I while ago, I posted about how much I was enjoying playing World of Tanks. I still am enjoying the game, but last night, a player did something that made me consider never playing it again.
I knew what I was getting into when I started playing an online game. The gamer community is not the most courteous or politically correct group of people one will ever encounter. They insult people. They talk trash. They rant. They whine. OK, fine. Whatever.
They also employ no shortage of racial slurs, sexist language, and rape references. Not fine, but the game has limited communications and I don't control the universe, so I just try to ignore that stuff.
Last night, however, one of the players took it too far. He "raped" me.
I was driving a type of tank called a tank destroyer. This tank is not very maneuverable and its gun doesn't turn all the way around. My tank was damaged in such a way that I couldn't turn or move, rendering me
unable to defend myself from anyone who wasn't directly in front of me.
An enemy tank approached me from behind. Instead of destroying my tank by shooting it, he instead announced via chat that there
would now be butt-rape, and proceeded to kill me slowly, a few points at a time, by ramming my tank
repeatedly and rhythmically from behind. It was icky, to say the least. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I felt like vomiting. He clearly intended it to echo a rape (as he explicitly said so) and he succeeded.
I understand that these are competitive and aggressive people. I understand that they enjoy putting aside the rules of courtesy when they play and reveling in being assholes. I wish that they would understand that behavior like what I encountered last night is not being an asshole. It's not gloating. It triggers reactions that extend well outside the scope of the game and persist long after the round is over. If this person had been able to see me and the effect he was having, I believe (hope) that he would have stopped immediately and apologized.
I wish that these folks would understand that, despite the low incidence of women/girls in these games (gee, I wonder why that could be), there is a sadly high likelihood that there is a survivor of rape and/or sexual abuse in any given round. This includes the men/boys. There is a line that has nothing to do with politics or correctness. Crossing it doesn't make you edgy. It makes you ugly and violent.
