Quick Rant: It Won’t Be Over Soon:Or, Rape Still Isn’t Funny

So by now most of us have heard about the demo of Killer Instinct for the XBox One yesterday, but if you haven’t let me give it a quick run down. MS brought out a man and a woman to demo the game yesterday and the woman admitted that she couldn’t beat her adversary to which he responded, “Just let it happen. It will be over soon.”….

Yep, you read that right…rape language. Almost the exact same phrasing that we get in Tomb Raider (and don’t get me started on Penny Arcade and dickwolves) if you get the fail state in the initial cave in the introduction…but the demo guy kept it going with the rape justification (egged on by the laughter of the audience) “Wow, you like this”. And our insulted and assaulted woman was left with only one response. The response of the victim, “No, I don’t like this.”

This brings a number of questions to mind for me…the biggest one being (of course), WTF? The internet is up at arms. People want to know if rape jokes can ever be funny, if women/feminists are too sensitive, if this is yet more proof that women have no place in the video game community.

But the larger question is why won’t people see this latest episode for what it is? A symptom of a disease that is running rampant through the gaming community and will eventually (in my mind) kill said community if we find a way to address sexism and misogyny in the community.

Just a rant. Discuss?

[Edited to add video with audio of the exchange]

http://youtu.be/P75YQHFnyKY

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