Years ago I had an experience that almost caused be to quit playing D&D. My DM relocated, so I had to find a new group to game with. I found a group, but I didn't really know anyone there. During the game, the party bit off more than it could chew, and we were captured. I was the only female player, and I played the only female character in the group. The DM proceeded to have our captors rape my character. He even pushed me to roleplay the scene, describing what the rapist was doing to my character and asking me what my character was doing.
I was horrified to the point of silence.
When I looked around the table for support, the other players just stared at me and watched as my face turned pale, glancing back to the DM as he described the "action." Once I realized that yes, this was actually happening and they expected me to be a part of it, I grabbed my stuff and left as quickly as I could.
I've heard these horror stories many times, and I can't relate them to my play very well at all. In general, D&D doesn't generally allow players to be captured all that easily. It's far easier to kill players than capture them. That's probably a good thing.
It's very hard for me to get into the heads of anyone in the scene you describe. I have no idea what the motivations were, whether prurient, clueless, or to inflict degradation on a stranger. It just seems strange to me, not the least of which that they would be comfortable to play out a scene such as that with a complete stranger. I wouldn't be comfortable going into the details of a sexual scene with a friend, and any time any sexual contact occurs, it tends to be handwaved with, "You may assume whatever you think would occur, did occur." and we bang to a further scene.
I'll say this though, I've never once had a good experience gaming with strangers, and the only time I've ever played with strangers more than once, it was because I was the GM and I organized the group... and knew within 15 minutes that it was going to be a disaster, but continued for a few sessions out of my sense of obligation. In my experience, RPing - at least the part that isn't simply wargaming - is too intimate and too intense of an activity even when it isn't discussing sexual matters to do well and comfortably among strangers face to face.
That said though, I wouldn't mind forking out at some point to discussing consent issues at a gaming table, just because I can think of situations that have come up in play - always handled with a handwave as I said - which were to my mind at least parallel to rape either of male or female characters (to be feasted on by a vampire, for example). And I would love to have your thoughts on such situations, and how they ought to be handled, and whether players ought to be protected from them, and whether it matters if it is occurring in a spot that has already been established as 'safe' because you trust everyone present. And I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts on related topics, such as the suitability of men playing female characters, which I can see regularly leading at some point to exploring the most unfamiliar terrain of that territory whether out of curiosity or prurience, and how you think GMs ought to handle it when it does.
Or in short, anything of practical significance rather than us fighting the great battles of the political sphere here.
) in contempt. You find them actively harmful to any sort of productive discussion. And frankly, reading your post, I can understand why. Oh, I don't agree with your reasoning in the least bit, I find it a complete mis-characterization of what identity politics are and why they matter, and I could spell out any number of reasons why, but those wouldn't be pertinent to the discussion and you don't seem to really want to have it in the first place. Understand, though, that when you say you're not willing to budge an inch then you are not actually trying to reach a middle ground on the issue at all. We're at an impasse, because frankly my views on the subject are as intractable as yours.
