Sexual themes in roleplay
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I've played a range of characters based on their attitude toward sex. What I usually try to do is incorporate the themes into the overall story so they form an integral part of it without taking over.
It essentially depends on the game as much as anything. For something like the World of Darkness where generally speaking everyone is broken in some spectacular fashion (former abductees, undead leeches, etc) it's fun to create equally spectacularly dysfunctional relationships, and for that such elements work really well because what else have these people going for them? While you're struggling to hold onto what's left of your humanity you might as well get a short reprieve between the sheets where something feels right.
However when it comes to actually roleplaying all this the act itself is boring to me since describing the mechanics of thing A going into thing B get awfully repetitive after a while. The setup itself though can be fun since all that other stuff comes into play big time because it gives these characters depth; sure, my guy really wants to stay grounded to keep the Brood out of the city but he's also crippled by jealousy about his girlfriend who took a couple of sips out of the other guy's veins, or yeah, my werewolf happens to equate 'courting' with 'hunting' and he's stalking the hell out of the girl who smiled at him that one time in the subway.
Playing such obsessions out appeals to me, as I've no interest at all in healthy IC relationships. Those can't go anywhere because what's left for the PCs to do after they've hooked up and everything is working out just great for them? It's way more interesting to burden them from the beginning with what comes to irreconcilable differences then watch as everything they try to build based on attraction or lust comes apart at the seams again and again.
In that context I don't much care how deep the dysfunction goes. It's all IC, they are all monsters, and there are no victims. It's not like a happily ever after is in the works for them.
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@HelloRaptor said:
I know Mages have the kinkiest sex, but are any of them worried about the Abyss during it? No. It should at least be part of the game-play, like it is any other time.
...seriously?
I dunno who you were quoting there man, but it's not me.
Ask them!- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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I sorta 'started' this latest volley, so I guess I'll expand a little here:
I've yet to see a rape plot device that brought about meaningful, thoughtful RP. I've mostly just experienced it as a galvanizing, agonizing (over or about) rp land mine that scorches the earth between PCs and players. Based on my experience, the reason for it even being in character and happening in the game has a lot to do with player motivations which are most of the time... not great?
Most of the time, it strikes me as the player in question setting off an attention seeking bomb in a crowd. And, when the bomb goes off, the event is as nauseatingly overboard as possible. It's not enough usually that it happened, at all. The victim PC was usually raped and something else (torture, physical abuse, attempted murder) or a* few something elses*, which to me is like adding layers of details to make this so bad beyond dispute and narrows down the range of responses you can have in character about it, if you're even willing to deal with it at all.
In that context, its incredibly selfish and the apex of self-centered. It's manipulative and highly disrespectful to all the players in the blast radius, who invariably were not asked if this is something they wanted to have to deal with and generally are not given any exit strategy to just not. This ceases to be about collaborative storytelling, its a bid to focus all singular attention on one PC. Its now just equivalent to feeding a tamagochi, pity and sympathy to keep it alive. And that's the problem, right? You're now sort of being held hostage to keeping this highly self-centered, generally disturbing thing going, where at the end it doesn't become a clarifying and transforming experience. You mostly feel like shit for any of your effort and used.
This is different than a BG that has elements of rape or abuse in them because in a background context, this is about conditions that inform your PCs view of the world. These details may never come out or they may depending on what happens but they're not designed at least in theory to red light everything else happening in the lives of other PCs so they must all pause and respond to this acutely terrible thing that is happening or execute mental gymnastics to come up with ways to plausibly ignore it happening.
There are also players that sexualize and fetishize rape. I can't speak to their offline backgrounds but as a victim of rape in real life, I have a hard time finding anything remotely sexual about it. Even typing this makes me feel queasy, though your personal constitution and outlook may vary. However, I often am struck that in certain situations, the use of rape as plot device does read as kinky sexy typesex fun with something dramatic to RP about later. When it comes to that, it feels then like a player is trying on or working through a sexual interest at the expense of other players, often not with their consent. Those people who want to typesex the fetishized concept of rape, while I can't quite get there personally, I get that its in a thing in the world and people do this. But I'd really rather they seek like minded players and explore this topic privately and just leave everyone else alone about it.
