teh Internets”. I was commenting that that was a particularly vile reaction. Yes I’m well aware that women are harassed on the street in such a manner. Harassment in general in society is a huge problem but one that is if the figures are to be believed (I’ll dig out a ref, I dont have one handy) one that is in decline.
I didn’t suggested that rape is a mythical thing. That would be insulting in extreme and belittle everyone who has ever suffered it. I did not dismiss the angry and violent reaction in that thread as oh something on the internet, I merely pointed out that people aren’t as free with their tongues and as quick to flame in other mediums. It seems to bring the worst out in people because they can hide behind a made up name and a recently registered e-mail address.
I haven’t suggested that violent rebuke or harassment be dismissed in any way shape or form.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:00 am
Posted by Stu at 8:45 am.
You may not have meant to be dismissive, but that was a very dismissive statement to make, and it does imply that women are not the victims of violent harrassment IRL.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:08 am
In my opinion branding anyone who laughs at Cunt to be the sort of person who is likely to drug and rape a woman is remiss of you. I’m not going to defend them but its a leap to suggest that they are the sort to carry out one of the worst sorts of crime.
Anyone who plays Cunt does not respect women. Whether they have sufficient disregard for women to actually contemplate rape is debatable, but it seems to me that both reactions are being drawn from the same well. I really don’t think it’s a massive stretch to say that THE TYPE of person who’d get big LOLs from Cunt is THE TYPE of person who could put his own desire for gratification over any consideration of his victim’s feelings. It’s just a question of degree.
Incidentally, I’d highly recommend the post following the death of Melissa Batten and its attached comments for an excellent commentary on and discussion of how being blind to small problems helps create a society in which far more serious issues can gestate.
(admin edit — fixed the name for you!)
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:42 am
This is getting a little off topic but…. In my opinion the comments on that thread were the equivalent of of a large group surrounding and verbally assaulting someone. That isn’t something that happens often. Such an event would outrage and shock me. This is all that I meant.
I can understand in retrospect how it could be read to imply that women are not the victims of violent harassment IRL, however I feel that its fair that you’d have to look at it pretty subjectively. The internet turns other wise relatively nice people into ass bags quite efficiently this is what I was trying to communicate. I apologise if it was taken any other way.
Rodafowa,
I do agree that it is a matter of degree. It is not a massive stretch to suggest that “THE TYPE of person who’d get big LOLs from Cunt is THE TYPE of person who could put his own desire for gratification over any consideration of his victim’s feelings.”
What I’m saying is that there are a bunch of immature males out there who would laugh at Cunt based on their own self centered fears and prejudices and the fact that they really dont think beyond their own perspective. The laugh “cos its funny” without ever really empathising with the issue, they haven’t considered it for what it really means. Thats selfish and ugly and thats exactly what this game is aimed at. The sort of person who cracks food jokes about Somalia. The laugh at any misfortune not directly related to their own shallow existence, but that doesnt mean they are the sort of evil person to victimise another. They are just selfish, self centered ugly people.
This of course contributes to the problem but I do think its an important distinction if society is not to alienate those its trying to reform.
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
If the penis were replaced with the face of a mannish bull-dyke, would this game have inflamed you as much? What if it were a vagina shooting at a penis?
I thought it was funny (and disgusting) for a few minutes, but I doubt I’ll ever go back to it. I like vaginas and women, but that does not mean they are off limits for a send-up. Some people take themselves too seriously!
admin’s response funny how it isn’t a mannish bull-dyke, or a vagina shooting a penis. It’s a penis shooting at a vagina. What about a world where the sky was green and the grass was blue? What about a world where you had the intelligence to tell the difference between a completely hypothetical game that exists only in your head and an actual real life game that’s been published?
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
C, I have to admit that I wasn’t necessarily assuming you weren’t an idiot (stick around this board after a few trollings and you’ll see the main reason for my pessimism), rather the benefit of the doubt was that you were NOT saying that a vagina is an object.
And then you said that a disembodied vagina is an object. I suppose by a strict definition of “object” you’d be right, but again you made a comparison that doesn’t quite fit. Yes, a disembodied eye is an object, but it isn’t a gendered object and the violence enacted against it isn’t so creepily sexualized. Maybe I’d feel differently about eyes if 1 in 6 women had their eyes poked.
And yes, most everyone, men and women alike have sexual desires, but I still think that you and society at large are exaggerating the extent to which men (why not women?) must repress these desires. I recognize that you didn’t say this, but do you realize this is the kind of thinking that leads to women being blamed for getting raped? The idea that men are just naturally that way, and so, really it was her fault for being in the wrong place.
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
“First of all, it’s EITHER “just a game,” OR it’s art. You can’t have it both ways. And since you’ve ducked behind the “it’s art” excuse as a wrong-headed attempt to avoid critical analysis of the game, you earn an epic fail for the reasons I’ve already stated numerous times on this blog, not to mention this thread.”
Hmm, im starting to realize you seem to be living in a world where things are either black or white. All things in life can be many things to different people, the point i was trying to make by comparing contradictory statements was that just because YOU think something is one way doesn’t mean it really is that way.
The game is just a game, to many people.
The game is art, to many people.
