At The Intersection of Ethics, Video Games and Pornography
Review: Ethical Issues in Electronic Pornography: The Case of Rape Lay by Ruizhe Wang
The ethics of games studios are murky, at best. Where video games and pornography meet, the water is even more muddied.
Trigger Warning: This post may contain descriptions or depictions of any or all of the following: self-harm, domestic violence, alcohol use, drug use, sexual abuse, addiction, pornography, or racism.
Online access to a wide variety of computer and console games seems endless. In another, darker, corner, there are “adult” games.
Adult games may or may not include an innocent plot but nearly always feature adult themes and imagery. Some of these games have been labeled pornographic due to the nature of explicit sexual imagery or behaviors in the game.
Video Games and Pornography: Analyzed by Ruizhe Wang
In this paper, Ruizhe Wang addresses some concerns that are prevalent in the Japanese game RapeLay.
The player controlled character in the game is a commuter on a subway. Goals include sexually harassing female passengers (often high school girls) and impregnating these non-player characters (NPCs) (Wang, 2022, p.773).
The game also delves into side stories such as harassing the female individual’s mother and sister (Wang, 2022, p. 773).
Wang has brought up a myriad of issues:
- A lack of respect for the female NPCs
- No recognition of consent
- Game setting of a public subway platform:
- Indicative of severe illegal sexual offending behavior in real life setting
- The simulated victims are high school aged minors
This game and potentially others, could be simulations of illegal content.
What about Grand Theft Auto?
An argument could be made about the illegality of popular video games such as Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto franchise. However, they are not having the characters commit illegal crimes on minors.
The themes do revolve around gun violence, theft, and drug use. The closest behaviors to the themes in Rape Lay, would be the character being able to engage in prostitution.
Sexual behaviors or transactions of prostitution are insinuated but sexual behaviors are not visually acted out in the game.
Life Imitating Art
Another concern about the easy availability of adult video games is the real-life consequences of potential players.
Wang brings up a news report in which a Japanese man was caught photographing a female passenger under her skirt (Wang, 2022, p. 773).
Wang continues to reveal the behavior this man acted on was similar to actions in the game, RapeLay (Wang, 2022, p. 773). This is an example of how games may inspire some people, children or adults, to act out in-game behaviors in public. In real life, this could result in victims of sexual offending behaviors.
Suggested Solutions for Video Games and Pornography
The concerns of Wang should be validated and more education needs to be provided for parents and their children in the gaming space.
Parents should continue to have some measures to prevent their children from accessing pornographic video games. Viewing anything related to adult video games should be an opt-in system with an age verification mechanism. The subtle influences that these games could inject into the minds of children should be considered and the video game manufacturers should be more cautious regarding the themes the games have.
Finally, game distributors and development studios should undergo psychosexual education. Doing so would help them to create games with accurate and appropriate themes in place.
Sure, pornographic video games should be accessible for adults only. However, the theme of sexual consent between simulated individuals should be paramount. They should have characters that do not consent to sexual experiences and have appropriate responses for the protagonist character to the rejection.
Reference
Wang, R. (2022) Ethical Issues in Electronic Pornography: The Case of Rape Lay. Proceedings of the 2022 8th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (ICHSSR 2022)
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