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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Twig" data-source="post: 6883262" data-attributes="member: 31754">Since my experience with having a character raped was brought up, I would like to point out that it was very different than what the women in this thread have described. Not that it wasn't graphic, it was. I was also told that I could continue to role-play my character as he would survive and seek revenge, but I wasn't interested.The difference is that I did not feel humiliated or intimidated in any way. I was mad, but that's it. I told the GM to **** off and I quit the game. Then I argued with the rest of the group and got them to agree that it wasn't the tone of the game that we wanted to play and the GM relented. He never apologized and still thought it was funny, but it wasn't considered that big a deal and it was soon forgotten. Honestly it took me a while of thinking to remember the incident as it happened over 20 years ago.In retrospect it is probably because I am part of the majority group. I don't feel intimidated by my fellow gamers, even though I am usually one of the smallest people in the room, unless women are present. (Surprising fact! Men are generally larger than women!)As for the "men can be victims too", they most certainly can be, and it should be acknowledged. But really that's all that is required in this case. We can talk about the problem that female gamers have, and how we can fix those problems. Then a "This applies to victims of any gender also" at the end, I think, doesn't detract anything from the overall message.Finally I would like to say that a public announcement of anti-harassment policies and raising awareness of the issue is a good idea. I can tell you that there were a couple times (not game related) where I was present when inappropriate comments were made to women and I was so stunned that I didn't do anything (not immediately at least). I was shocked. I looked to the insulted person to get their reaction to try to gauge how I should react. They didn't do anything, so I didn't do anything. This was the wrong thing to do.Later I brought up the issue (both times), but I think the lack of immediate condemnation hampered the response. By then it was "water under the bridge" or "I'll talk to him about it" and then it is forgotten. So a reminder of what to watch out for and what to do when it happens I think can be a big help.</blockquote>

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