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Could you note the last three times you saw RP'd rape played out as an attention seeking bomb? Just a year and a MU name or type.
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I've yet to see a rape plot device that brought about meaningful, thoughtful RP.
Anecdotal evidence is the best kind of evidence. It's like being technically correct.
Virtually every single thing you said in your post can be, and is, said about a host of other role play choices/scenarios/etc where one character is victimized in some brutal fashion, by someone who has personal trauma, or finds the subject matter distasteful, or even just doesn't like the person who engaged in said RP. Once again, rape isn't singular or special in that regard.
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@Arkandel Misquoting is @HelloRaptor 's specialty. He likes to keep his crap in notepad. Or word. Or something awful and it confuses him. I believe @Thenomain actually said it.
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It's not a misquote. You could argue it's changing the direction from the point of the post to something like "Can you speak for all of situation X, everywhere, ever?", but even then it moves onto reiterating a previously made point.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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@Misadventure said:
It's not a misquote. You could argue it's changing the direction from the point of the post to something like "Can you speak for all of situation X, everywhere, ever?", but even then it moves onto reiterating a previously made point.
It is a misquote because he attributed something @Thenomain said to me.
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@Glitch said:
@Arkandel Misquoting is @HelloRaptor 's specialty. He likes to keep his crap in notepad. Or word. Or something awful and it confuses him. I believe @Thenomain actually said it.
That said, sorry @Arkandel, my bad. >_>
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Lost me. I see a quote from the post right above his. Carry on.
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@7Wonders said:
I can't speak to their offline backgrounds but as a victim of rape in real life, I have a hard time finding anything remotely sexual about it. Even typing this makes me feel queasy, though your personal constitution and outlook may vary.
I am truly sorry about what happened to you. And no one here can blame you for not finding the thought of it used in RP appealing - but that's not an argument, unless someone was trying to insinuate you should.
However, I often am struck that in certain situations, the use of rape as plot device does read as kinky sexy typesex fun with something dramatic to RP about later. When it comes to that, it feels then like a player is trying on or working through a sexual interest at the expense of other players, often not with their consent.
You lost me there. A number of players do all sorts of sex-RP things (including this) primarily because it's fun but consent is implicit since no one can force someone else to type stuff they don't want to do. Are some people creeps who'll try to guilt-trip or otherwise convince others that they should RP whatever their kink is? Yup. That's what makes them creeps. Is it wrong? Damn right it is. Are these people who end going along with it doing so without their consent? No. As long as we're all adults we're all responsible for our own choices. There's
Those people who want to typesex the fetishized concept of rape, while I can't quite get there personally, I get that its in a thing in the world and people do this. But I'd really rather they seek like minded players and explore this topic privately and just leave everyone else alone about it.
It's a fair request. I am just trying to point out that there's a fair number of valid requests based on what each player personally dislikes; for example I've spoken to people who hate IC relationships in general ('this is the World of Darkness, not Twilight!'), I've been myself an elitist who grumbled about people not having fun the right way ('it's a post-apocalyptic world and you're running an +event for a beach beer party?') and it just goes on. You can't expect things you don't like to never happen anywhere near you, because that's just not how games work; we're all sharing the setting.
If you don't like what's being played currently, walk away. Play somewhere else, and if needed with someone else. Everyone occasionally run into crap we don't find fun, we just do what it takes to fix that.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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I can understand your preference, and I think I understand what you're trying to say.
Frankly, I find rape RP disturbing on all sorts of levels. I've been in violent scenes on stage, but there was still consent involved. I recognize that people that engage in rape RP are not actually raping one another, but are engaging in role-play that they enjoy, even if it disturbs or disgusts me.
But people who seek rape RP from unknowing or unwilling participants need to cut that shit out. You are figuratively raping that player by attempting to force them to engage in potential sexual activity against their consent. While I concur that rape is likely implicated in World of Darkness material, that does not mean that one must engage in it.
Again, role-playing on a MU* is like improv on a stage.
