Liana Kerzner on the rift in gaming.

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She's been covering this for a while. Helped me unpack some things. This video in particular I think is sort of the culmination of her efforts to actually try to understand both sides.

Please hear her out. She's not me. She's closer to you guys. I think you might find what she has to say interesting particularly in this video where she gets into the moral foundations of various groups (referencing this paper: http://politicsofthemind.com/2012/12...)

Here's her video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgB4...

I'd really like to see GWJ have her on. She has more to say than Totalbiscuit does and I'd like to see her get more exposure. It could heal the rift. This is also why I give it its own thread rather than posting it in TB's. Liana needs to be heard.

EDIT: Its a 36 minute video and I'm not even done watching it yet and it occurs to me thats a bit irresponsible on my part. If she goes off the rails after the 26 minute mark, I apologize. I also had something in here about people "rolling their eyes" that would have come off as pointed. In the wake of my first discussion on this board, I've had two very nice people contact me and its convinced me that this community is worth me having some patience and holding my tongue. You've got ladies and gentlemen in your crowd. That pointed remark also would have been against the spirit of the video I posted. So there's that.

EDIT EDIT: It just occurred to me that this might sound a bit one sided so for context, she's a feminist trying to communicate with GamerGate, so she's focusing on appeals and language that speak to what she believes to be many GGer's core motivations. This is why she might seem to frame GG as "us" and feminists as "them" in some places. But she's not a GGer.

I won't have time to watch the video until probably later this weekend, but I'll be sure to check it out and share my thoughts afterward.

This isn't me trying to mini mod or anything, just giving an earnest suggestion: the idea that there's "me" and then "you guys" as far as who LianaK might be closer to is doing yourself a gigantic disservice. I'd take a moment and analyze that sort of dichotomy in your head, especially in light of the topic there.

Bloo Driver wrote:

This isn't me trying to mini mod or anything, just giving an earnest suggestion: the idea that there's "me" and then "you guys" as far as who LianaK might be closer to is doing yourself a gigantic disservice. I'd take a moment and analyze that sort of dichotomy in your head, especially in light of the topic there.

I dunno; that might feel pretty fair, considering the rough intro to Goodjerdom.

Nice to see the contribution, WnN. We're a tough crowd sometimes, but only in P&C.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I dunno; that might feel pretty fair, considering the rough intro to Goodjerdom.

Nice to see the contribution, WnN. We're a tough crowd sometimes, but only in P&C. ;)

Indeed. Indeed. For example, you could go to Steam and pick up...say...I don't know...Rocket League (10% off!) and play with all kinds of nice Goodjers.

Wait. What? This isn't a Rocket League thread?

mwdowns wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I dunno; that might feel pretty fair, considering the rough intro to Goodjerdom.

Nice to see the contribution, WnN. We're a tough crowd sometimes, but only in P&C. ;)

Indeed. Indeed. For example, you could go to Steam and pick up...say...I don't know...Rocket League (10% off!) and play with all kinds of nice Goodjers.

Wait. What? This isn't a Rocket League thread? ;)

They all are. They're all Rocket League threads.

She seems to ramble on in a chaotic way. That thing she said about conservatives staying out of people's lives is grade A BS. The party is for removing the choice in abortion and they want to prevent gay marriage. Then it is mainly conservatives that want creationism taught in schools and Christian imagery in government places.

Then to what I guess as her main point about being offended I think she is a off base. She was basically saying people don't have the right to complain when offended. She is literally doing the very thing she is complaining about. I think a better position is that you don't have the right to shut someone down because you were offended.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

She seems to ramble on in a chaotic way.

This is her personal channel basically for vlogging. She does her professional writing elsewhere. So yes its not the most structured but she's able to talk off the cuff for 36 minutes without anyone to bounce thoughts off of.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Then to what I guess as her main point about being offended I think she is a off base. She was basically saying people don't have the right to complain when offended. She is literally doing the very thing she is complaining about. I think a better position is that you don't have the right to shut someone down because you were offended.

1) Its far from the most interesting thing she discusses and 2) She makes a distinction between being offended and being hurt. She basically makes the point you made in your last sentence.

Whats more interesting is the threads she draws between different groups. And she gets into the most interesting stuff starting around the 18 minute mark.

I think whats more interesting and if I'm going to be honest its something I had to process myself.

