# Why isn't rape included in video games? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 28, 2003, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032 "2003-05-28T15:22:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/21 "2003-05-28T23:36:21Z")
May I ask-why would you WANT to rape someone in a video game? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/22 "2003-05-29T01:21:20Z")
> [@](#): > > What is wrong with me that I think that games that encourage vividly realistic and increasingly violent behavior, especially to “non-bad-guys”, is not a good thing? Grand Theft Auto is “vividly realistic?” People in flaming cars run over dozens of people and leap crazy distances off bridges in cars and survive- that’s realistic? Anyway, depicting something is not the same as encouraging it. Hate to say it, but if your nephew was doing this kind of thing, the video game wouldn’t be the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/23 "2003-05-29T01:27:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DreadCthulhu \* > \*\*Some even have women being raped by tentacled demons. 🙂 \*\* Creepiest smiley ever. (Just the smiley- not you, **DC**.) > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hey You! \* > \*\*But when I see him relishing in mauling pedestrians and police, it distrubs me deeply. \*\* He’s not, he’s just pressing buttons. And if he’s half as smart as you beleive he is, that’s all it will ever be. ---
**Author:** ![Rabid\_Squirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Rabid\_Squirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rabid_Squirrel)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/24 "2003-05-29T01:40:49Z")
From memory, Rockstar Games (the makers of GTA) was quoted that they specifically avoided putting rape, children or animals in GTA for moral reasons. Although in all honesty, the violence potrayed in GTA is more akin to Arnie’s action movies and hardly realistic. My 50yo mother played GTA3:VC; she had a great time! As for rape in games? Well, violence has been a lot longer in the mainstream audience than sexual assult and battery. Also, while violence can be unisex and is realitively socially acceptable, making a raping game limits your market audience and thus hits your bottom line (heartless, but true). ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/25 "2003-05-29T02:59:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by occ \* > \*\*The other thing is, how many games (other than gimmicky ones) have you have sex as an object? Other than the Leisure Suit Larry series, not many. Yeah, I’m sure people can come up with tons of minor examples, but for serious games where gameplay is the point, how many involve sex as a “goal”? \*\* Well, there are various Japanese games which apparently have actually good storylines, but sex is a primary goal. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/26 "2003-05-29T04:14:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hey you! \* > \*\*But when I see him relishing in mauling pedestrians and police, it distrubs me deeply. \*\* Why? They’re not real people, they’re just computer generated phantoms. Most likely, he can tell the difference between the game and real life. Most, if not all, humans have a “mean, vicious” component of their personality and psyche. Violent video games can provide a way to “let the cat out of the bag” in a way harmless to society (or the game player’s soul, if you’re in that school of thought), but that still acts as an effective emotional outlet. And, back to the OP…even if rape doesn’t show up as a “game option,” I’d really be surprised if it never shows up as an element of “backstory,” especially in more “mature” or “serious” games set in historical times. Like the Old West, or any of the more barbarian and/or warlord-infested periods of European or Asian history. ---
**Author:** ![spiro51](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@spiro51](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spiro51)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/27 "2003-05-29T06:10:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by neutron star \* > \*\*If the lady in the next cubicle never shuts her damn mouth and bugs the hell out of me, I may have fleeting thoughts of dipping her head in a bucket of acid, but I don’t have thoughts of degrading, humiliating, and abusing her and deriving sexual and/or violent pleasures from those acts. \*\* Neutron Star, that’s because you’re not Japanese. A hefty fraction of Japanese porn - and from that, I conclude, a similar fraction of the Japanese male sexuality - is about exactly that, and this is _definitely_ expressed in the video games. They just ain’t for Playstation. You will find a shelf or two of hardcore rape videos in every blockbuster-type store here, and without ever looking for such a place, I’ve run across two large “specialty computer game” shops in well-lit, crowded shopping areas that sell some really crazy stuff. You know there’s a whole subgenre (in anime porn and video games) called tentacle rape, right? ---
**Author:** ![spiro51](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@spiro51](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spiro51)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/28 "2003-05-29T06:13:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DreadCthulhu \* > \*\*As \*\* Scumpup \*\* mentioned, there are plenty of hentai games from Japan that feature very graphical rapes. Some even have women being raped by tentacled demons. 🙂 \*\* Damn, someone beat me to it. Open up for the tentacle, dread: :o (cue five minutes of feminine shrieks and whimpers with shouts of “stop it!” over and over and over) Whattacountry, huh? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/29 "2003-05-29T06:40:04Z")
I can name three games with Rape either explict, implied or mentioned: Explict: Sierra On-Line’s **Phantasmagoria**. The beginning of day 4 has a really nasty, if not showy, example of this. Implied: Square’s **Final Fantasy tactics** implies(according to some people) that one character was raped. Mentioned: Sierra’s **Gaberiel Knight 2** had a mention of a person being raped, even if the rape did happen some 250 years before the game started. ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/30 "2003-05-29T06:55:19Z")
Japan is certainly an intertesting country; I am in Yokohama for the summer visting my parents. I have seen some of the games being sold in shops, and rape is quite common place in these games. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032/31 "2003-05-29T06:57:24Z")
In America, we talk about the Puritans and sexual repression and things - and we’ve got some big-time hang-ups - but WOW, Japan has some weird stuff going on with regard to sex. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-rape-included-in-video-games/178032.md?page=1)