this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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What was the original game actually shown to her that led to that video clip? Who chose the game, etc?
Meming this is totally justified though. You could easily say that about any and all entertainment media formats without even looking very hard for examples. Its just without knowing the original context I can't help but feel the woman got the short end of the stick with whatever show that was from.
GTAV, a scene at the Vanilla Unicorn strip club specifically
It's... A really fucking stupid thing to bitch about specifically in that game, honestly. Of course a strip club objectifies women, and of course a game about criminality and the seedy underworld will have one
John Wick is a movie about criminality and the seedy underworld, and there's no scene where John Wick gets a lap dance. There are women who appear to be sex workers, and John Wick murders their bosses. The audience isn't invited to participate in the objectification, the audience is invited to hate the antagonist for objectifying women and wish for justice.
There's nothing wrong with a game about robbing banks, because most people don't rob banks, and a video game isn't going to give them ideas. But a video game where you pretend to be a misogynist can teach dangerous habits, because that behaviour is easy to bring out of the game.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the people sending death threats to Anita Sarkeesian for saying games should objectify women less, are the people who went on to storm the capital to try and install a fascist dictator.
Hang on, so sex work is work and we shouldn't shame sex workers, but those who pay the sex workers for their services are gross misogynists? Gotta pick one.
That's missing a key past of the argument, objectification. Do the game devs add women exclusively as eye candy or as interesting, complex characters? I haven't played GTA5 so I legit don't know.
Maybe her comment here was silly and misplaced, but I think the gaming community really has (had?) excessive misogyny. And it does tend to cater to men more than women. Look at any recent major AAA games, the top 50 best selling video games, top rated games of all time, etc. The overwhelming majority ether have a male protagonist or customizable character. Only a handful specifically have a female protagonist.
Most gamers aren't gross misogynists, but there are plenty of ways game devs could better represent women as equals.
I do not agree that paying a woman for a lap dance is objectification if sex work is real work and should be respected. If sex work is bad and shouldn't be respected then sure, that'd be a bad thing to pay for, but it can't be both.
Wrong person, that was someone else that said that
Right, then I responded to them, then you responded to me responding to them, and now we're here. You said it's missing part of the argument but it is the argument you jumped into, so "nuh uh" is what I'm saying.
OK but your "nuh uh" didn't address anything I added to the conversation.
Sex work good
Treating all women as just sex objects bad
In the video game, are all women just eye candy/sex appeal/sex workers?
Or do the game devs know that women have more to offer than sex and show that?
You're reducing the argument to one action, lap dances. But the argument is about the overall attitude towards women.
Wait you think the only women in the entire game are in this one strip club?
No, I pick both.
No you pick your nose. It's true I saw you eat it afterwards.
Yes we should pay the fictional video game ladies who don't exist for their sex work. I heard Rockstar programmed them into GTA V without paying them a dime! We should go on strike until they pay their NPCs a fair wage.
Well you could kill them and steal it back afterwards I suppose but you do have to pay the fictional game ladies fictional game money, yes. They need it for their fictional kids and to buy fictional food in the fictional grocery store, duh. What, you think they take USD?
But sex work is real work. Rockstar should pay them real money.
They did pay the voice actors real money, and the fictional women use fictional currency. They are being paid both fictionally and IRL. Sucks to suck my guy, get good.
Btw I like that the root of your sarcasm is "No, stripping isn't real work, real ones shouldn't get paid because the fake ones only get fake currency." You're a weird dude.
The pixels and boob meshes should get paid real money.
Here you directly state that getting a lap dance, i.e paying a sex worker for the service she sells, is objectification and you go on to accuse those who engage in such activity of being misogynists. This implies that sex work is not real work, a phrase meant to normalize sex workers and cut down on their judgement, as you can't normalize something if all their customers are also bad people. It also implies you think sex work is something to look down on, likely from a place of "you're better than that" rather than "dern whores," but that's still not very sex positive of you.
You can say dumb shit about your pixel strawman all you want, but putting sex workers as helpless dolls that need to be saved by the hero isn't as progressive as you think it is.
I also think someone should murder the insurance workers' boss.
Mhmm that's 'cause of all that violent imagery no doubt.
You're smart enough to understand that games depicting banks robbery won't lead to an increase in real life bank robbery, but somehow you're convinced a game with a strip club can teach dangerous habits? I usually run all red lights when I play GTA, how do you think that has affected my real life driving? I played an evil karma playthrough in fallout3, am i a psychotic person in real life? Do you have a complete list of behaviors people have a hard time separating from video games?
It's funny how this argument puts sexism and the objectification of women, unfortunately very common and normalized types of behavior, on the same level with behavior that's psychotic and fucking lunatic.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25681166
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28408891
We have a correlation
Ah, surveys, which classify as observational, cross-sectional studies: pretty low on the hierarchy of evidence, yes?
Now show us studies that apply the same methods on the relationship with belief & attitudes toward bank robberies, risky driving, or dark personality traits as mentioned before. Applying the same methods on those questions would inform us whether such studies put them all on "the same level" as sexism or "objectification of women" (which someone before claimed would be funny), and whether we can put much stock in conclusions drawn from these methods.
It's also questionable whether answers to survey questions imply much beyond state of mind that has real-life consequences. Unless there's clear evidence of that, it's a slippery slope.
Correlation is not causation.
Or did you fail your very first science class?
You're right, it could be the other way around. Maybe sexist video games don't cause sexism. Maybe they attract sexist men instead. Like the woman in the meme is saying.
You gamergate people are so easy to bait into disagreeing with yourselves
You're right.
I'll just go back to living the male fantasy of petting my dog on my 3ds.
There's lots of great indie games still coming out that don't have sexism in them. Try out Dome Keeper, they just had a big mod jam. Dome Keeper doesn't have gender, it only has minerals and monsters.
So depicting violence is fine because people don't do those violent things. Except people will do violent things (like Jan 6) but when that happens it's because they they saw a lap dance being depicted?
Strawman? False equivalence? This is a pretty bad argument.
First, I know this is the internet so everyone jumps to extremes. But can we please try to keep some level of nuance on the fediverse? And avoid personal attacks maybe??
I am an avid gamer, and have always wanted to believe violent video games don't affect players. But the vast majority of studies indicate either some level of being desensitized or increase in aggression.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6790614/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15013257/
https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/10.1027/1864-9335/a000154
So depicting violence isn't great, especially (or maybe primarily) for kids.
Seeing a lap dance isn't bad at all. But objectifying women and unequal representation is not great. Sex, OK. Sexism, not OK. Hopefully we can agree on that at least?
Grand Theft Auto doesn't have a level where you storm the capital and seize the government.
No, but it will make you do a columbine if you play while you listen to satanic music like Metallica and KMFDM, right Tipper?
No, you boomer.
Try again Mrs. Gore.
She's watching a clip of GTA5 that takes place in a strip club.
This was a BuzzFeed video, Claudia Restrepo was a writer for Oscar Hates Sexism, and the video was something like "feminists play grand theft Auto"
The scenes were specifically chosen to illicit a reaction. I can't find the original video but from what I recall, were some of the worst in the game.