To me the game is both, and even though those statements seem to contradict one another, i dont understand why you think one would negate the other. things in life are many things to many different people, nothing is a clear cut statement that everyone gets the same response from. You’ve obviously closed the book on what you think my games about, you’ve come to your own conclusions and are now trying to state them as fact.
also im clearly not trying to hind behind anything, ive been as up front and honest about my thought process and myself as i could on here and i think its pretty obvious i dont have a problem with criticism or people criticizing my work if i did i wouldn’t have posted here. saying something is a game or art doesn’t stop people from picking it apart.
Ill state again that when i made this i didn’t have a “goal” in mind. i wasn’t thinking “hey ill go after the guys who hate women demographic” I just made a game about a penis fighting a vagina called cunt. it was an honest and cathartic creative process that may have revealed a little more about myself then i was expecting, but the whole point to making stuff like this is to learn from what your doing and question it.
Cunt was a learning experience from me, as was reading this blog. its hard to come off in comments how one would come off in person, but id like to make it clear that i respect your opinion and i honestly love the discussion. it got me questioning a lot of things, so in that respect i think both of us did our jobs.
The only part of this whole thing that bothers is the whole “stating opinion as fact” aspect. i think its something everyone does, and i know how easy it is to get caught up in something you feel passionate about, but nothing that has been said is actually fact, they are all just opinions, and you know what they say about opinions.
anyway, id love to point out a few other games ive done to maybe give you more of a perspective on what i do and why.
Triachnid - A game based on maternal instincts. http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/347467
Aether - A game based on childhood escapism http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/459147
Coil - A game based on the birth-death cycle/prosess. http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/422918
-Edmund
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
But when it comes time for you, the designer to defend the game, you can’t say “it’s just a game” when people criticize the game, and when that doesn’t work, declare that the game is “art.” YOUR GAME IS NOT ABOVE CRITICISM.
You tell people that if they can’t “deal” with graphic images of male and female genitalia that they shouldn’t play the game. That is the biggest chicken-shit cop-out I have ever read. You’re basically saying “anyone who criticizes the game just can’t ‘deal’” What are you, twelve?
And you know what, it doesn’t matter what else you’ve done. We’re not going to say “oh, well he wrote this great game about maternal instincts.” Frankly, it does NOTHING to help the fact that you created an extremely misogynistic game and published it using a service with a reputation for juvenile, woman-hating content. A whole bunch of misogynists like to dress up their hatred of women by talking about what amazing things mothers are and how incredible the maternal instinct is. In fact, they love to talk about it because nothing would make them happier than sending all of us women back into the kitchen, birthing babies and keeping our mouths shut. Are you aware of the virgin/whore complex? The mother of your children is a virtuous woman worthy of respect, and the woman you fuck on the side is a filthy whore. Triachnid is your “virgin” game, and Cunt is your “whore” game. Just because you claim to respect the woman who is the mother of your children doesn’t mean that you respect women. Cunt is your tell–no man who respected woman would make such a disgusting game “for the frat boys LOLs.”
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
“What about a world where you had the intelligence to tell the difference between a completely hypothetical game that exists only in your head and an actual real life game that’s been published?”
Ooooh kay then, I guess rational discussion means ‘agree with the authors monologue or be flamed!’ Rage much?
My point was you can swap a couple images and suddenly the game isn’t worth being upset about…it makes you wonder if it is worth being upset about in the first place. It’s actually a bit easier to do than green skies and blue grass. If the author posts his .fla source I’ll show you how, so you can give those flash misogynists a taste of their own medicine
Admin’s response: No, rational discussion means staying on the topic at hand, rather than attempting to sidetrack by bringing up purely fictional scenarios.
Anyone who reads this blog is invited to review the archives. You will see that we’re not a big fan of any sort of sexualized violence. Your straw-feminist who wants to hurt men doesn’t exist here.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Edmund.
First of all thank you for coming here and being open to this discussion.
Let’s go back to the fat Princess controversy, that was my introduction to this site, and whilst I think I broadly disagree with the site owners main criticisms of the game, what struck me was that the criticisms were couched in a well reasoned argument and more importantly, at no time was the owner of this site calling for censorship of the game.
I don’t think your game should be censored, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s OK.
See, your argument that the game is all things to all people has to consider the very fact that we’re here discussing it is because for a lot of us it is offensive in the extreme.
I am seeing two types of argument here, one that argues the game must be viewed in a specific context, and one which argues that if the genitalia were replaced for male genitalia then we wouldn’t be so offended.
I would give the same response to both arguments.
We cannot pretend that the game exists in a vacuum, it exists in world where male on female violence is at epidemic levels.
A game with male genitalia would still be offensive, but we couldn’t argue that it reflected baser aspects of society as a whole the way your game does.
All I can think of to say is that you should imagine Apardheid era South Africa and a white South African game designer creating a game called “nigger” where the white protagonists had to shoot hordes of diseased black people.
Now that hypothetical game designer could argue that it was just created as a bit of fun, he could tell us about the great relationship he has with black friends and he could explain that he hates racism and say that it has nothing to do with reality.
But who would accept such an excuse?