The whole idea that us nerds were rejected by the cute girls in school (among others, but that sting tends to hurt worst). We turned to our geeky hobbies, gaming amongst them, to get away from that. And now some of the most visible people attacking us and calling our hobby morally wrong are attractive women.

So its like "I have hot digital women in my games as part of my coping strategy for when you rejected me and now you're attacking me for that." Which violates the "Liberty/Oppression" dynamic that gamers care deeply about. Games are freedom. They let us do anything we want. These women bashing our games look like bullies. Add to that what Liana K discusses about the "Loyalty/Betrayal" axis of the Moral Foundations study she's looking at. Gamers in GamerGate feel betrayed by gamer press and among gamers betrayal seems to matter more than most. We're also a crowd that cares about cheating way more than most and that is at the core of GG complaints as well.

You add all that together and I hope, I really hope you begin to understand where that anger was coming from. This was a clusterf*** of violations of the moral foundations many gamers care about (I think she was citing research on that)

So thats why the video interested me. I think Liana is onto something and she's been trying to understand this for a while.

Are there people out there calling gaming morally wrong? Who is doing that?

IMAGE(http://m1.paperblog.com/i/33/333439/the-social-network-aaron-sorkin-mark-zuckerbe-L-RkV0Bf.jpeg)

I don't think anyone is calling the hobby morally wrong. People are criticizing the content of some of the games in hopes of making them more inclusive. The same could be said of action movies. If people didn't like games in general, the message would be different.

I think it's very much that women are attracted to games for many of the same reasons men are, and those that play them do so despite the fact that many games aren't "for them." This is a problem across entertainment media, and to be fair, it does affect boys as well.

I have both boys and girls, and in looking for games, toys, and movies for them I've found two basic problems. First, how females are portrayed in most media really isn't that great. They are often effectively powerless even when they're presented as capable (female superhero still needs the male superhero to save her all the time). Also, they're generally half naked. Second, in the media where that is t the case, boys are often excluded. Take the Tinkerbell movies for example. They're really girl-positive, but there are no toys for the boy fairies, so my son doesn't feel like he can play with them even though he wants to. On the flip side, there generally aren't toys of girl characters in media presumably targeted at boys. Good luck finding a Selene or Hera toy for Star Wars Rebels.

A final point I'd like to make is that altering media to be more appealing to women doesn't mean making it less appealing to men. Take Trinity from The Matrix or Black Widow from Avengers. The fact that they're portrayed as legitimately capable didn't make those movies any less appealing to men.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

The whole idea that us nerds were rejected by the cute girls in school (among others, but that sting tends to hurt worst). We turned to our geeky hobbies, gaming amongst them, to get away from that. And now some of the most visible people attacking us and calling our hobby morally wrong are attractive women.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

So its like "I have hot digital women in my games as part of my coping strategy for when you rejected me and now you're attacking me for that."

I'm worried that the casual objectification of women here isn't being addressed. I'm worried that describing video games as a way to "get away from [girls]" operates under the assumption that video games are not a place for women. If I'm reading you right, you're saying that hot digital women need to be in games because you use them as a stand in for real life rejection. Without making judgment on that particular statement, remember that video games are not By Men For Men. From what I can see, the strongest complaints about the objectification of women in video games comes from video gamers themselves.

Essentially, claiming that non gamers are calling video games morally wrong isn't factually correct. Claiming that some video gamers are not being represented accurately or in a positive/fair light would be a better statement.

GamerGate is one of the most exclusionary groups on the Internet right now. Regardless of what they claim, their actions have shown a desire to limit both game developers and games themselves to cater solely to a straight, white, male audience, by attacking anyone making games that don't cater to that audience, attacking anyone who criticizes games catering to that audience, and providing a hostile online environment for people who aren't that audience.

I don't think anyone is calling the hobby morally wrong. People are criticizing the content of some of the games in hopes of making them more inclusive. The same could be said of action movies. If people didn't like games in general, the message would be different.

I think it's very much that women are attracted to games for many of the same reasons men are, and those that play them do so despite the fact that many games aren't "for them." This is a problem across entertainment media, and to be fair, it does affect boys as well.