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@Arkandel said:
no one can force someone else to type stuff they don't want to do.
Hi there! I am going to go on a tangent on this. It's a quick tangent and I am not attacking anyone here about this.
This? What Ark said? Is entirely, 100%, completely true. It is also entirely, 100%, completely misleading.
I'm pretty sure he knows this, but as we're typing things out and making a point, we the reader have to keep context in mind. I am deliberately taking this out of context because I think it's important.
That's the quick bit. But Theno being Theno, I'm going to continue.
The generally accepted "fade to black" rules evolved because of the misleadingness of this statement. The number of people who have felt compelled to, or been outright told that they have to, play out a scene has put us in this situation. There have been a non-trivial number of people who fail to respect the person on the other side of the screen.
I admit, we can be stupid about our own role in this hobby, sometimes. Sometimes we get obsessed or even addicted, and that means pulling away is difficult. I, myself, refuse to blame the obsessed when someone manipulates them via their obsession. Talking about being adults, the abuser is harming another while the obsessive is harming themselves. (n.b., where the obsessive drags others in, then yeah, we'll talk.)
So we've come down to Online Social RP Rule #1: RL comes first. Wait, sorry, that's a different discussion. Online Social RP Rule #2: You may always, always, ALWAYS fade-to-black. This hobby comes from the table, and the table works because of discussion and negotiation.
People need reminded of this, because the social predators have and will use the typical "you didn't say" to defend themselves, and the socially broken that sometimes we are need to be hit in the head with it.
(edit: I am basically supporting a superset of what @Ganymede just said.)
Anyhow, that's it. Carry on sexy funtimes!
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In general, I have a no holds barred approach to sexual themes in my RP. There's very little that truly squicks me. It's not because I'm unfamiliar, personally or otherwise, with bad things--writing/storytelling is cathartic for me personally.
The reason why I try to exercise personal caution when engaging in them with others is because I do know that there are many people who would be triggered and I don't want to hurt someone if I can help it. As well as the fact that there are people who make me uncomfortable when they violate OOC boundaries. (Lying about ties OOCly, pressure for certain types of RP, ect.) As much as I wish that there wasn't so much weirdness about sex, culturally, I know that there is so generally I will not engage in graphic RP with anyone who doesn't wish to communicate about their preferences/expectations around it (and saying 'hey anything goes, let me know if something bothers you oocly, though' counts as communication) because it's too much of a risk for me to deal with on a game.
Rape RP doesn't bother me at all. People using it as an OOC whispering campaign (for or against the IC victim) and crossing IC/OOC lines does, and I have very rarely not seen that happen, so I totally understand why many games have policies of either none of that in the public sphere OR all parties must publically declare consent so that the OOC stuff doesn't come into play.
TS can be fun/funny. But like others have said, I mean, I don't like doing anything ALL the time. I have found that sometimes (not with a good RPer) entering into that will make it the focus of RP between those two PCs and I find it boring after awhile. I like relationship RP (like others I prefer complicated to 'princess and prince together 4 ever happy unicorns') but for it to be interesting to me I like doing a great many things, and TS can take time away from interacting with the world at large or doing those other things if it becomes too much of a focus. For me. Other people are happy with everyday TS and I don't think anything's wrong with it. And some people never, and that's just fine too. I would not preclude involvement with either one, though I suspect the every day person would get pretty frustrated with me after awhile and I'd want to disclose up front that I don't think I'd be able to maintain that.
It's really not all that different from any other kind of group matchup. You can really like a player and their PC, but if you're in incompatible time zones or you're on 8 hours a day and they are on for 8 hours a week, probably there's going to be some issues that have nothing to do with anyone being a dud, and it's probably good to be realistic about what's a good match.
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I don't know, @Thenomain. Although I agree of course that the amount of pressure some bad players have been known to put on people is absurd and unfair I still maintain that ultimately we're responsible for our own actions. However defending this would get too close to blaming the victim and I'm uncomfortable doing that even if for a MU*.
I think it's the job of all of us as a community (and not just staff) to drill the idea into everyone's head so that it's basic, common knowledge that
You may always, always, ALWAYS fade-to-black
and that's about it. It's all we can do.
