But I admit I'm a bit troubled by a hard and firm rule that captives never get raped, because rape is unfortunately a pretty likely result of capture - particularly for women - but for men as well in many cases. And while I have no desire to play out such a scenario, it feels a bit odd to overlook the possibility, and a great many stories - both fictional and taken from history - involve rape or the threat of it.
/snip
Now, as I said, I've never felt the need to explore any of this in an RPG meant for fun, and if I did, I'd try to handle it sensitively - by suggestion, with "fade to black" - and not graphically. But I'm a bit troubled by a hard and fast "no rape in your content rule", because I try to run games that work as more than just games and have - I'd like to think - some literary or philosophical heft to them at times.
I don't feel that the reality of a thing is any kind of valid reason for it not being desirable to bar that thing from a game. There are a LOT of realities that games and gamers gloss over for the sake of simplicity, fun, and overall personal levels of comfort at the table:
1) Having to urinate and defecate is a reality: as a DM I don't make my PCs tell me the intricacies of how they are evacuating their waste.
2) The general inability for different species to interbreed is a reality: as a DM I have no problem allowing half-elves and half-orcs.
3) Getting a severe infection from a scratch because of a medieval understanding of hygene and medicine is a reality: as a DM I don't make my players roll for infection checks every time they get cut.
4) VD and pregnancy are realities for sexually active characters: as a DM I don't care to make or force VD checks when a PC spends some downtime at a brothel, and I don't make pregnancy an issue for sexually active female characters unless the player says she's interested in having her character become pregnant.
5) Dental problems are a reality: as a DM, I don't enforce checks for cavities, gingivitis, etc. or give the PCs bad breath if they don't tell me they somehow brush their teeth and/or gargle (with whiskey I guess. I don't really know what they'd use. I have heard that urine was actually used as a teeth whitener in ancient times. Which. Ew.).
Etc.
On the other hand, I even more back such a rule for Conventions and Gaming Stores than I would a no harassment policy. There are some subjects that do not need to be raised in public society amongst strangers, and there ought to be a reasonable assumption that - for lack of a better term - gaming tables will adhere to a "PG-13" standard during Conventions. To my mind, that just should be a hard no violations rule, and certainly if I was running one I'd insist on, not merely because of my own sense of right and wrong - but it just seems a good way to avoid litigation and bad publicity.
That sounds sensible to me.
I don't know much about the rules of "feminism" of the nth wave, but it seems to me that it ought to be enough to try to respect everyone in the room. So, as actually happened, if one of my players has a family member die IRL, and they say to me, "You know, right now, the plot line we've been having with my character's father just is too intense. I don't think I can handle it right now.", then of course I put the plot on hold until they are ready.
I don't know much about the different waves of feminism. I call myself, and am, an old-school feminist because I follow the original feminist ideal of all genders being equal under the law. I've heard about some extremists who call themselves feminists, and I refuse to acknowledge them. I'm not going to abandon our word to extremists who claim solidarity with us but pervert our core belief because they want special treatment or are overly sensitive to things like the leaked Joker-Harley slap picture (it's okay if the Joker slaps Harley. The Joker is not supposed to be a role model. He's a cool villain, but he is a vile character not worthy of emulating or aspiring to be).
I also applaud the sensitivity you said you would show in your example about the death of a family member.
I literally can't imagine what a GM was thinking that was so insensitive to not pick up on your distress and change the scene. It is just appallingly rude. The whole scene you describe has to get pushed out into my, "Does not compute." mental space just to keep my famously Spock like circuits from frying. Every time I try to contemplate what you described in your horror story, it makes me go, "Who are these people?" What rock did you kick over to find such a group?
I feel very certain that GM did pick up on my distress: I truly don't believe I could have hid it had I even be inclined to try, which I was not. I was white as a sheet as he described my character's clothes being cut off her, and I was literally shaking with fear (and then with rage) until I grabbed by things and fled.
As for where I found that group, through my local FLGS, which I never went back to again either. I didn't want to run into that DM or those other players there, and I didn't want to go back there in case they had shared the story with the staff (who I also didn't know personally, and who may have thought that group was entirely in the right for all I know).
