Did I say 'shocking', I meant 'stupid'. It feels like I should find this funnier, but it's so offensively illogical as well as insulting to actual rape victims, it actually makes me a little fumed.

If I have learned anything, I have learned to delete the comments I have previewed over the past 15 minutes. So I did that.

In the link provided, I can't find the 16 life sentences mentioned. Could be I'm just missing something.


What I do see is "implied online rape," which scares the shit out of me.

Please, someone explain?

dgaicun made that headline up... So the actual story is that a Second Life player contacted real police in Belgium about an online rape (in the game).

Thanks, taz. I never would have dug down that deep.

*goes back to LALALALALALALA*

I completely don't get this virtual crime stuff. I try ... I try to open my wee little brain ... But I don't get it.

Unrelated aside: I once had a potential client with multiple personalities. One of her personalities had a semi-kinky maybe-rough-sex-type affair with a co-worker (the actual details were generally unknown to the caller, other than the emails and pics other evidence she would find later). Her main personality felt as those she'd been raped by the co-worker. But the co-worker had no idea that she had multiple personalities and as far as he knew she consented. So there was no legal claim for anything. But it was a sad situation.

Yes, sorry, lampooning. No one has actually been charged for murder for killing their friend's and brother's characters in a Mortal Kombat video game.

It's actually pretty hard to satirize this though, since my version isn't all that much more of an exaggeration.

I don't really have time to try to check this out more seriously, and, honestly, I'm not qualified to venture an opinion since I know next to nothing about Second Life or similar games, but I suspect that there's a chance that this is yet another case of facile or misleading reporting (I see so many things that turn out to be this way that I rarely take these sorts of "news items" at face value anymore).

Given that making obscene and harassing phone calls is usually viewed as a crime, there isn't necessarily a reason that one couldn't view an online attack in a similar manner, and perhaps this person chose to frame it that way. Also, given that Second Life is a game that apparently has actual monetary transactions (?right?), it may be that the complaint could have been framed in terms of losing an investment as a result of harassment that forced the person to leave the game. Just a couple of possibilities. There's probably a lot to talk about regarding this, but just "lol, wacky internet peeps" seems kind of thin. Maybe it is just an unbalanced person who is making crazy charges, but there is, I think, a lot more to talk about if "forcible" virtual rape (as opposed to some roleplaying sort of thing that people choose to participate in) is actually becoming a part of the game. Rape and abuse survivors, for instance, can have "triggers" that will plunge them into a real post-traumatic reaction, so an actual attack, even if virtual, is still real and horrifying abuse.

I understand your point, dgaicun, and, again, I know nothing about Second Life, but the story could be more nuanced than it appears.

This is ridiculous.

By this logic I've been murdered and had my corpse defiled on Counter-Strike the two times I actually played it.
And I've committed suicide a few times by typing "kill" into the console so I could switch teams...
And does shooting a fellow American soldier in the head at point blank range count as murder? I swear, I thought friendly fire was turned off on that server... and besides, he stole my humvee! That's gotta count as a crime too, right? Does it count as self defense? If it is a criminal offense to sexually abuse a child on the internet, how can we say it is not possible to attempt to murder an adult online?

Oh. Wait. That's right. They're all fucking games.

Nice to know that the Belgian police are server their people so well.