Comments on: Video game allows players to shoot gays

By: The truth

The truth — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:02:28 +0000

Wow, 7 years and it hasn't spurred one copycat real-world slaying? I would say it is harmless and good clean fun. Unlike that pesky bible or koran thing that inspires much more murder and hate.

Though if Frenchie French McFrench Fry guy puts out a sequel, he should call it Queers of War.

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By: Eddy

Eddy — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:38:30 +0000

oops. I meant, #14 was well put!

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By: Eddy

Eddy — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:24:20 +0000

re. #15. Well put!

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By: umwhatever

umwhatever — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:36:04 +0000

Um, Daniel, women are raped, murdered and everything in between in all elements of popular culture for our entertainment. Ever heard of the game rapelay? Or what about the option to rape AND murder a prostitute in grand theft auto. Wrong example. What we do need to explore is the impact of media on culture. It reflects and is shaped by culture at large but also does a fair bit of shaping itself, certainly in terms of values and attitudes but also behaviours. One need only consider the advertising industry to see that. Within the gay community, however, we can't have it all ways. There has to be an acknowledgement of the impact of pornagraphy on the attitudes of those who consume it and the direct and indirect harm it can cause, particularly to women.

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By: Daniel Wilkes

Daniel Wilkes — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:09:15 +0000

Oops… a "female girl"? Forgive me!

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By: Daniel Wilkes

Daniel Wilkes — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:07:04 +0000

I can see how the author might have intended it to be a satirical comment about the nature of the rednecks who think that all gay men want to rape them.

Having said that, it's not been interpreted in that way by most of the people who've seen it. It's interpreted as suggesting that gay men do indeed like to rape straight men and have to be shot dead before they'll stop doing it.

Whilst I don't believe that a sane person will ever be convinced to go out and shoot a gay person by a video game like this, I do believe that such things reinforce stereotypes and add to the body of societal homophobia which helps to legitimise it, and helps to indoctrinate children to believe that being gay is something they can poke fun at and abuse somebody for.

As that goes completely against the author's stated aims, I think he should remove the game from the internet himself. If the author's aim had been to attack gay people, then would I ask the question- would we allow a game where it was a young virtuous female white girl from the South of the USA fending off the advances of corrupting black men with a shotgun?

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By: Anon

Anon — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:48:42 +0000

Has this product been endorsed by the BNP yet?

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By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:23:18 +0000

"who constantly cite Bible to ‘justify' their homophobia and hatred.Is their Bible teaching them to kill human being?
Comment by Vo Dong Cung – sadly yes! That's why Ratzinger claims we are a worse threat to the planet than global warming and some mad bishop in England said we caused floods!!!!!!

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By: John K

John K — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:07:50 +0000

Incitement to murder . . . nothing less

Is about time Heterosxuals started to come to terms with their own sexuality, and refrain from projecting thier fears and anxieties on to gay men. . . and then trying to act them out.

Disturbing – Warped – Perverse

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By: Eddy

Eddy — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:42:15 +0000

Bentham, great to hear you agree on the addictiveness of porn. I was interested recently to note that an anonymous internet survey on a gay website asked visitors to indicate how often they accessed porn on the internet and then whether they thought they were addicted or not. After you answered both questions you could then access the results so far. It was fascinating to see that a whopping 87% stated they accessed porn on the web at least once a week but that only 5% stated that they believed they were addicted. Of course the other 82% are addicted as well, but nobody likes to accept the fact they are addicted. This is partly due to the pornography industry itself which, as you say, is massive, because part of its game is insist that accessing pornography is healthy!

No bloody way. Accessing pornography is addictive, it is conditioning, it is habituating, it implants schema and expectations that dehumanise and ruin people's chances of healthy well-rounded relationships. Sex is such a small part of a healthy well-rounded relationship. Gay men who define themselves by the sex they have are missing so much of life and living.

I once attended a Gay Humanist meeting in Conway Square, London. The speaker for the night was the chap who started Prowler. There he was prattling away about the wholesome pornography he was producing and at the end I witnessed what seemed like universal applause! I dared to venture that the pornography he was producing, no matter how "wholesome" he might describe it, was conditioning and unhealthy. People jumped down my throat. The chairperson, however, did not, but try as he did to get someone else in the room to follow my line of argument, he couldn't. It seemed to me there was an unthinking bandwagon passing through the room.

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By: Eagle Ashcroft

Eagle Ashcroft — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:34:14 +0000

Why not have a game where a gay hunter shoots a heterosexual naked man before he catches you and tries to "turn you into a straight man?" Or what about a naked Christian man that tries to convert you to his religion? Or better still a naked atheist that tries to catch you and making you an unbeliever? The guy that invented this idiotic game should rename it the "gay basher game" or the "Big Bigot Game."

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By: Bentham

Bentham — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:38:46 +0000

Boy, it's good to hear someone say that pornography is addictive. I've been thinking it for a long, long time, and every time I say something about it, I get some really weird looks as if I want to tell people what to do with their freedoms.

Pornography is first of all a multi-billion dollar industry, we have no idea how the models or the porn stars are permanently damaged, but it is a fact that porn can be highly addictive and deceptive. Deceptive because human beings have personalities, and sexual relationships are much more complex than the way they are portrayed in triple X porn.

Anyway, thanks Eddy; I agree with you on this one.

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By: Leandro

Leandro — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:36:44 +0000

Its ridiculous. So, now Japan will bann CoD because you kill japaneses (and germans, and italians), and the aliens will bann 90% of the shooters cause we kill aliens. =P
Its JUST a game, let it be just it. Tryng to bann any game just makes people think "is that thing good enough to deserve so much atention?". So, they will go after that thing.
Aaaannnddd this game its a crap. Please, gays, do something better than try to attract attention to this kind of crap. =P

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By: Eddy

Eddy — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:17:16 +0000

Kelsey, I'm obviously not talking about one short exposure to such a game or one short exposure to pornography. Conditioning occurs after repeated exposures. The more exposures the stronger the conditioning. Think psychology. Think pigeons and rats in the lab. Conditioning is a fact. Teachers use it daily. So do institutions.

I suspect you may be addicted to pornography.

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By: Commander Thor

Commander Thor — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:55:18 +0000

Disgusted American, precisely my thoughts.

Vo Dong Cung, yes. Google for The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, and please keep out of reach of children.

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By: Vo Dong Cung

Vo Dong Cung — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:52:33 +0000

"who constantly cite Bible to ‘justify' their homophobia and hatred.

Is their Bible teaching them to kill human being?

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By: Kelsey

Kelsey — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:35:31 +0000

Eddy, I can understand your assumption about the 'conditioning' of the player; it's one that is easy to make. Would you play this game and then think it logical that naked men want to rape you? Would you assume that all porn reflects reality? I suspect, and hope, not. Then don't assume that there is some hideous, ignorant morass of brainless morons who cannot distinguish fiction from reality. Censoring this kind of material, stupid though it may be, harms us more than it helps.

The game is infantile, anadyne, annoying, and, frankly, crap. Leave it alone, and, in a week, everyone will have forgotten about it.

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By: Eddy

Eddy — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:26:58 +0000

The unfortunate thing is that this game conditions its players. It's role play. When you play it you actually practise the shooting of queers in the assumption that unless you do so they will rape you.

There will be people reading this story who will think it harmless. They are also likely to think that the rubbish that comes out of Hollywood does not condition people either. They will also consider that pornography does not programme people to have ridiculous and dangerous expectations of sex.

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By: Disgusted American

Disgusted American — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:26:36 +0000

hmmm and how would people feel if they change it from shooting gays to Blacks, or Jews????

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