The only reason I'd go to a different thread is that I feel that the essayist doesn't start this conversation in a very good place, and its distracting from any actual learning taking place.
If you want to start a new thread, go ahead. I'll copy my relevant posts over to it.
I'd like to say this was a humorous story of a player's immaturity and stupidity, but I suppose if you encounter that sort of stupidity often enough, like anything it stops being funny.
Well, I'm a woman. I've seen my share of menstrual humor from comediennes and other sources, and it's not all that offensive. The most offensive part was after the session when the player tried to get me to back him up about how he portrayed the character during her time of the month. He seemed to legitimately think a woman is a kind of monthly ticking time bomb.
For example, as a personal matter, I cringe whenever a stranger observes "Your really smart" or some similar thing. I know the person isn't trying to be hideously insensitive and I know they don't know what they are saying, but to me they might as well called me an SOB. It still hurts. And they aren't even throwing a lens or frame on me that would normally be taken as negative or denigrating.
I don't personally get that, but I also don't like when people say that to me. I am relatively well educated (ABA, ALA, BAC, all summa cum laude, and currently carrying a 3.90 in my MST program), however I am fortunate in that I have extra time to invest in studying. I live with my elderly father, we help each other out, and one of the benefits of that is that I only have to work part time to support myself while attending school. With no children, and no romantic life in sight, I can devote extra time to study to get the high marks that I've earned. I'm positive there are several people at school who have commented about my being smart, or even a genius in a few cases, who could do just as well if they had the time that I have to devote to studying.
I have had only one case of what we normally think of as rape occurring at my table, and it involved a female player using a male PC to rape the female PC of a female player. And oddly, they laughed all the way through the scene.
I have to say that I would have walked out on that scene. I don't get at all what they would have found funny about that. Of course, I also don't get the appeal that NC erotica has for some folks either.
If there was anything I would want anyone to take away from this, it is that I'm far less confident making assertions about this than many people in the thread seem to be. And I am genuinely curious about how other people view this, if for no other reason that I try very hard to be a skillful GM. I don't really even know if this discussion itself has left the bounds of good taste, or if I'm being a bit to frank about a subject that needs a more private forum. If this is too much, let me know, as I don't even know how much consent I need to discuss this sort of issue. My problem with the idea of a set of "Harassment Rules" for gaming in public spaces, is not so much that I oppose the idea, but I think it likely to be both more problematic to enforce and more likely to go wrong, then a set of "Decency Rules" requiring play to adhere to something like the Comic Code or a "PG-13" or some sort of standard where inflammatory topics were just assumed to be off-limits at least when in the public space. But in private spaces, I'm not really confident exactly where the laws have to be drawn. I have some idea where I'd personally feel a line had been crossed, and I have a notion that I should try to respect some other peoples boundaries, but yeah... after that it gets really vague, and the people who seem to think they've got it all figure out and can lecture you as to what is wrong or right to have in a collective story telling session make me vaguely uncomfortable. And I say that as a staunchly prude, Puritanical, traditional moralist that would feel rather strongly that I can assert what is right or wrong to actually do, as opposed to merely talk about. It seems to me that motive and presentation are rather important when discussing how story elements are handled.
I fear that my take on this has already been too complicated by having had too many female players and discovering they don't have any single set of standards they are sharing with each other and all agree to. However, when I hear some female gamers claim that things like pregnant PCs are signs of gross disrespect of women, I start to wonder if I missed something, and secretly some friend of mine has been fuming the whole time but afraid to tell me. So, I admit confusion. On the one hand, much of what I'm hearing just sounds wrong and coming from a strange place. On the other hand, I don't want to get this sort of thing wrong, since it's a bit more important than a game actually is.
I have no problems with continuing to discuss all these things with you. I think it might be better to address one individual concern or concept at a time when possible (because even as I type this I know this post is going to be HUGE on the screen), but I think the discussion itself has value in at lest educating people as to differences in perspectives (if nothing else).
Unfortunately I've seen this same line in many of the hobbies I participate in. Not to derail this conversation, while I have opinions on religion I'm perfectly tolerant on peaceful people's views, but go look at atheism and "atheism+". A lot of other groups are all of a sudden having these same sorts of issues.