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
“But when it comes time for you, the designer to defend the game, you can’t say “it’s just a game” when people criticize the game, and when that doesn’t work, declare that the game is “art.” YOUR GAME IS NOT ABOVE CRITICISM.”
Ive written a lot of stuff defending and re-stating my point over and over, im not at all defaulting to saying the games just game or the games just art. Honestly i dont see how you could read what ive been saying and think other wise. my goal was never to make my game “above criticism” i just wanted to respond to what you’ve written and give you my opinions as well.
“You tell people that if they can’t “deal” with graphic images of male and female genitalia that they shouldn’t play the game. That is the biggest chicken-shit cop-out I have ever read. You’re basically saying “anyone who criticizes the game just can’t ‘deal’” What are you, twelve?”
This is what the actual disclaimer says.
“This game contains graphic images of male
and female genitalia. If you cant deal with
that, don’t play this fucking game.
This game also may contain bad words.”
See the “disclaimer” was actually a play on a real disclaimer you would see in a video game stating that the game was adult due to graphic images of the sexual nature. it was a joke, hence the part where i say the F word then state that the game contains bad words.
But if you want to pick it apart, the disclaimer clearly states “if you cant deal with seeing genitalia, then dont play the game” no where at all does it say anything about people who criticize this game not being able to “deal”. i thought it was a clear disclaimer saying.. “there are going to be naughty pics in this game, so if that is something that might turn you off, here is your warning.”
“And you know what, it doesn’t matter what else you’ve done.”
Spoken like a true close minded person. again this goes back to the idea that the world is just black and white. just because someone says something that you dont agree with you write them off as having nothing else to offer because in your mind they are now “bad”. Not everyone in the world is going to share the same views as you or think the same things are funny or interesting, that doesn’t mean those people are wrong and your right.
“We’re not going to say “oh, well he wrote this great game about maternal instincts.” Frankly, it does NOTHING to help the fact that you created an extremely misogynistic game and published it using a service with a reputation for juvenile, woman-hating content. A whole bunch of misogynists like to dress up their hatred of women by talking about what amazing things mothers are and how incredible the maternal instinct is. In fact, they love to talk about it because nothing would make them happier than sending all of us women back into the kitchen, birthing babies and keeping our mouths shut. Are you aware of the virgin/whore complex? The mother of your children is a virtuous woman worthy of respect, and the woman you fuck on the side is a filthy whore. Triachnid is your “virgin” game, and Cunt is your “whore” game. Just because you claim to respect the woman who is the mother of your children doesn’t mean that you respect women. Cunt is your tell–no man who respected woman would make such a disgusting game “for the frat boys LOLs.””
Im still blown away by the fact that you think that saying or doing something that could be taken as hateful to women automatically turns that person into a women hater. In your mind if someone who’s straight makes a game that’s viewed as “gay” that turns that person gay and there no coming back from it. sexuality, hate, intolerance, love and all feelings for that matter, are not black and white. when you love life, does that mean you love every aspect of it? when someone makes a hateful statement, does that mean that person is a hatful person? life is grey, its never ONE THING OR THE OTHER.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
All I can think of to say is that you should imagine Apardheid era South Africa and a white South African game designer creating a game called “nigger” where the white protagonists had to shoot hordes of diseased black people.
Now that hypothetical game designer could argue that it was just created as a bit of fun, he could tell us about the great relationship he has with black friends and he could explain that he hates racism and say that it has nothing to do with reality.
But who would accept such an excuse?
This. This. This.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
No, actually, sometimes it is that simple. If you hate women, if you view women as little more than walking vaginas that are either “good” vaginas (because they give you children) or “bad” vaginas (because they’re whorish and buggy), then you are a misogynist. FULL STOP. And no amount of arm-waving and “but but but my mommy loves me!” is going to change that. Try telling a rape victim that your game doesn’t hate women. Try telling someone who had her boyfriend tell her that he wasn’t going to go down on her because her vagina was disgusting that a game where a bug-infested vagina attacks a penis is just a “grey area.”
Where in my article did I say “playing Cunt will turn someone into a misogynist?” No, it’s a little more nuanced than that, buddy. It’s not “This game will turn you into a misogynist,” it’s “if you play this game, you are a misogynist.” It’s not a chicken/egg thing. If you honestly think your game is offering some new experience to the shoot-em-up genre, and that people are playing your game because it’s got awesome gameplay elements, you’re mistaken. People are playing the game because LOL PUSSIES ARE GROSS.
If I said “All Spicks need to die,” the only person trying to convince others that I wasn’t a “hateful person” was me. Everyone else would know that I was a hateful racist. It’s really not that complicated. Sometimes things really are black and white. You wrote a game that used a sexual slur as its title, the game’s theme was violence against women, and you published it on a site not exactly known for its egalitarian attitudes towards women. That’s three strikes. You’re out.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Right, well I have a feeling this is going to go downhill from here so I’m going to call it a day. It’s been great talking to you all, I’ve learned a bit, encountered some new concepts that I really agree with, some I dont. One way or the other I have a lot of food for thought. I’d like to have time to chew stuff over and get to know the subject matter better before I get involved in heated debates.