I have both boys and girls, and in looking for games, toys, and movies for them I've found two basic problems. First, how females are portrayed in most media really isn't that great. They are often effectively powerless even when they're presented as capable (female superhero still needs the male superhero to save her all the time). Also, they're generally half naked. Second, in the media where that isn't the case, boys are often excluded. Take the Tinkerbell movies for example. They're really girl-positive and also have some great boy characters, but there are no toys for the boy fairies, so my son doesn't feel like he can play with them even though he wants to. On the flip side, there generally aren't toys of girl characters in media presumably targeted at boys. Good luck finding a Sabine or Hera toy for Star Wars Rebels or any female superhero toy at all.

A final point I'd like to make is that altering media to be more appealing to women doesn't mean making it less appealing to men. Take Trinity from The Matrix or Black Widow from Avengers. The fact that they're portrayed as legitimately capable didn't make those movies any less appealing to men.

[edit] (writing long posts on a phone sucks)

The "GG is about corruption in game reporting" is very much a false flag they can use to discredit people who criticize them for anything else. It makes critics seem like they're attacking GGers for no reason because "GG is actually about game reporting--who said anything about sexism?" Even though it's actually all about sexism.

I should have figured I'd get responses like these. I describe feelings and personal experiences and some of the rebuttals are treating this as though I were constructing moral, ethical and/or factual arguments.

So lets be clear. I KNOW that the perception I presented is a distorted one. I was trying to give you a peek at some raw base reactions.

Yep. And that's entirely fair. However, I think everyone would agree that emotions aren't rational. While the first reaction to FemFreq might be "they're saying my games are bad! This is all I have!" What typically follows (or should) is "okay, now that I'm done freaking out, what are they really saying?" Humans are rational animals. You can't use "this upset me" as a justifications for anything. It's the "why" that needs investigation. I think people understand why people are freaking out about GG. The problem is getting everyone to move past that towards a discussion of the real underlying issues.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

I should have figured I'd get responses like these. I describe feelings and personal experiences and some of the rebuttals are treating this as though I were constructing moral, ethical and/or factual arguments.

So lets be clear. I KNOW that the perception I presented is a distorted one. I was trying to give you a peek at some raw base reactions.

Do you have specific personal experiences? Because you didn't list any. Did I miss them somewhere?

So you feel persecuted (by others) though you know that your perception is distorted. So that's someplace we can start this discussion from. But it's not carte blanche to take things out on other people, particularly vulnerable ones. You have a right to your emotions. You don't have a right to hurt other people with your emotions. You don't have a right to badger other people to acknowledge your emotions.

As for the feelings of betrayal: I think that they've been entirely constructed for you. You've been told that you've been betrayed, but you haven't been. That's why when outsiders look at the issues you bring up, they dismiss you out of hand: because the supposed ethics violations never happened. Because when people who have some actual experience with things you think are betrayals take a closer look they realize that there are massive misunderstandings behind most of the claims. Because the places in gaming where there are actual ethical issues have been entirely covered up by this past year's brouhaha.

Now maybe you've got an example of an actual betrayal, or of something that you find personally upsetting. Or of an emotional perception that it hurting you. If you'd like to share it, I'm willing to listen. As long as you don't hurt others with it.

complexmath wrote:

I don't think anyone is calling the hobby morally wrong. People are criticizing the content of some of the games in hopes of making them more inclusive. The same could be said of action movies. If people didn't like games in general, the message would be different.

I think it's very much that women are attracted to games for many of the same reasons men are, and those that play them do so despite the fact that many games aren't "for them." This is a problem across entertainment media, and to be fair, it does affect boys as well.

Femfreq has said games contribute to a culture of rape apology. And her and others have strong issue with the violence in games. So yes they are attacking gaming as immoral.

But I agree with you about the part of your post where you say female gamers more or less like games as they are and would require few modification, nothing worthy of the fuss, to be completely happy. I actually had a paragraph like that in my post above but I'd cut it so as not to distract from other points. This matches up with what the female gamers in my life have to say about it. (yes, plavonica I too can talk to women and could back then so save your patronizing attitude for the next rube. For me personally, it was only a problem when it came to dating, and I was generalizing the experiences of other awkward male geeks.)

complexmath wrote:

The "GG is about corruption in game reporting" is very much a false flag they can use to discredit people who criticize them for anything else. It makes critics seem like they're attacking GGers for no reason because "GG is actually about game reporting--who said anything about sexism?" Even though it's actually all about sexism.

