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I had come across this tasteless video game online a few years back while researching for Wikigender. The game is called RapeLay, (trigger warning: this link contains explicit descriptions of rape and other crime against women that could be disturbing) a 3D game created by a Japanese firm, Illusion, and it prods the player to rape a woman and her two teenaged daughters in a moving train, a park and a restroom.
The game lets the player rape, impregnate and abort the three women. Points are awarded for such acts of sexual violence, and the game, to this day, remains among the hot picks in grey markets across the world.
I remember there was a massive outcry in 2009 when some copies of this game were put up on Amazon, and the Ethics Organization of Computer Software (EOCS), Japan’s PC game rating agency, had called for a halt to the retail sale of videogames that simulate rape. (The EOCS is a voluntary organization and the ban is not legally binding)
The Yokohama-based games manufacturer Illusion had then said that the campaign to have the game RapeLay banned in Japan was pointless because it was perfectly legal in Japan. Spokesman Makoto Nakaoka said he was bewildered by the move as it made games for Japanese tastes and laws and that he didn’t need to know what was acceptable elsewhere in the world.
In India, when the easy online availability of this game was brought to the notice of the Computer Emergency Reaction Team (Cert-In) of the Ministry of Information Technology a few years back, its spokesperson had said, “Our primary job is to prevent cyber crimes that threaten the national security. When such offensive websites are hosted in other countries, there is little we can do.”
Maintaining that obscene rape games may prove more dangerous than the offence of actual rape, cyber law expert Pawan Duggal said that the Information Technology Act, 2000, must be tightened, and that, “…these rape games are more dangerous than an actual rapist. A rapist may abuse one or two women before being caught, but obscene Japanese rape games like RapeLay would surely infect young and impressionable minds and lure them into becoming pervert rapists.”
(I just did a quick search on Google for ‘Japanese rape game’ and got 29,300,000 results in 0.18 seconds, including many that offer a download, while others offer a trial version)
I am a former bureaucrat, and have worked a lot on gender issues, disaster management
You point out a pertinent point; the wrong socialisation of boys and men leads to more rapists.
If non-consensual sex is shown excessively, how will they know the merits of consensual loving sex?
This used to be the case with Indian movies as well, showing the former, but not the latter. Thankfully, things are changing here.
This is shocking! After reading this I felt like I live in some wonderland,huh,knowing nothing of such cheap tricks available on the web 🙁
Where are women going to be safe? Not even the virtual world?
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oh my god.. such things are there in this world is it?? sick yar.. think of the person who had this innovative idea of creating such a stupid game.. i am sure if we ask him now, he would say that, this is to create real rape and to satisfy men virtually.. immediate thing which came into my mind after reading this post is, how am i going to save my daughter in this world.. 🙁
Thanks Shoba, Scribby and Ashreyamom. I was myself so taken aback when I came across this sickening game, and actually thought it was a crude joke by someone; but the more I delved into the Net I realized it was actually true. Amazon.com had actually sold this ‘game’ online for a while!
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