Thank you bg, Rodafowa and Mighty Ponygirl for the insights you have offered, I will drop in again in the future to discuss issues more, just wait for the next controversial game ;),
Best Regards
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Im still blown away by the fact that you think that saying or doing something that could be taken as hateful to women automatically turns that person into a women hater.
No, saying or doing something that’s hateful to women means you’ve said or done something that’s hateful to women. Isn’t that bad enough in and of itself? Does it really matter what your intentions are, or what you’re labelled?
I’d say no. I’d say as far as the world’s concerned people are what they do, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest Who They Are Deep Down Inside because everyone’s decent Deep Down Inside.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I have to respectfully disgaree.
I recently read a book in which the author explained that everyone has this self image whereby they think that inside they’re a really good person and if others could only see this inside person they’d understand what a good person they were.
But this is a conceit, we are what we say and do, others percieve who we really are through our actions, this is the real us, what we fool ourselves into thinking we are is irrelevant.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
well said, both of you.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
“if you play this game, you are a misogynist.”
“if you are gay your going to hell”
“if you have an abortion you are a murderer”
there is one thing that ties these statements together, they are all extreme OPINIONS based on personal experience and belief. they are also all very close minded and one sided. I feel like ive argued my point as well as i can, but like others i view this topic as just going downhill too fast to keep up.
ive given you my side to the story, so you could have a clearer view on where i was coming from when i made it. Take it as you will, im just trying to be honest.
again i do respect your opinions and feeling on the matter and love that your speaking your mind without being censored. I mean, that was the whole reason why i made the game.
Im outa here.
-Edmund
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
False analogy.
If you play this game, you are a misogynist.
This is not saying that the game will MAKE a person a misogynist, it is that only a misogynist would like this game. This is an important difference. People who have respect for women will not play this game because they will find the premise abhorrent. A misogynist is, by definition, someone who hates women. Hatred is defined by actions: whether expressing a wish to harm someone or by actually harming someone and by excessive “othering.”
If I said “If you are gay you’re going to hell” that would mark me, rightly, as a homophobe. It is an opinion, but so is “women are disgusting.” If I said “Someone who says ‘gay people are going to hell’ is a homophobe,” that is the corrolarry to saying “someone who calls women ‘cunts’ and fantasizes about blowing up female genitalia is a misogynist.” Both are premised on the fact that there is very real, tangible harm being done to gays and women. Gays are brutally attacked and murdered every day. Statistically speaking, a woman is raped every 48 seconds in this country. To say “if you’re gay you’re going to hell” is based on the supposition that something written down in a book is true. You won’t know until you cash in your chips. But the plight of women, gays, and other minorities in this country is not a supposition, it is a reality. And it is a reality that has coalesced around thousands of hateful cultural and social artifacts that celebrate violence and consumption of women. Your game is one of those artifacts, no matter how desperately you wish it weren’t true. Hell, even our resident non-feminist has called your game to the carpet for being a misogynist screed.
Finally, as to “If you have an abortion, you’re a murderer,” well, that’s just legally not true. Yes, it is an opinion, you’re right on that account. And anyone who sees me in arenas outside of this blog will see me do battle in that environment on its own merits. But again, the opinion rests on the very fuzzy concept of when life begins which is scientifically and historically impossible to establish, and whether or not someone who uses derogatory words to describe women, who revels in fantasies involving raping and otherwise destroying the female anatomy, and who makes it a point to come into women’s space and tell us to just relax about the whole thing… which is pretty fucking obvious to just about every woman even remotely feminist-minded.
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
What if I played this game BECAUSE I found the premise abhorrent?
That I thought it was disgusting and way over the line, hence I had to try it out?
Clicking the penis shooting button in no way affected my life or the lives of anybody I will ever meet… the premise was so ludicrous that I had to see the way in which it was enacted. I really doubt anybody consciously or subconsciously thought “hey here’s an opportunity to TAKE IT OUT ON THOSE BITCHES THAT ALWAYS KEEP A BROTHER DOWN PEW PEW PEW PENIS LASERS!”
Are you kidding?
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Sorry, what? You made the game to prove how open-minded and anti-censorship you are?
In the real world, when you’re a misogynist asshole, it doesn’t make people close-minded and pruny to point that fact out. Middle-school kids are the only ones other than you who think drawing a cartoon penis is daring, rebellious and clever.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Edmund, if you are game designer or/and an artist, you should have expected criticism for your work. Whether its the upper echelon of the art critique world snarking at a painting or Yahtzee ripping into games, there will be criticism. And if you made a game like this, how did you not expect negative criticism? Honestly, your little “if you can’t deal with it don’t play” isn’t addressing the content; its a cowardly and dishonest cop-out for you when people do have a problem and want to deal with it.
If your response to some very real concerns about the implications of your game is to defensively use tired old cliches and excuses, you should not be making games or art. When you use imagery like this and get sulky that people ‘took it the wrong way’, you clearly did not think about your imagery that much. HR Giger uses disturbing images of genitals in his work but all with an understanding of how to use them with artistic maturity. Georgia O’Keffe played on the idea of female genitals, stereotypes and roles with her paintings. Eve Ensler manages to use the word ‘cunt’ with understanding, dignity and humor. They all can give educated, rational, detailed and well thought out reasons why they use that imagery in their work. A quick Google search on any of the above artists and their works would have shown you just how far off the mark your failed attempt at humor/art really is. If you want to play with loaded imagery, you need to study how other people have done it correctly and you need to be ready and willing to hear other people’s criticism of it afterward. If the first thing that a person thinks of in a game you meant to be funny/ a statement on censorship/whatever you’re defending this as at the moment is, “Rape/Genital mutilation” or “Fuckin’ right, rape the bitch!” you have a problem of epic (as in “EPIC FAIL”) proportions.