If you go to their boards, ethics in games journalism is mostly what they talk about amongst each other, and trying to shut down those they see as unethical journalists (men and women) constitutes the projects I've seen them discuss and try to organize. I don't agree with the tactics, such as targetting advertisers with letter writing campaigns to defund news outlets they dislike, but those tactics are used by progressives all the time ("But thats different because we're right WaN").

Its a hashtag movement, its impossible for GG to completely self regulate. You can only look at who specifically is doing what. I don't like any of it personally but I also don't like the response and the utter dismissal its gotten especially from mainstream media (what a shock, a movement attacks mainstream media and they respond with name calling. Well, the mainstream media murdered a princess once, and has casually destroyed the lives of innocent people in the past, I shouldn't be surprised).

complexmath wrote:

You can't use "this upset me" as a justifications for anything.

Why not? Other groups get to. And they've had a game pulled from stores, and content in other games changed because of it.

And no, FemFreq has nothing useful to add to the discussion. She made a point about there not being a lot of female characters. Everybody already knew that and it was in the process of correcting itself. She made a point about skimpy clothes. We already all knew that. She complained about the damsel trope which has been on its way out for a while. It was one of many simple storytelling devices we borrowed from traditional media that could be immediately understood that we needed before gaming technology got sophisticated enough that we could have good stories and expansive gameplay that fit on the same disc. Then she tried to coyly imply a link between games and rape. Which is completely baseless. She's a sophisticated troll.

I present Liana Kerstner as an alternative. She's smarter, shes an actual gamer and she is actually trying to communicate rather than shutting us down and blocking us while she preaches.

Can you explain exactly how games don't contribute to rape culture? You could do it in the rape culture thread if you'd like.

Seth wrote:
WideAndNerdy wrote:

The whole idea that us nerds were rejected by the cute girls in school (among others, but that sting tends to hurt worst). We turned to our geeky hobbies, gaming amongst them, to get away from that. And now some of the most visible people attacking us and calling our hobby morally wrong are attractive women.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

So its like "I have hot digital women in my games as part of my coping strategy for when you rejected me and now you're attacking me for that."

I'm worried that the casual objectification of women here isn't being addressed. I'm worried that describing video games as a way to "get away from [girls]" operates under the assumption that video games are not a place for women. If I'm reading you right, you're saying that hot digital women need to be in games because you use them as a stand in for real life rejection. Without making judgment on that particular statement, remember that video games are not By Men For Men. From what I can see, the strongest complaints about the objectification of women in video games comes from video gamers themselves.

Its plenty possible for games to be a place for women while being a place for me to get away from various people (loud people, rude people, vain people, people with arbitrary rules). There are lots of games being made after all. And in an increasing variety.

Video games are not a broadcast medium. The games themselves are not on flyers, posters and magazine covers. The content is experienced in the privacy of the consumers home and as its interactive, its consumed on the consumer's terms. You have to seek out an offensive game and work at it to experience the offensive content. Marketing is a different story, I'm for reforms there. But games are consumed privately. Freedom should be maintained in this case.

Seth wrote:

Can you explain exactly how games don't contribute to rape culture? You could do it in the rape culture thread if you'd like.

Its so absurdly simple you're going to scoff because you believe you've already refuted this point but here goes.

GAMES ARE FICTION. There's no amount of so called insidious programming that will counter the explicit message being broadcast loud and clear these days that rape is wrong. I've heard the words "toxic masculinity" enough for all of our lifetimes combined.

And there's no way I'm going near the rape culture thread. Even I have too much of a life to want to give it up arguing there for however many years.

But by all means if you guys want to cross post there and start beating up on my posts there without telling me as you've already done once, I certainly cannot stop you.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

Femfreq has said games contribute to a culture of rape apology. And her and others have strong issue with the violence in games. So yes they are attacking gaming as immoral.

Ah, the first issue: When Feminist Frequency says the aspects of games that she is critiquing contribute to a culture of rape apology (also referred to as "rape culture") that is not the same thing as saying that all of gaming is immoral. Or even that most games are. Or even that the entirety of a game that happens to reinforce a rape culture trope is entirely immoral. Super Mario Brothers can simultaneously be a good game and a game that has a problematic damsel in distress trope.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

...and I was generalizing the experiences of other awkward male geeks.)

