Quote from: Alathon;558732No, I'm saying that much of the conversation around attire and rape is disingenuous, and it's mostly dumb to talk about because it's 99% irrelevant to the topic of rape.  There are bigger fish to fry.

Anyone who claims that a woman dressing like a slut was "asking for it" is full of shit, doesn't know what "asking for it" means or more likely is deliberately trolling.

It is correct to claim that dressing sexily has a measurable impact on mens expectations of what women want.  In this context, it's really not worth discussing though because it always gets re-interpreted into "you're saying she deserved it!  slut shaming! slut shaming!".  And it's such a small part of the equation compared to big things like the impact of alcohol use, it's better to just leave attire the hell alone.

Glad I don't have to IL you. Enough said.

Well, this thread has become a real sewer, not that it was ever particularly great. I guess that's my cue to become re-involved.

Let me see if I grasp this properly:

Mongoose publishes the d20 Macho Women with Guns, written by James Desborugh. Someone realized this book exists, after, what, five years? and gets somewhat het up about it, then discovers that Desborough is... a guy.

Shitstorm ensues, ensnaring Mongoose and, of course Desborough, who hits back below the belt, and the RPGsite buys a banner ad.

Discussion on theRPGsite actually devolves AFTER the banner ad diversion into a shit storm full of She Was Asking For It and You're A Pro-Rape accusations.

Of course, no one mentioned MWwG's prior to this, so I could be off track (but it IS a Mongoose product with James Desborough credited as the writer...).

But that leaves me wondering why no one has complained about Blacksburg Tactical Research and Greg Porter?

So here I am in my very best waders (they're Prada), fishing for crap.

Spike has the right of it. This thread has wandered off the reservation into tangency talk.

Quote from: Spike;558764Of course, no one mentioned MWwG's prior to this, so I could be off track (but it IS a Mongoose product with James Desborough credited as the writer...).

But that leaves me wondering why no one has complained about Blacksburg Tactical Research and Greg Porter?

Really, that's probably because most people aren't familiar with the original Macho Women With Guns.  However, I own it and have run it several times and had a blast.  It is not problematic, in my opinion, and is in fact truly satirical.  It was cool playing macho powerful women characters who shoot large holes in sexist jerks.  

http://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/tag/macho%20women%20with%20guns

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/machowomenwithguns/

I don't own the d20 version and so can't speak definitively.  However, it seemed to me from browsing that the d20 version lost the satirical spirit of the original that actually poked fun at sexism in geek media.  On the basis of the change of tone, I decided not to buy it.

I remember owning the original (or, by wiki details, the original three book collection), but found no need/desire for the d20 version myself.

Being a BTRC fan (I own CORPS, and used to own Timelords... and some sort of Cyberpunk themed game from them too), I just found it curious that the hate stopped with Mongoose/Desborough.

Honestly, being an inoffensive satire is NOT a defense against these sorts of attacks... as evidenced by the original Dickwolf outrage (you know: Poking fun at quests that have you rescuing five dudes out of dozens in horrible monster-slavery... in order to point out how fucked up that really is).

Quote from: Spike;558764Let me see if I grasp this properly:

Mongoose publishes the d20 Macho Women with Guns, written by James Desborugh. Someone realized this book exists, after, what, five years? and gets somewhat het up about it, then discovers that Desborough is... a guy.

Shitstorm ensues, ensnaring Mongoose and, of course Desborough, who hits back below the belt, and the RPGsite buys a banner ad.

No.

My interest in starting this thread was the agenda driven false accusations by MalaDicta from tBP which led to an unwarranted smear campaign against a freelance writer and Mongoose Publishing.

This is pretty important to both the hobby and the industry of tabletop RPGs.

Quote from: One Horse Town;558767Spike has the right of it.

Not by a long shot.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;558780derp....derp....derp...

Honey, the Git needs to be burped again!

I don't know anything about Greg Porter, and truthfully I don't care. If he was as much of a shithead as Grim, I'd dislike him just as much. But I've never heard of him, say, statting up a rape monster, or casually dismissing people being threatened with assault.

I've got his space game, Slag!. Looks like a lot of fun.

Quote from: jeff37923;558853No.

My interest in starting this thread was the agenda driven false accusations by MalaDicta from tBP which led to an unwarranted smear campaign against a freelance writer and Mongoose Publishing.

This is pretty important to both the hobby and the industry of tabletop RPGs.


Not by a long shot.

But what, pray tell, drove MalaDicta to select the Mongoose/Desborough matchup for her smear campaign?

Because, yes, even attention farmers need something to point to in order to whip up Our Ladies of Perpetual Outrage.  We haven't (quite) gotten to the point where they can just point to empty space and draw names out of hats. yet.

Quote from: Spike;558857But what, pray tell, drove MalaDicta to select the Mongoose/Desborough matchup for her smear campaign?

Because, yes, even attention farmers need something to point to in order to whip up Our Ladies of Perpetual Outrage.  We haven't (quite) gotten to the point where they can just point to empty space and draw names out of hats. yet.

The Goons at Something Awful dug up a recent post by Grim about the Tomb Raider trailer in which he suggested that "rape is an awesome plot device."