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:51 am
Does he have a problem, or do THEY have a problem?
Since when is the artist supposed to control interpretation?
If somebody looks at the Mona Lisa and says “kinda ugly and looks like a man” does that mean that da Vinci EPIC FAILED to make a beautiful painting?
The people who saw the game and were like “genital mutilation oh no” were the posters/supporters of the blog, and the people who thought, even subconsciously “fuckin’ right, rape the bitch!”….. aren’t here. They would never go to a feminist blog to discuss it, and they’re the idiots who are the problem. Not the game. This game doesn’t breed assholes and rapists, assholes and rapists can use ANYTHING they find as justification because they are irrational.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:55 am
C, no … not everyone who said “genital mutilation oh no” were “supporters of the blog.” They were women and men who had respect for the female body and a sense of awareness about how women’s bodies are not respected in our culture. I’ve cruised over the internet and I can assure you — people who I don’t even see on my blog are upset about this. When you have a whole population of women who are pissed off at how this game depicts women’s sexuality, that’s not just a couple of isolated cranks who don’t get it.
When Andres Cerrano placed a crucifix in a jar of urine and caused the uproar that he did back in the early 90s, he stated, “Isn’t it wonderful that we have symbols that can evoke such emotion in people.” He didn’t say “If you can’t handle a crucifix in a jar of urine, then don’t look at my exhibit.” We have seen this game’s designer dance across a number of “reasons” for his design, none of them passing muster and each reason growing more desperately obtuse as we smack them down. This is not, as DK has stated, the mind of an artist. This is the work of a juvenile brain looking to avoid punishment.
Also, idiots and assholes do come here. They come here to troll.
Finally, “assholes and rapists can use ANYTHING they find as justification because they are irrational” is simply not true, at least not the rapist part. Any man can be a rapist. I had a male friend in high school–someone I grew up with, someone that I thought was funny and nice, he was an honors student, he and I went to the same church, and he still raped my best friend. He took advantage of her when she was too drunk to say no. He wasn’t “irrational” about it. He was in fact very calculating. They had previously dated, he was upset that he didn’t get any from her while they were together, and so when he had an opportunity to fuck her, he took it. Do you realize that scenario is what most rape is? The mentally unstable guy who grabs women and drags them into the bushes is not the majority of rapists. The majority of rapists are people that seem like great guys, who just happen to feel entitled to women’s bodies and will use extreme measures to secure that right–whether alchohol, drugs, or coercion. It took me a long time to square with the fact that someone that I thought was a “good person” was in fact a rapist, and I’m a feminist. Does it occur to you how common rape is? Do you understand how the underlying problem of rape is not “I’m crazy” but rather “I don’t believe that women deserve respect or autonomy,” a belief that is reinforced throughout our culture, and how a game like Cunt is part of that culture?
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Do you understand how the underlying problem of rape is not “I’m crazy” but rather “I don’t believe that women deserve respect or autonomy,” a belief that is reinforced throughout our culture, and how a game like Cunt is part of that culture?
I’m sorry, that thought IS crazy, and games like this don’t make somebody disregard half of human population. It’s a nurture issue, yes, but not a belief caused by stumbling upon something on the internet.
I thought the premise of this game was ludicrous, irreverent, and it got me to click play (though I quit halfway through). I’ve also pulled girls I had barely met out of dangerous situations and got them rides home because I give a shit and know how easy rape can be perpetrated. Games like this can be a ‘focus’ per say for douchebags (no, that was not a nice guy, deep down he’s not. saying ‘your hair is nice’ and opening doors are nice actions, they don’t make a nice person), but this game does not turn people into douchebags.
As feminist gamers, you should recognize that this is the same thing as saying counterstrike makes kids murderers, instead of what we as gamers usually agree on, that counterstrike became a focus and an ideal for a previously disturbed person…
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Point me to where I say “playing Cunt will MAKE YOU INTO a misogynist.”
I’m saying if you’re not a misogynist, Cunt won’t have any appeal to you.
Big difference.
For example: I don’t believe that enjoying pornography makes someone a rapist. However, I do believe that someone is not going to enjoy violent rape porn unless they hate women and want to see them suffer. It’s not that violent rape porn will make someone into a rapist, they’re just not going to seek it out unless they have that proclivity.
But you keep ignoring that, you’re so desperate to apologize for this game.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 pm
And i’m saying I’m not a mysogynist, and this game has an appeal to me that stems from its shocking quality, not because it has to do with womanly bits. They aren’t such a big deal to me.
It’s the same reason I laughed really hard while playing a game that involved guiding a baby thrown from a plane down to earth as the baby formed a flaming ‘comet’ halo and made squeaky bouncing noises as it hit trees, etc.
