Jul. 6th, 2012

monk222: (Default)
Darwin's idea was particularly devastating to religions, because it offered a complete explanation for the origin of life. God is completely unnecessary for evolution to work -– that's what makes it such a powerful idea. Yet, over 150 years later, religions are still flourishing, a sign that it's going to take a lot more than a monumental discovery to quash religious sentiment.

-- George Dvorsky

That suggests an interesting question: what would it take to quash religious sentiment?

I suspect that nothing short of the realization of eternal life here on earth by natural means, and, moreover, this life probably has to be a fairly contented one, at least for most people. Anything short of that would probably feed into that extreme form of wish fulfillment that we call religion.
monk222: (Default)
Darwin's idea was particularly devastating to religions, because it offered a complete explanation for the origin of life. God is completely unnecessary for evolution to work -– that's what makes it such a powerful idea. Yet, over 150 years later, religions are still flourishing, a sign that it's going to take a lot more than a monumental discovery to quash religious sentiment.

-- George Dvorsky

That suggests an interesting question: what would it take to quash religious sentiment?

I suspect that nothing short of the realization of eternal life here on earth by natural means, and, moreover, this life probably has to be a fairly contented one, at least for most people. Anything short of that would probably feed into that extreme form of wish fulfillment that we call religion.
monk222: (Noir Detective)
The first image depicts a woman drawn to resemble me who is tied up with a wii controller shoved in her mouth while being raped by Mario from behind. The second image is another drawing (clearly sketched to resemble me) featuring a chained nude figure on her knees with 5 penises ejaculating on her face with the words “fuck toy” written on her torso.

-- Helen Lewis

Ms. Lewis is a feminist media critic, and she has jumped into the rough and tumble gamer world by taking on the generally sexualized depictions of women in our video games - big breasts, shapely asses, barely-there costumes. She has since become the object of a full-scale hate campaign online. There was even a game that allowed players to beat her up, but I think that one has been taken down.

Personally, I appreciate that women are more than the sizes of their bra-cups and their short-shorts, and I understand that female characters should not all be Playboy bunnies, but I wonder how much this is really the case. I'm not much of a gamer, so that I may not be very familiar with that world, but one of the reasons why I am not a gamer is because it seemed to me that just about all the games available to the general public are rather childized, at least in terms of sexuality. There just aren't that many Grand Theft Auto 4 games out there that allow you, for instance, to pick up a prostitute, have sex with her in your car, and then enables you to beat and kill her afterward. Some people may say, "Thank god!" for that, but I'm asking is the problem therefore that great?

If the feminist campaign is about calling for representations of women to be less sexy - normal breasts, modest dress - I can agree with that. Though, I would also ask that we be allowed to enjoy some adult games that give us sexual nudity and raw sex, maybe even a rape scene every once in a while. As I understand it, Xbox won't even allow games that are rated 'Adults Only', and I don't think such games are even available where I am at.

Fantasy is a big part of our lives in our crowded, complex modern world, and I believe we should want to keep that as open and creative as possible, as well as socially responsible, and I think this is a case where all these diverse interests can be satisfactorily pursued. As with movies, we have a broad swath of shows that are family friendly and that are sexually clean and respectful of women, and we have more mature movies that can be sexually provocative, and we also have pornograhy that is reasonably accessible. I don't see why we cannot have this with our video games as well.
monk222: (Noir Detective)
The first image depicts a woman drawn to resemble me who is tied up with a wii controller shoved in her mouth while being raped by Mario from behind. The second image is another drawing (clearly sketched to resemble me) featuring a chained nude figure on her knees with 5 penises ejaculating on her face with the words “fuck toy” written on her torso.

-- Helen Lewis

Ms. Lewis is a feminist media critic, and she has jumped into the rough and tumble gamer world by taking on the generally sexualized depictions of women in our video games - big breasts, shapely asses, barely-there costumes. She has since become the object of a full-scale hate campaign online. There was even a game that allowed players to beat her up, but I think that one has been taken down.

Personally, I appreciate that women are more than the sizes of their bra-cups and their short-shorts, and I understand that female characters should not all be Playboy bunnies, but I wonder how much this is really the case. I'm not much of a gamer, so that I may not be very familiar with that world, but one of the reasons why I am not a gamer is because it seemed to me that just about all the games available to the general public are rather childized, at least in terms of sexuality. There just aren't that many Grand Theft Auto 4 games out there that allow you, for instance, to pick up a prostitute, have sex with her in your car, and then enables you to beat and kill her afterward. Some people may say, "Thank god!" for that, but I'm asking is the problem therefore that great?

If the feminist campaign is about calling for representations of women to be less sexy - normal breasts, modest dress - I can agree with that. Though, I would also ask that we be allowed to enjoy some adult games that give us sexual nudity and raw sex, maybe even a rape scene every once in a while. As I understand it, Xbox won't even allow games that are rated 'Adults Only', and I don't think such games are even available where I am at.

Fantasy is a big part of our lives in our crowded, complex modern world, and I believe we should want to keep that as open and creative as possible, as well as socially responsible, and I think this is a case where all these diverse interests can be satisfactorily pursued. As with movies, we have a broad swath of shows that are family friendly and that are sexually clean and respectful of women, and we have more mature movies that can be sexually provocative, and we also have pornograhy that is reasonably accessible. I don't see why we cannot have this with our video games as well.

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