Went to check on the founders history to see if they were well intentioned people who just did not understood the reach of what they did or if it’s was a conservative group masquarading at feminism… and of course it’s a conservative group masquarading at feminism.
The people they have cosigning this “Open Letter” are groups that are TERFs, seeks abolition of the legal commercial industry, campaigns against comprehensive sex education (something our children when they reach puberty desperately need), etc. One was even linked to a far-right anti-trans group known as Women’s Declaration International.
How unexpected!
my 2 cents: hate that this is happening because some weirdo conservative group pressured payment processors and those payment processors pressured steam, because i dont like conservatives or especially companies controlling speech/expression. however i am anti-free speech tbh so these kinds of games should absolutely be banned, i just want a socialist government doing it lol
Oof at the G*mers in the comments saying “But censorship bad!” Curiously enough, maybe games that simulate or encourage SA actually deserve to be censored? The same dudes who love free speech until it threatens or hurts them or someone they care about.
The group behind this is absolutely using it as a stepping stone to eventually censor games with trans content, if not lgbt content in general alongside everything else they erroneously view as harmful.
Steam can either be a curated games store or a free for all. They signaled way back that they want to be a free for all, but they’ve shown repeatedly that they will curate their store based on external pressure, which means that right now they’re a store whose curators are the worst groups in society.
That’s kinda tough, then. Because even in a free-for-all, I would greatly support censoring out those particular topics. But I definitely understand this group doesn’t have the best intentions. I would love to believe the payment processors wouldn’t agree to censor general LGBT+ content, but I also know better than to have any faith in the profit machine.
I think that it’s not a functional stepping-stone for censoring gay content at least. There’d be an unfathomable level of community pushback and countless publishers, etc. would not tolerate such a thing. They’d literally have an easier time imposing rules about interracial sex (but that wouldn’t fly either).
There’s nothing wrong with having a kink for SA anyway, which is the target market of games like that. 99% of the people who play those games aren’t going to turn around and go and sexually assault someone, this is the same logic as claiming that video games cause violence when they demonstrably do not.
1% is too many. Also, people readily acknowledge that things like a crass fixation on choking* that regularly leads to injuries and unpleasant experiences is popularized by het porn, but somehow we aren’t encouraging any negative impulses with literal r— simulators? Especially since of the couple that I’ve heard about, a concerning number have the subjects be either minors or minor-coded. But pedo shit in games can’t possibly impact anything in the real world, because that’s like saying video games cause violence, right?
*Wherein guys do no research or even seek consent and just grab someone’s neck really hard mid-sex, something for which there are countless stories.
Those 1% would’ve likely done it anyway, with or without the game. It also needs to be said that the vast majority of cis men who go on to sexually assault people aren’t playing porn video games anyway, they’re incredibly niche and in my experience are played by a roughly 50/50 split of archetypal mentally disabled people who aren’t going out enough to sexually assault anyone (like myself in the past) and queer people. The choking problem doesn’t come from porn video games, it comes from the intensely exploitative live-action porn industry, which is not in any way comparable to video games or any other type of animated pornography.
In my experience the majority of people who engage with rpe-kink (god I hate the filtering here) are rpe-victims, such as myself. It is a way of processing and reclaiming the trauma, and rendering the idea of r*pe so fuckin taboo that it cannot be processed and dealt with through kink is horrible practice that does nothing but make the lives of many victims a lot harder. Speaking from experience.
The choking problem doesn’t come from porn video games, it comes from the intensely exploitative live-action porn industry, which is not in any way comparable to video games or any other type of animated pornography.
We both know that the relevant factor here is that one is extremely popular and the other is more niche.
So are we concluding that games like R— Simulator are good for society?
Edit:
in my experience are played by a roughly 50/50 split of archetypal mentally disabled people who aren’t going out enough to sexually assault anyone (like myself in the past) and queer people.
This might surprise you, but I don’t actually think SV should be inflicted on queer people either, so I don’t see how queer people being the consumer base is remotely relevant if you’re using the term to refer to gay and lesbian people, and it seems like a non-sequitur if you’re talking about trans people. Obviously, I don’t buy into conservative fear-mongering about queer people committing sex crimes all the time, but they do commit sex crimes at all, like straights and cissies do. So why even bring this up? Because the example that I used was of het sex crimes?
Also, a lot of these games are extremely het (like RS) and I don’t even really get what you mean by “archetypal” mentally disabled people. Mentally disabled people do sometimes commit sex crimes, like groups from basically all walks of life.
i think a game from the perspective of the r—ist is much more concerning and what needs to be banned, im unsure which 389aaa is referring to
I somewhat agree, but remember that it can also be nominally from the perspective of the victim and still very bad, like LonaRPG. Playing as a girl and getting off on her being brutalized in an objectified manner is a really common thing, with some games being more subtext and some just being “watch this girl get r—d” simulators.
i dont play porn games so im not really sure what LonaRPG is, but i would support banning any game that presents it like you described also
I guess. The logic is sound. I guess that kink makes me uncomfy, but I shouldn’t shame someone for that. It’s hard for me to understand, but I know I don’t understand everything.
Maybe this is more of a reminder that Steam shouldn’t have a monopoly on being a storefront for PC games, oh wait:
SA mention
You know this rule change is fucked when you find youself on the side ofremoved and incest goon games.
u/NW_of_Nowhere 3h ago
Can someone explain the problem? Where things other than R** and I*** taken down?
That stuff should be outright outlawed.
5 u/NY_Knux 2h ago . Congrats, you’re a useful tool for fascists.
This is a stepping stone to censor queer content in the future.
Struggle session! Struggle session! Let’s start struggle session!
I think it’s fairly easy for people to both recognise that these sorts of games are fucked up, but also that the groups behind this absolutely have harmful motives and will go after LGBTQ people next. Two things can be bad, and fascists do infight.
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