I don’t think its ok to hurt babies, I don’t undervalue human life (i’m a med student for gods sakes), but I find amusement in the absurd. Don’t be so proud as to assume every game that says ‘woman’ in it or has womanly imagery, no matter how obscene, is only played by misogynists.
September 24th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Wow, a sudden flurry of action on here. I thought this thread had died already.
In my comments earlier I felt it was irrelevant to speculate on what the game’s creator was really intending to do, but since he’s had the good grace to come on here and talk about it directly, I guess that changes things a bit.
>Edmund McMillen
“Is the game a satire on misogyny in video games? yes.”
In this case the question of whether it’s successful or not depends on whether or not it’s a successful satire. Satire expects to get people angry and it expects to get people asking questions. There are a lot of angry people on here asking a lot of questions, but are the fratboys that you talk about also asking questions, or are they just having a few giggles? Since the fratboys are presumably the target of your satire, presumably they’re the one’s you should be judging your success by.
“Is the game a cathartic artistic expression of my own misogynistic subconscious ? probably.”
Fair enough. Not sure what to say here except that I agree with you that life isn’t black and white. Everyone has fragments of weird shit in their subconscious and it’s pointless for anyone to make a judgement on you as a person based on one such fragment taken out of context. If someone thinks you shouldn’t put those fragments up on display, that’s their problem since fortunately you have the legally protected right to do so.
I still think the question of whether it’s a game or art or both is a red herring. Until someone can give me a clear definition of what “art” is and what it signifies, signed and agreed by every single commenter on this forum, I think everyone’s wasting their time talking about it.
I understand your explanation about the “disclaimer” but I agree with Mighty Ponygirl about how it comes off. It seems self-conscious and defensive and immediately puts the gamer in a negative frame of mind. I’m pretty sure there are other ways of wording it that would work better.
>Mighty Ponygirl
“I’m saying if you’re not a misogynist, Cunt won’t have any appeal to you.”
So if I get the cause and effect lined up correctly, what you’re saying is that anyone who this game appeals to is, whether they realise it or not, actually a misogynist, because only someone who was already a misogynist would be interested in the game, right? A person might think they’re attracted to some other aspect of the game or at least interested in it in some other way, but in fact this is a kind of cognitive dissonance and it is really their own misogynistic impulses that are driving them (am I inferring too much here? I know how annoying comments like “So what you’re actually saying is…” can be).
You say above that Cunt is part of gaming’s misogynist culture and that it reinforces said culture. I think it comments on this culture rather than reinforces it, and the creator has come on here and confirmed that it was intended as such, so I think that if this game is to be the sole focus of discussion, it can only usefully be judged on how successfully it makes this point. It made the point loud and clear to me, but whether it made the point to the knuckle draggers it’s targeted at I don’t know. If, on the other hand, the focus is on what this game reveals about misogyny in gaming, then perhaps focussing on the much maligned Mr. McMillen and all the various things we can infer about his subconscious takes the debate nowhere.
September 24th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
And i’m saying I’m not a mysogynist, and this game has an appeal to me that stems from its shocking quality, not because it has to do with womanly bits. They aren’t such a big deal to me.
Not meaning to be patronising or offensive fella, but that sounds like a bit of an iffy headspace you’re in, there.
Misogyny is something you do, not something you are. The trap is to start thinking “I’m not a misogynist, therefore what I do isn’t sexist and anyone who thinks it is is overreacting / has an agenda / is looking for trouble / whatever”, then using that defensiveness as a security blanket to avoid examining themselves too closely.
Thing is, you don’t have to be “a misogynist” to say or do things that are demeaning to women. Everyone’s sexist sometimes. Everybody’s got blindspots or slightly dodgy attitudes to certain things. Everybody fucks up once in a while, you know?
Obviously, I’m not remotely able to comment whether that’s what’s going on here. given that I don’t know you from Adam and all. I’m just saying that someone saying what you’re saying and pointing and damn-near saying “You’re just seeing what you want to see!” sets off alarm bells that I’m horribly and personally familiar with.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I’m just saying I approached this game the same way I would have approached a game that said “fire missiles into this disgusting dirty butthole!”
I would have wondered “How messed up is this game going to look, haha, this is going to be ridiculous,” played it for a few minutes, and then forgot about it. But I wouldn’t have had feminists saying I’m a misogynist.
The objects used in the game had nothing to do with my motivation to play it, only the level of ridiculousness of the interaction of those objects interests me, and if that makes me sick to want to see the absurd, you could definitely make that argument (I LOVE using the bonesaw in the cadaver lab), but if you’d say “Misogynist!” if it was a vagina and a penis and “Weird game…” if it was an asshole and nuclear missles, I’d be confused, cause my motivation and what I take away is the exact same in each game.
To show the extreme, if a game was called “Rape these dead babies because they are females” i’d click play, just to see how weird it was. Same as being able to read Mein Kampf and not being a Nazi/Nazi-sympathizer.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
The fact that a vagina being depicted as monstrous and is being attacked by a penis “isn’t a big deal” really bothers me. Just about every prejudice you can named usually has a chorus of defenders chanting, “Its not a big deal.” It IS a big deal. This game reflects and reinforced violent attitudes towards women and the parts that make them women and the person responsible for it is blowing it off as ‘no big deal’. If he’s really an artist, his work and what he’s saying through it is a very big deal. If its not being interpreted the way he wants then its back to the drawing board to see what went wrong.