Otherwise there will always be manipulating, conniving players like Juerg (who practically wrote the book on how to be a creep in MU*) and they'll always push the envelope to get what they want. At that point it's very hard for anyone else to intervene because we won't and shouldn't know what's happening behind closed doors or over pages, so even staff are limited to acting after the fact, and often in he-said she-said situations.
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I'm not sure how you are apparently unable to see the problem in your logic. Let me try to make it simpler.
Suppose I make an unstoppable combat monster who is, indeed, unstoppable. Suppose I take that PC out and challenge each and every person I see on the game to fight him, with the end result being death. It is true that each player can opt to fade-to-black, but that implies acquiescence to the result, which is death. It is also true that each player can choose to simply disconnect, but that means there will likely be no one left on the game.
The argument that "you can always fade-to-black/disconnect" implies that players should choose not to play on the game if they encounter RP they do not want to participate in. If they choose that, you may no longer have any players on your game.
The better policy is to make exceptions whereby staff can ensure players that they will not encounter certain forms of RP. Most games adopt a "no rape RP policy" with this argument in mind, and usually stomp down on people PKing others willy-nilly.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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I think Gany's points are thought-provoking, to me.
Character destruction, no matter what the means, is always a very hard thing to decide on. There are people who 'deserve it' in some ways of removal, but in the case of rape... I think the argument could be made that no character 'deserves' it. Stepping back from the 'what', into the realm of policies on character destruction and how to handle complaints/requests/instances of it - it is hard to make a policy that is good for all.
The fine line is the retirement aspect if the character becomes too damaged to play, of course. But there are other things too that come to mind. Months of real treatment, recovery, therapy (physical or mental), and so on. After that, in almost every near-destruction case, will be phobias.
While some see drastic left turns as a challenge, some see them as tearing up the character sheet and walking away from the table sorts of game-killers.
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I would like to think that Theme and Setting trump all other forms of RP. This puts the decision square into staff's hands as to if PKing Willy Nilly is something without consequence of the powerful NPCs and environment that are at staff's disposal.
I also believe that a healthy game requires everyone having a reasonable chance to play, sometimes regardless of the actions of others. I am more wishy-washy on this aspect, because one man's trash is another man's PK. Could we bring in the aspect that "your rights end when your fist reaches my face"? Do the expected rights to RP Anything end there?
Hm.
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We're talking about slightly different things, Gany.
You are referring to a theoretical but consensual environment in which someone who tries to inflict fates on other PCs their players don't want shouldn't be allowed to. I do agree with you on this, but that's because I prefer consent-based collaborative environments. Of course players should consider the other person's feelings before irrevocably harming their PC, but not everyone does.
However I wasn't talking about that, but rather, what @Thenomain said about how some problem players get away with essentially 'forcing' fates on others by any means necessary, including outright lying about game policies or potential consequences if they didn't comply, and insisting that their preference for what should happen is carried and played out.
I suppose a roughly equivalent non-example of that would be if I wanted your PC to vote my way, and I started paging you threatening to kill that PC if they didn't, The funny thing is though players like that actually don't threaten outright but rather ... insinuate what the outcome would be in a roundabout fashion ("you know, I hate killing PCs, but my character is a homicidal maniac who doesn't like being voted down so... I don't know, it's up to you. He's very powerful you know, and has lots of friends, no one could stop him"). Just so it sort of sounds like it'd be your fault if I 'had' to kill your character.
Still douchebaggery, just different flavors of it.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel said:
We're talking about slightly different things, Gany.
No, we aren't. You said this:
You may always, always, ALWAYS fade-to-black
and that's about it. It's all we can do. (Emphasis added.)
And you're wrong. That's not all we can do.
We can recognize that our IC actions have OOC consequences. We can recognize that RPing on MUs is inherently cooperative. We can engage in considerate, measured RP that doesn't force people into situations they don't want to play through.
In short, there's a shit-ton that we can do to make RPing on MUs more fun and less painful. Most don't because it's easier not to give a shit, and just fade-to-black.
