After reading the article "A Rape in Cyberspace," a quote from the author stuck in my head. Dr. Bombay stated that "Since rape can occur without any physical pain or damage........ then it must be classed as a crime against the mind---more intimately and deepfully hurtfull to be sure than cross burning, wolf whistles, and virtual rape, but undeniably located on the same conceptual continuum." This statement prompted me to do some more research into exactly what is rape. I found many different websites that dealt with rape prevention, rape counseling, etc. but none defined exactly what rape was. At questia.com, I was able to read limited passages (for free) from a book titled Defining Rape by Linda Bourque. In her preface she stated that "Scholars, clinicians, community members, jurors and legislators disagree on what constitutes a rape and what may be the line between assertive persuasion and impermissible force or assault." When I read this I immediately thought "Women who have been raped don't have trouble defining it." Then I came across some amazing statistics. According to a government sponsored rape prevention website (www.rapeprevention.us) an estimated 1,000,000 (one million) sexual assaults occur in the US every year but only 1/3 (300,000) actually get reported. This lead me to believe that even for the victim, there is some difficulty in knowing exactly when you are raped.
I can imagine that it is easy to know that you are raped when you are attacked by and unknown, armed assaillant as you walk through the park one night, but it is a little harder to determine when the assaillant is your husband or the guy you were so eager to get to know. Can a woman actually be raped by her husband? According to many websites, yes. The rape prevention website went on to further say that "Rape and 'having sex' are not the same. Rape is an act of hostility, power, control, degredation and violence." This means that rape is not just the act of intercourse, it is the mental power that one asserts over another during the act of violence. It is a "crime against the mind."
This is why rape recovery is so difficult for many women. It is not just that someone had sex with them when they didn't want too. Many women have laid in bed and had sex when they didn't want to, hence the proverbial joke of the faked orgasm. However, the real problem comes when the victim is made to feel as though they are worthless, pieces of flesh to be taken and used at will. They feel helpless, out of control and violated. There is no physical way to prove this. There are no visible bruises, not cuts or blackened eyes but the scars rest in the mind and hearts of the victims for the rest of their lives.
For spelling accuracy, I decided to look up the word victim, what I found amazed me. I found that among the definitions one stood out more than the other, it stated that a victim is "a living creature which is slain and offered as a sacrifice." Why is this definition relevant, it is relevant because the victim of rape is made to be a sacrifice giving tribute to desires of the perpetrator. All that the victim imagines his or herself to be is destroyed for the sake of the animalistic urges of the perpetrator. Rape is not just an act of sex because in the United States and other places, sex is available everywhere you turn. There are people who have sex as a profession and others who just give it away. Rapist are not interested in just "getting their rocks off", they are after the control, and degredation of the victim.
Understanding rape in this way helps me to better understand how someone who is sexually assaulted in VR can experience the same feelings as someone who is raped if RL.
Saturday, March 01, 2003
"Immersion"
I decided to deal with the concept of immersion only after I had spent hours (almost a whole afternoon) entrenched in the computer game Collapse. As I forced myself to turn the game off and do some work, I began to deal with what it will truly mean to be immersed into a game world. Can you imagine a game more intriguing than the ones we already have available? A game where not only is your mind fully engaged but all five of your senses. The thought reminds me of a Calgon commercial where a woman stressed and irritated with her current life shouts "Calgon, take me away" and she's whisked off into a tropical oasis. What would someone like me be like if the games I played allowed me to totally escape reality and participate in my own personal fantasy. Wow! It's kind of sick to think about how pleasurable the experience would be. However, in light of the fact that I can spend an afternoon sitting at a computer bombing colored bricks for no reason at all, I don't think a game like that would be healthy for me. I can see myself ignoring my responsibilities and procrastinating more than I am already inclined to do. I can hear me saying, " Just give me a few more minutes, I am almost at the next level." or "I promise I'll do it as soon as I get through this scene."
In order to have access to a game with such power, a person would have to exercise extreme discipline or either the game must be created in a manner in which the user could only spend a certain amount of time using it before the game automatically shut off. That would probably make some people mad. Imagine playing the role of a fierce knight, you've fought your way through all kinds of obstacles just to come face to face with the dragon. He is the one who holds the key to your adventure (or maybe even the princess), just as you're about to deliver the blow that will render him helpless, the computers interrupts with a polite voice saying, "Sorry but your time in this module has expired. Please exit this holodek." (!!@##@@##@!@#$%%)
On a more positive side though, games that are able to create this type of atmosphere can introduce you to worlds you might never experience otherwise. This brings to mind the movie "Total Recall" where with just the swallow of a pill, participants are taken on the vacation of their dreams for "a fraction of the cost" of an actual visit. The absence of real danger might lead us to challenge our fears and take adventures that we would never do in real life. For example, I know that I would be more likely to go mountain climbing if I knew that I really won't die if I fall off a cliff or something.
As for now, we don't know what these things would be like, but if somehow a "holodek with time restrictions" could be invented, it might actually be very interesting.
I decided to deal with the concept of immersion only after I had spent hours (almost a whole afternoon) entrenched in the computer game Collapse. As I forced myself to turn the game off and do some work, I began to deal with what it will truly mean to be immersed into a game world. Can you imagine a game more intriguing than the ones we already have available? A game where not only is your mind fully engaged but all five of your senses. The thought reminds me of a Calgon commercial where a woman stressed and irritated with her current life shouts "Calgon, take me away" and she's whisked off into a tropical oasis. What would someone like me be like if the games I played allowed me to totally escape reality and participate in my own personal fantasy. Wow! It's kind of sick to think about how pleasurable the experience would be. However, in light of the fact that I can spend an afternoon sitting at a computer bombing colored bricks for no reason at all, I don't think a game like that would be healthy for me. I can see myself ignoring my responsibilities and procrastinating more than I am already inclined to do. I can hear me saying, " Just give me a few more minutes, I am almost at the next level." or "I promise I'll do it as soon as I get through this scene."
In order to have access to a game with such power, a person would have to exercise extreme discipline or either the game must be created in a manner in which the user could only spend a certain amount of time using it before the game automatically shut off. That would probably make some people mad. Imagine playing the role of a fierce knight, you've fought your way through all kinds of obstacles just to come face to face with the dragon. He is the one who holds the key to your adventure (or maybe even the princess), just as you're about to deliver the blow that will render him helpless, the computers interrupts with a polite voice saying, "Sorry but your time in this module has expired. Please exit this holodek." (!!@##@@##@!@#$%%)
On a more positive side though, games that are able to create this type of atmosphere can introduce you to worlds you might never experience otherwise. This brings to mind the movie "Total Recall" where with just the swallow of a pill, participants are taken on the vacation of their dreams for "a fraction of the cost" of an actual visit. The absence of real danger might lead us to challenge our fears and take adventures that we would never do in real life. For example, I know that I would be more likely to go mountain climbing if I knew that I really won't die if I fall off a cliff or something.
As for now, we don't know what these things would be like, but if somehow a "holodek with time restrictions" could be invented, it might actually be very interesting.