You also apologize and try and recognize where your intended message went wrong and looking back on the criticism you got to see where/what/how that could be. While I agree everyone has their moments when they say things they regret, the right way to handle it is to apologize and try and make amends. There are much better visual interpretations about people’s anxiety about sex and their sexual parts and much better ’space invader’ clones out there to satisfy either the art or the game end of this.
As for the shock quality, that goes away quickly and the sentiments behind the choices for ’shock’ are more disturbing than the very cheap locker-room humor shock itself. (If you want well-constructed shock and horror, play Fatal Frame. Two in particular. Silent Hill goes without saying) I agree with Might One on the people who’d play this game.
September 24th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
C, The Ministry of Silly Walks sketch is absurd. Yet another juvenile, explicit Bitches Suck game is not a daring attack on Puritanism; it’s a juvenile game. Stop whining that you’re being picked on because the misogyny sailed over your head, and it’s not worth your ego to admit it’s there.
September 24th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
It’s juvenile, but playing it doesn’t make you juvenile.
I’ve read Mein Kampf, but I’m not a Nazi.
I’ve read The Turner Diaries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turner_Diaries), but I’m not racist, nor did I bomb the Oklahoma City Federal Building.
I’ve played GTA, but I’ve never slept with a hooker, or killed anybody.
I’ve gone to church, but I’m not Christian.
I’ve played what you’d call a mysogynist game, why does that make ME a misogynist?
Can ANYBODY else see the disconnect? Call the game what you want, but saying “you want to make cunts bloody, you chode” or “only a misogynist would play this game” is going to far and makes anybody who would say so look foolish.
Admin response: Nope, just you. If you read Mein Kampf and then vociferously defended that some people just find jews burning in ovens funny and that doesn’t make people a nazi, you may not strut around wearing a swastika, but you’re sure not the sort of person who would help a jew out of the country when they were being rounded up.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
C
There’s something I don’t understand. You want the luxury of being able to play a game like this without being judged, you demand the right to view this game in solitude and play it for your own allegedly non misogynistic reasons, because as far as you’re concerned the fact that male on female violence is rampant throughout our society has nothing to do with anything you do or the games you defend.
You don’t give a shit about the reality for most women on this planet and yet at the same time you’re here demanding we take special care to view your defense of a hateful game like this in the most favourable terms in order not to incorrectly judge you as some misogynist.
Am I right?
You’d be hurt to think someone would categorise you as a misogynist, so hurt that you’re here on a feminist website arguing we see you as a nice guy.
Wow, don’t you think you’re being more than a little narcissistic and egotistical here?
Here we have a whole planet in which women are routinely raped, beaten and brutalised and yet you think we should put all that aside when judging this game and see things from the perspective that paints you as a nice guy?
Has it ever occurred to you why games like this make people so angry? do you think it’s because they have nothing better to do?
Not everything’s about you, and that goes for everyone else who approaches this argument from the point of view that they’re the centre of the universe.
September 25th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Regardless of what you call the game, it is not a reflection of those who click play. Maybe of the creators, but its a stretch to go farther. I tried to make a point in an earlier post, but this site seems to wait 3/4 of a day to approve any comment I have while everybody else’s comments sliiiiiide right through.
Admin’s response Your comments take 3/4 of a day to approve because you’re still not a trusted member of the site. You spend so much energy defending a game that is basically a rape game that I’m not letting you just say any ol’ thing that pops into your mind on a site that I pay for out-of-pocket. More to the point, we have had incidents where men like you have come here to vociferously defend misogyny, and have triggered regulars — women who want very much to talk about games and gaming in a space that respects them. Add to that the fact that I don’t spend 24 hours a day eagerly in front of my moderation queue because OMG THIS MAN NEEDS TO SAY SOMETHING QUICK DROP EVERYTHING AND LET IT THROUGH, and I’ve actually been so busy offline in the last week or so that as you can see I have barely had time to post, and frankly you can kiss my ass. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. No-one here will miss you.
September 28th, 2008 at 10:30 am
[...] (”Coat” - Ed) before, but Kotaku picked up a couple of essays from Acid For Blood and Feminist Gamers which critiqued it for Gynophobia and general misogyny. Which - y’know - is a hard one to [...]
September 28th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I understand your problems with people coming on here and saying, “I have lots of female friends, but…” and all that, but having diligently read through all these comments I really think that some of the attacks on C are a bit unfair. Apologies to Cruinthe for picking on her/his comments in particular this time, and but I felt these particular ones were fairly representative of where this thread has been going recently.
>Cruinthe
“You don’t give a shit about the reality for most women on this planet and yet at the same time you’re here demanding we take special care to view your defense of a hateful game like this”
Whether or not or how much of a shit he gives about the reality for women around the planet is not something you can possibly know from what C has said so far, other than various things that suggest that he is largely supportive of feminism. The only substantive difference with your views that he ahs actually expressed, from what I’ve gathered from his comments so far, is that he sees “Cunt” as too ridiculous to be taken seriously whereas you see it as “a hateful game”. It’s possible to debate this point without resorting to rhetoric like “You don’t give a shit about the reality for most women on this planet”.