I'd like to make a personal request to avoid generalizing like this in this thread. It muddies the issue when specific experiences are better anecdotes. If anecdotes may not be data, but generalization doesn't even rise to that level. You are not anywhere close to being the only awkward male geek on this forum. (Let alone the experiences of the non-awkward geeks, the non-male awkward geeks, and the awkward people who aren't geeks at all.) Please don't try to speak for me when you speak to me.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

If you go to their boards, ethics in games journalism is mostly what they talk about amongst each other,

Uh, no. Not even close. I've been to their boards, I've read what they have to say. I have followed GamerGate from the very beginning. I have a transcript on my computer from the chat a year ago where are bunch of people intentionally organized the movement to harass women: I got it from GamerGate people who were spreading it around under the mistaken belief that it exonerated them. I've got a copy of the some of the other operating documents too, none of which show a competent interest in the ethics of journalism.

And I'll thank you not to call me progressive, because I doubt I fit what you think of when you use that label.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

Well, the mainstream media murdered a princess once, and has casually destroyed the lives of innocent people in the past, I shouldn't be surprised).

This is called tu quoque, the fallacy of the appeal to hypocrisy. No one here really cares about the mainstream media one way or the other. The narrative of GamerGate being misunderstood is appealing to you, but it really doesn't hold much water for someone like me who has been looking at it up close for way too long.

WideAndNerdy wrote:
complexmath wrote:

You can't use "this upset me" as a justifications for anything.

Why not? Other groups get to. And they've had a game pulled from stores, and content in other games changed because of it.

There's a difference between "this upset me a bit" and "this is actively harmful to me". And you'll want to back up that claim about games getting pulled with some evidence, because I can't recall any actual examples related to the current subject.

And all the content changes I'm aware of were entirely voluntary and welcomed by the devs.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

Femfreq has said games contribute to a culture of rape apology. And her and others have strong issue with the violence in games. So yes they are attacking gaming as immoral.

And that's the basic GG inaccuracy writ large. At most, they are attacking some games as immoral. That's not the same as painting gaming as a hobby as immoral.

More accurately, some critics are painting aspects of some games as problematic. Note the difference in breadth between those two statements: "aspects of some games are problematic" vs "gaming is immoral". When folks say the former and people get upset about the latter, it's really not surprising to see the chasm between the two sides.

(No interpretation justifies the sh*tstorm that a number of primarily female devs have been put through.)

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
WideAndNerdy wrote:

Femfreq has said games contribute to a culture of rape apology. And her and others have strong issue with the violence in games. So yes they are attacking gaming as immoral.

And that's the basic GG inaccuracy writ large. At most, they are attacking some games as immoral. That's not the same as painting gaming as a hobby as immoral.

More accurately, some critics are painting aspects of some games as problematic. Note the difference in breadth between those two statements: "aspects of some games are problematic" vs "gaming is immoral". When folks say the former and people get upset about the latter, it's really not surprising to see the chasm between the two sides.

(No interpretation justifies the sh*tstorm that a number of primarily female devs have been put through.)

A very large portion of the most popular video games out there are violent to varying degrees (even games like Super Mario) so its a pretty widespread attack.

EDIT: Sorry, I glossed over the sh*tstorm part. I want to make it very clear that I completely agree with you on that. Gamergate as a whole, both the trolls and what I think of as the more legitimate wing, which you'll find on r/KotakuInaction, are grossly overreacting.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

GAMES ARE FICTION. There's no amount of so called insidious programming that will counter the explicit message being broadcast loud and clear these days that rape is wrong. I've heard the words "toxic masculinity" enough for all of our lifetimes combined.

While it would be nice if it was true, unfortunately I don't think that everyone believes "that rape is wrong". There's too many rapes that still happen, for starters, and it's too easy to get people to admit they committed rape as long as you don't use the r-word.

You seem to feel somewhat persecuted in this thread. Is there something that is bothering you in particular?

WideAndNerdy wrote:

Femfreq has said games contribute to a culture of rape apology. And her and others have strong issue with the violence in games. So yes they are attacking gaming as immoral.

