So I was reading the article about the "rape" in cyberspace and this has really spurred some inner thoughts I've been having about the "online" community and how people use the system. To me, a virtual world is one where people can "test drive" a different person. Lets take roll playing games for an example - You might want to see what it would be like to play the roll of a woman in a virtual world if you are in fact a male player. You would first name her appropriately and then you might start thinking from you past experiences how women have reacted to some experiences and mimic that in the virtual world. I think this gives a lot of users the ability to explore social and ethnic boundaries by assuming the roll of somebody we are not.
With that said, why should it be a big deal if a male player decides to make a female character in World of Warcraft? In the game you are interacting with avatars, there is no physical contact between the players, but you can kind of get there by using voice communication but I'm going to leave that out for now. You don't play the game (well maybe you do, but I don't) thinking about who is controlling that avatar, you just think about interacting with the avatar. Some may think that when you play World of Warcraft you should project yourself as your character. Whats the point? Taking the roll of yourself in a virtual world? I can see how this would benefit with online dating sites, but the choice to decide a character should be unlimited in virtual worlds.
Also if you think about it, there would be some games that female players would not be allowed to play if they must choose the matching gender. Counter-Strike for example has no female characters. All the characters in Counter-Strike are male... and then theres the chickens in cs_italy. Also whenever I played Counter-Strike I always muted all the players in the game from using voice communication, because terrorists don't sound like little kids. Overall, I'm just trying to brainstorm more ideas for why people should be "playing" themselves online.
Getting back to the reading... So aparently the creators of this text based virtual world made an object where you could "do" anything you wanted (voodoo doll). I could have told you right from the start that not EVERYBODY would use this object as it was originally designed for. Whenever you give power to somebody or a group of people, there will be at least one person who is immature or power hungry and they will push it to the limits. I personally have a hard time believing that any "rape" actually occured. The definition of rape is to be forced against your will to perform sex. The actual characters in this game couldn't "do" anything except what the text on the screen told them, and furthermore I'm sure that each of these users has the ability to log out at any time they wanted thus overcoming the "rape"
Now as I wrap this blog up, I will circle back to the title - The Legend of Bloodninja. As I was stating before that people will be immature, Bloodninja is a GREAT example!
http://www.adamchance.com/funny.htm
This link is a chatlog from a cybersex site (don't ask me where I got this plz) where Bloodninja abuses the policies of the cybersex site. Its actually quite a funny read and I find nothing wrong with it. First off these people are "cybering" so technically anything can happen right? I won't say that Bloodninja is completely innocent from abusing the policies, but I don't understand why this is a big deal.
All in all, these are solely my opinions and I don't expect everyone to agree with them, all I ask is that you think about these different scenarios and decide for yourself whether people should be playing their sex online. Also just a last not to ponder on... As long as there is a way to log out of a game or virtual world, then there will never be a cyberspace rape.
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