In Julian Dibbell’s “A Rape in Cyberspace,” Dibbell described a crazy story that brought up a huge debate. This story was about a man, Mr. Bungle, who created a virtual voodoo doll that was programmed to make anyone’s character on virtual worlds type whatever actions he told the voodoo doll to do to them. This is shown when Bungle forced legba to sexually service him and eat his/her own pubic pairs and when Bungle made Starsinger “violate herself with a piece of kitchen cutlery,” (377). One who didn’t experience these things personally would just blow it off and say that it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. However, it is a big deal if you invested so much time and energy into that character and you see them do these things. It is as if these things are being done to you directly. Legba told someone that “as she wrote those words posttraumatic tears were streaming down her face,” (380). These actions were affecting them emotionally.
This brought up the debate on whether Mr. Bungle should be “toaded,” also known as complete termination of character. In addition, this situation also brought up a debate on whether this “virtual rape” can be considered the same as rape in real life, or whether virtual rape can be considered rape at all. Some arguments were that there were no rules against rape or about anything in MOO. It made people wonder where the body ends and the mind begins. Also, isn’t the mind a part of the body? The body is the mind in Moo. In addition, is virtual rape the same thing as being sexually harassed? In real life you can’t leave if you’re being harassed or raped. In virtual life you can. You can log off of virtual life, however, those things in your mind are telling you that what happened on virtual life are real.
This debate made me curious about if there are different virtual rape cases being investigated or lawsuits currently taking place. After I read washingtonpost.com, I discovered that in Japan, a man virtually mugged people in second life and got arrested. Child abuse in virtual worlds is not illegal in the United States, but is illegal in Europe. In Belgium and Germany, virtual rape cases are now being investigated. This makes me wonder if the police in the United States are going to start investigating virtual rape cases and charging people with committing a crime for virtual rape. Virtual World rape incidents can have impact in Real Life. What courts decide can change our views of reality as to when government should intervene or not.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Your blog was very interesting. I think you brought up an excellent point when you said that the mind is part of the body. Also the article you found directly demonstrated how someone in real life can get punished for online actions. Just because these are virtual worlds and these actions are physically happening to these users they are being emotionally damaged. I thought you argued that very well in your post!
Post a Comment