I disagree. While there are some books that contribute to a culture of rape apology, some of which I'm sure have been criticized as such, I've never heard of anyone that thinks literature as a whole is being attacked as immoral. The cirticism is very much about specific elements in some games, and some of the problem isn't that the elements are there at all but rather how pervasive they are. Take saving the princess, for example. In an of itself, that's a fine goal to have. The problem is how often it crops up. What makes it worth examining is that saving the princess is a goal in zillions of games, and by virtue of how pervasive it is, the aggregate message is that princesses (or women) are helpless, and exist to be saved by a male hero. The games are still fun, but the underlying message, which some might not be aware of, has negative elements.

WideAndNerdy wrote:
complexmath wrote:

You can't use "this upset me" as a justifications for anything.

Why not? Other groups get to. And they've had a game pulled from stores, and content in other games changed because of it.

They don't. That may be the start of it, but the decision about what to do is very much about the "why." And to be fair, this is a boundary that's continually being refined. Take all the recent talk about microaggressions, for example. Ultimately, a huge problem with all of this is that the underlying issues are extremely complex, and people in general like to paint things black and white, particularly when it's something they feel strongly about.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

I present Liana Kerstner as an alternative. She's smarter, shes an actual gamer and she is actually trying to communicate rather than shutting us down and blocking us while she preaches.

I still have to watch the video, so I can't comment on it specifically yet. What it sounds like Liana is trying to do is to find common ground with GGers in an attempt to move past the visceral response towards an open discussion. And I think that's a good thing. However, I think you undermine your point by comparing Liana to, presumably, Anita. Anita is a gamer as well, and she's certainly quite smart, but ultimately neither of those things matter. What's important is whether what either of them is saying is actually accurate. And I think Anita does make good points, even if she might have miscast some of the games she used as examples.

WideAndNerdy wrote:

A very large portion of the most popular video games out there are violent to varying degrees (even games like Super Mario) so its a pretty widespread attack.

Who said violence was a problem?

Gremlin wrote:
WideAndNerdy wrote:

GAMES ARE FICTION. There's no amount of so called insidious programming that will counter the explicit message being broadcast loud and clear these days that rape is wrong. I've heard the words "toxic masculinity" enough for all of our lifetimes combined.

While it would be nice if it was true, unfortunately I don't think that everyone believes "that rape is wrong". There's too many rapes that still happen, for starters, and it's too easy to get people to admit they committed rape as long as you don't use the r-word.

It also seems that part of the divide here is whether fiction exists in a vaccuum outside of a culture or society, or if it is part of the culture and society that spawned it with all of the relevant issues.

Gremlin wrote:
WideAndNerdy wrote:

GAMES ARE FICTION. There's no amount of so called insidious programming that will counter the explicit message being broadcast loud and clear these days that rape is wrong. I've heard the words "toxic masculinity" enough for all of our lifetimes combined.

While it would be nice if it was true, unfortunately I don't think that everyone believes "that rape is wrong". There's too many rapes that still happen, for starters, and it's too easy to get people to admit they committed rape as long as you don't use the r-word.

Yeah about that. Is this anything like how if a man and woman have sex, both drunk, that counts as the man raping the woman like on that one survey? Or how a man invoking pity guilts a woman into having sex with him and that counts as rape even though she could have said no? I have a big problem with the growing definition of the word. Its not good behavior but I don't want anything like this lumped in with the horrible trauma of actual rape.

Prederick wrote:
Gremlin wrote:
WideAndNerdy wrote:

GAMES ARE FICTION. There's no amount of so called insidious programming that will counter the explicit message being broadcast loud and clear these days that rape is wrong. I've heard the words "toxic masculinity" enough for all of our lifetimes combined.

While it would be nice if it was true, unfortunately I don't think that everyone believes "that rape is wrong". There's too many rapes that still happen, for starters, and it's too easy to get people to admit they committed rape as long as you don't use the r-word.

It also seems that part of the divide here is whether fiction exists in a vaccuum outside of a culture or society, or if it is part of the culture and society that spawned it with all of the relevant issues.

Also true, and probably worth a whole discussion in itself. It's one reason why people are invested in these discussions and defensive about what they chose for entertainment. It's a part of their culture. Having to critically examine that, and potentially reject some of it is traumatic cognitive dissonance because it requires them to examine part of their identity. Especially because it's cultural, and hence unconscious until examined.

That's part of what "toxic masculinity" means, by the way. It doesn't mean that males are toxic, it means that a particular framework that has been established to perform masculinity is harmful, particularly to the men who are trapped in it. You can have a non-toxic masculinity.

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