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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6204442" data-attributes="member: 4937">I don't see how that follows.  What I am doing is pointing out the relationship between your post and chivalry.The thing about sexism, is that people aren't always aware when they are being sexist, right?  Sometimes they have to be educated, so you have to challenge people on sexist attitudes when you see them.As far as post-traumatic issues go, everything you say about victims of sexual violence is equally true about victims of violence generally.  I don't think it is unreasonable to be sensitive in the portrayal of the evils of this world.   I've had to deal with provoking emotional distress in players for introducing NPCs who had abusive parents.  There are all sorts of subjects that require care at the table.   If we wanted to put caution and advisory warnings for everything that could cause emotional distress, I don't know where we'd start or end.   But I really feel you are being disingenuous here.   These are issues that affect male and female gamers alike.  You make some lip service to that, but it's pretty inescapable that you bring up rape in the larger context of sexism toward women and your primary concerns are focused in that direction.   In the context of your OP, you bring up rape primarily with regard to an area where men are being insensitive towards women.  You aren't bringing up sensitivity about rape or any other subject in a gender neutral way when you bring it in an essay with the thesis that you have.   Even the first sentence of your rape discussion is, "Make no mistake, tabletop gaming is primarily a male-dominated hobby. But there are many women gamers out there..."  I don't feel I'm putting words in your mouth to interpret this as primarily being about protecting the feelings of women, nor to think that you are invoking rape primarily because by tying your argument to rape, you are implying if you disagree with me you must support rape.   As for me putting words in your mouth, you didn't seem to have a problem putting words in the mouths of the CthulhuTech developers (who as far as I can tell have never said what you quoted them as saying).   My guess is that the CthulhuTech developers probably said something a little less obviously dumb like, "Why do we treat sexual violence as inherently worse than all other violence?", which might be a question I could answer but isn't the 'common fallacy' you choose to debunk nor is it entirely obvious that it is a dumb question.   But let's just start quoting you then:Wow.  So many ways I can "make a mistake".   So many ways I have to worry about giving offense to you.  So many things you need to apologize for and cry mia culpa over. I'm not sure I can ever have a campaign that isn't going to be potentially offensive to someone.  Oh my, World of Warcraft portrayed native americans as cows!  That's so racist.  The Drow are black skinned, that's so racist!   Who is going to be appointed to keep track of all of this?  I'm not that familiar with the stuff you site, but if my Tumessi make references to gypsy myths, is that over the line?  If I have nation that was among other things inspired by the thought, "What if the romanticized African Kingdoms portrayed in films like Eddie Murphy's 'Coming To America' were real?"  Is that too far into your 'noble savage' territory?  In my game red hair signifies a fairy ancestry, and its particularly common among the Concherri people.  Can you say, "Irish!  Racist!!"   I look at these laundry lists of things I'm suppose to take great umbrage at, and instead I just see people leaping to judgment and moral outrage because they can.  One of the starting traits you can choose for your character in my game is "Fair Sex".   I'll let the text speak for itself:FAIRER SEX [TRAIT]You are a female that comes from a culture and a race with significant differences in form and custom between the sexes.  As a result, you have a slighter and more fragile build than is typical for your race, but you have a well developed intuition and natural charm.Prerequisite: Female, required backgroundBenefit: You begin with -4 Strength, but +2 Wisdom and +2 Charisma.  You cannot take this advantage if it would reduce your strength below 1."Problematic"!And with such a laundry list we seem to have gone very far afield from you initial statement: "Many cases bear striking similarity; an uncomfortable attitude towards women gamers in various forms and degrees."Back to your Scythians, isn't the whole point of citing the existence of a warrior culture that it is not unreasonable for women to be competent fighters?  So the fact that there is very ambiguous evidence for rare cultures or individuals that may have fought doesn't really address the heart of your complaint.   No one denies women have always fought.   The foulest chauvinist would be willing to accept that.  If you aren't accepting, "Women have always fought and won.", then you aren't accepting anything of relevance.   Suppose for example we have this well meaning GM whose just finished Neil Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy or for whatever reason is suddenly and deeply enamored with the idea of a gritty semi-realistic adventure campaign set nominally in the real 17th century pre-Enlightenment Europe.   And he likes the Burning Wheel system or something similar as a resolution system for the swash buckling character driven game he envisions, and creates a custom character burner for the game where your characters starting abilities are based in part on life choices you make for the character.   He spends six months getting the game ready, and Jane Gamer hears about the game and wants to play.   "Great", says the DM, "It would be interesting to have someone that can bring a real women's perspective to the table."And so Jane comes to the first session where they are going to make characters and she says, "Hmmm... I notice that you have separate life paths for men and women."   "Well, yes."  "And I had really intended to play a female swashbuckler, but there is no way using the female lifepath to generate a character that is as skilled of a soldier as you could using the male life path.""Well, yes.  Women weren't normally expected to have a martial role in 17th century France.  Many of the lifepath branches even on the character burner represent fairly rare backgrounds suitable only for heroic characters like we are planning to play.  But there isn't really a realistic lifepath that gives a women as much starting martial skill as is possible for the most skilled man.  You can however start with a woman whose martial skill is above the ordinary man, and of course you can focus on those skills as you develop your character in play."Sexist?  Is Jane right to be outraged?  Things would be even worse if the DM had read "The Pillow Book" and was inspired to do realistic 11th century Japan.  Where I see this going is essentially saying it is wrong to have any setting which isn't egalitarian because it might make people uncomfortable.   And indeed, based on your laundry list, I suspect 'egalitarian' is a rather narrow term for the specifics of what you are going to eventually insist on.And there is an additional problem.  Again, quoting you:I find this incoherent.   When you deal with real people, inaccuracies are less tolerable?   So gender dimorphism must be written into every setting to deal with the real differences between men and women?   After all, women really are less strong than men.   That isn't an inaccuracy.   Even in our modern age when women have so much more opportunity than ever before, we ought to be horrified at the suggestion of women boxing men or facing them in the octagon.  And while it isn't probably that rare for there to be a women who could kick my butt, it is the extremely rare women with the physical skills to play even high skill level football.  It isn't sexism to acknowledge that, especially if you are going to insist on 'accuracy' when dealing with things that are 'real'.  Not all gender dimorphism is a result of enculturation.  I think rather you are going to insist that the game be inaccurate if that is what it takes to avoid reinforcing stereotypes.   We can take liberties with a fantasy setting and have men and women be equally skilled in martial arts, have equal upper body strength, and so forth and I'm ok with that.   But I'm uncomfortable with is a blanket assumption that any setting that doesn't take such liberties is sexist, and by implication of your essay that the guy who "make this mistake" is uncomfortable with female gamers and doesn't take rape seriously enough.</blockquote>

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