“Wow, don’t you think you’re being more than a little narcissistic and egotistical here?”
I would hazard a guess that C’s responses are personal because a lot of to comments on here about him have appeared increasingly personal and as a result he’s felt it necessary to defend himself in an increasingly personal way. I know that as arguments in themselves they don’t amount to much, but given the context surely you can at least see why someone would feel compelled to respond in such a way.
“Here we have a whole planet in which women are routinely raped, beaten and brutalised and yet you think we should put all that aside when judging this game and see things from the perspective that paints you as a nice guy?”
I don’t know how to respond to this. “A whole planet where women are routinely raped, beaten and brutalised” is a very emotive context to set for your argument. Who could possibly disagree with you when you’ve defined your enemy as such? And what kind of asshole could possibly defend such a world and then demand to be considered a “nice guy”? The only counterargument would be that C isn’t in any way defending such a world, and that his argument from the start has just been that this particular game has points of interest that are only tangentially related to the game’s superficial content.
Personally, it seems clear to me that this game is a satire — that much the creator himself has declared. It’s a pisstake of misogyny in games. Whether it’s a successful satire, whether it goes far enough in its skewering of gaming misogyny, those are points to debate — and to a large extent points that will depend on the viewer’s own perceptions. Mighty Ponygirl’s point about the “disclaimer” was well made: it may have been intended as a pisstake of normal disclaimers but it just came out defensive and negative sounding, and ended up insulting all the people who were naturally put off by the deliberately extreme content of the game, as well as a many who weren’t put off by the game’s content but still felt insulted by the “disclaimer”.
As for “admin”’s comment about C leaving Jews to die in Nazi Germany. I don’t know who “admin” is since this site has multiple authors and therefore presumably multiple moderators could also be a reasonable assumption, but I mean, seriously, what kind of response is that? How is anyone supposed to respond to a comment like that? Once you enter that world this is no longer a debate, this is a witch hunt. This web site consistently produces thoughtful and intelligent comment from all its writers so all I can suggest is that whoever wrote that remark should probably take a few deep breaths and maybe have a lie down.
September 29th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
My post was a response to what I percieve as a typical line of argument in which an individual seems to think that an issue ought to be judged based upon their own personal experiences, as if what happens to everyone else is an irrelevance.
I’m sorry but I think this is not only a cop out on a personal level but is in its own a way a contributory factor to the type of world and society in which we find ourselves. Yes my comments about a world in which women are regularly brutalised, beaten and raped leave little room for manouvre but I defy anyone to tell me this is not the simple cold reality for a depressingly sizeable section of humanity which happens to have a particular set of genitalia.
I cannot play along with someone’s wish to insulate themselves from that greater reality by insisting we pretend thier own cosy reality is in any way a true reflection of the true situation.
As for your comments about witch hunts, are you serious?
This place exists with a specific clearly defined agenda and raison d’etre, us guys have practically the whole fucking internets to play out our little pity parties about how hard it is to be a man in a man’s world, do you think we need to accomodate that mindset in here as well?
October 1st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
>>I’m a medical student who deals with complex ethical questions (and vaginas), and I assure you my reading comprehension is above average.
By god, people, how dare you criticize this man!? He’s practically a doctor!!
>>In response, I might say that, in a way, a bodyless vagina CAN be something to be ‘consumed’… it is something there is a base desire for, something that satiates a sexual desire. There would not be artificial vaginas if there wasn’t a sort of desire for this detached pleasure.
Future Gynecologist /(rapist) of America here, ya’ll.
>>However, a vagina attached to a person is very different… it brings a humanizing quality and attaches social relevance other than that of a body part. A la nobody would ever attempt to touch somebodies vagina without permission, but if there was a floating 3D vagina at a museum, I might put my hands on it and inspect it.
Yes, nobody EVER attempts to touch vaginas uninvited. And the next time a rape victim is crying in front of him, I’m sure she will be comforted by Dr. C’s assertion to this effect.
>>I will say that while I am not slave to the desires of my loins, I, and possibly every man, will always have desires that need to be deflected or rejected to function as a respectful and loving person.
Gee, I would LOVE to have a physician who believes it’s MY responsibility to deflect his lust. His dependence on my ability to say no to control his manly urges would make me all fuzzy inside, and very confident in his professionalism. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if you need someone else to tell you when to put your cock away, it’s TOO LATE to pretend you are even ABLE to function as a respectful and loving person. And don’t get me *started* on the victim blaming going on in this paragraph…
>>I don’t think that ‘equality’ is necessary, nor a goal of mine in any way. We are all different, we are all unequal, but we should all be TREATED equally.
Well, even if the sobbing rape victim isn’t *equal* to Dr. C, she’ll get *treated* like a human being, and that’s practically as good! So, like, he won’t withhold aspirin from her or something…? Also, got to love how Dr. “reading comprehension is my middle name!” C conflates being “equal” and being “identical.” Please let me know which medical school admitted you, so I’ll know what to avoid.