They trolled RPGnet with it, MalaDicta saw it and flipped out, and dug up that he'd done one of his sexist "guides to female gamers" again for Mongoose, and combined that with some serious misquotings and outlandish claims of being the world's most repeated rape victim not from the Congo, as justification to start the aforementioned petition campaign.

Quote from: Spike;558857But what, pray tell, drove MalaDicta to select the Mongoose/Desborough matchup for her smear campaign?

Because, yes, even attention farmers need something to point to in order to whip up Our Ladies of Perpetual Outrage.  We haven't (quite) gotten to the point where they can just point to empty space and draw names out of hats. yet.

From what I gather, it was Grim's blog discussion of using rape as a literary tool to drive plot that made MalaDicta declare war. Matthew Sprange was the only industry leader who bothered to answer MalaDicta's accusations, since she also targetted WotC and SJG in her initial salvo.

Quote from: J Arcane;558858The Goons at Something Awful dug up a recent post by Grim about the Tomb Raider trailer in which he suggested that "rape is an awesome plot device."

They trolled RPGnet with it, MalaDicta saw it and flipped out, and dug up that he'd done one of his sexist "guides to female gamers" again for Mongoose, and combined that with some serious misquotings and outlandish claims of being the world's most repeated rape victim not from the Congo, as justification to start the aforementioned petition campaign.

Yep, yep. Let's not forget the goons' role in all this.

Quote from: J Arcane;558858The Goons at Something Awful dug up a recent post by Grim about the Tomb Raider trailer in which he suggested that "rape is an awesome plot device."

They trolled RPGnet with it, MalaDicta saw it and flipped out, and dug up that he'd done one of his sexist "guides to female gamers" again for Mongoose, and combined that with some serious misquotings and outlandish claims of being the world's most repeated rape victim not from the Congo, as justification to start the aforementioned petition campaign.

J Arcane fills in the gaps in my knowledge.

Quote from: Reckall;558544...prevention is responsibility both of the individual and of the society at large. This has nothing to do with the fact that the act you try to prevent is criminal, and must be fully prosecuted by the law. It doesn't justify it, it doesn't ask for lenience for the perpetrator. Actually the responsibilities of the perpetrator under the law wasn't even the point of the paper (except where the text underlined how irresponsibility by the victim must not be used as an excuse to lower the seriousness of the crime).

Still (and I personally apply the principle to any type of crime) no one can avoid the unexpected, but you still can (and should) avoid dangerous behaviours - the way everybody does in any other aspect of his life.

Good post.  Japan has laws on the book to promote public responsibility.  If a store gets' burglarized and it is determined that the owner didn't take proper precautions to avoid being an easy target they can be fined for 'promoting crime', so this isn't a completely alien concept to the 1st world, just most of the western hemisphere and especially the Anglophone world.  

Civic virtue is pretty much dead in most of the 1st world because we no longer believe that a lawful and peaceful society is the responsibility of individual citizens and have devolved that responsibility back to state institutions.  Our model of 'freedom' is the freedom from the consequences of our actions.

I don't think Japan is a society that could be accused of being particular light on the perpatrator either, despite the pervasive culture of 'victim blaming'.  

That being said research (real research, from real scientists) shows that not just rape, but violence in general is more likely to be perpetrated against a 'timid' target which doesn't necessarily correlate with provacative dress.

As for the whole 'Rape is about Power' meme, I really have never seen this conclusively proven by actual scientists that weren't primarily Marxist-inspired feminists.  The 'Rape is about Power' meme assumes that 'rape is a tool of the patriarchy, and therefore is about controlling women', which has lots of problems when used as the mens rea for individual rapists.  It is an excercise in shifting blame  

Assuming you are talking about dark alleyway stranger rape, the profile for these men isn't one of men that are powerless or that have either power issues, or problems getting sex at all.  They are more sexually successful with consenting partners than average, which probably displays an effort to get sex above above and beyond the average, and an overall fixation on acquiring partners.  

I'd say rape for these men is about sex, and if you wanted to shift the motive somewhere else it would be variety, and 'conquest'.  In all likelihood these men are caveman throwbacks that are much more strongly influenced by their lizardbrain than most people.  Their base desires are more important to them than the facets of personality that are necessary to living in a 'modern' (the last 10,000 years) civilization and go to the wayside in favor of pursuing caveman delights.  They try hard to slake their lusts with lots of willing women, but the desire to experience the 'thrill of the hunt' must be satisfied in other ways.  To me, that doesn't speak to "power" and "control" in the way that it gets used in feminist circles where rapists are using rape as a tool of social control or have psychological issues where they want to manipulate people, in this case physically.  

Also I hate to point it out but you can't get outraged at people saying "Don't act/dress slutty" (even though they are wrong about the proximate cause of rape) and then say "Don't wander drunk down a dark alley" because both are 'victim blaming'.  Both are saying that the rape is caused by the imprudent actions of the victim versus the choices of the perpetrator.  You are basically drawing an arbitrary line for what actions are acceptable before she has been determined to 'ask for it'.  

Saying that it's okay for her to dress however she wants, so long as she doesn't flaunt at the wrong location, or behave a certain way in a public isn't really saying much at all.  It's a total cop out.

Although I disagree that this 'victim blaming' correlates with excusing the perpetrator at all.  In fact the 'victim blaming' thing seems to correlate rather strongly with an overall 'tough on crime' stance, including harsher punishments for the rapist.