How common is sex in Cantr?

[Camino]

Face it, if someone decides to RP something graphically there is nothing you can actually do to stop them. Unless the idea of screening every post in Cantr is being proposed?

Conduct should be maintained by players regardless of their views, for instance I never have my characters swear out in the open or ever in fact, unless you're particularly prudish and then you might consider it as such.
I do this because I know kids play this game, I restrict any sexual RP to a locked room or via directly talking to a character.

If someone decides to RP graphic scenes and people are really offended, go to the PD and complain. I simply suggest that people confirm their limits before enacting something graphic, not by a fancy programming thing but by talking to each other OOC if it makes it clearer.
If you don't want to do something or read something or have something RP to your character, say so you fools!

Yes, someone eventually is going to RP something graphic and unpleasant for all players in an area to read, some will be offended and others will be annoyed at the lack of tact demonstrated. However short of screening all posts.... Having disclaimers and providing a code of conduct for players to agree to in sign-up would seem enough of a response to this and other issues, it would satisfy legal issues, real or imagined, and also allow inform people that this is also an RP game. People like to enact things via TEXT and that the limits of such TEXT cannot be controlled by programming thus before doing something take a moment to consider the implications for other real people.
This issue really has nothing at all to do with characters, nothing to do with the balance of the game or its realistic nature. It is simply a matter of personal taste and preference, the sooner this sinks in and calls for programming action are left unspoken, the better.

I see little point in investing programmers time in to needless actions which wouldn't solve anything anyway, just remove the project sense of things which is in itself not the point for the most part.

[mikki]

Never done it & I doubt I will, to do it more than pathetically you've got to have a certain flow. Besides in my humble views I think it's just kinda cheesy when all you've got is asterisks to play around with.

I was just reading all the posts again and noticed that you said this, then read your last post.. I have to ask... Is this statement still true?

[Anthony Roberts]

Guys are like that.

Shhhhh!

[kroner]

Face it, if someone decides to RP something graphically there is nothing you can actually do to stop them. Unless the idea of screening every post in Cantr is being proposed?

There's also "nothing you can actually do to stop them" from breaking the CR either.
but anyway, that's not the point. i have no problem with graphic rp that people say privately to each other, granted that both parties are ok with that.
but the are enevitably some people you aren't ok with graphic rp and those people should not have to deal with it if they so choose. rped consentual sex inherently gaurds against people who don't want graphic rp from having to deal with it. rape on the other hand elimates any safegaurds, unless the player of the rapist is extremely careful about feeling out the situation first, as pirog suggested.

[Camino]

The point of your post was what Kroner? You just confirmed everything I already said, there's nothing that can be done to stop someone from doing anything offensive till after they've done it and that it's currently RP rape that's the topic is of only minor note.

I highly doubt anyone actually RP having any form of sex without some OOC query to limits, those that do obviously just want to cyber. In which case you're back to wait until something offensive happens and contact the PD or if you're not totally offended and simply don't want to see that again you tell them so in clear OOC format.

Be it RP rape or consentual sex it can still be graphic and basically there isn't anything that can be done, give it up already. There is no safeguard in supposed consentual RP sex, you can have OOC consentual RP rape which is actually what everyone wants. They don't want to see it unless they're agreeing to be involved in it and some also seemed deeply concerned Cantr will be targetted by those attempting to stamp out child abuse.

[kroner]

but there are things that can be done. that was the relevence of the reference to the CR. the rules in cantr don't have to be programmed into the game to be effective. there is no way to force people to follow the CR for instance, but most cantr players will respect the rules once they are aware of them and understand them.

[julie2]

As to the oddity that murder is fine but rape isn't, yes it is odd. But that's the way a lot of people think, and that's the way it is throughout western culture (I don't know about beyond that) - see all the shoot-em-ups, cartoon violence, film rating systems. Whether it makes any logical sense or not, they all agree that rape is worse than murder as subject matter for any kind of entertainment.

This comment got me thinking (Nasty habit, i know, but I just can't help it).

Perhaps the crucial difference is that murder IRL is never fun (unless you're pretty sick), nor ever consensual (with rare exceptions, granted), so the inhibitions against crossing the line between fantasy and reality are more deeply ingrained, and the line is much clearer.

There are a lot of grey areas where sex is concerned, so it's easier to cross the line. Perhaps we realise that unconsciously, without consciously formulating it. By playing around with fantasies of rape and promoting them as enterainment we'tre more likely to shift an -already precarious- balance, than we are where murder is concerned. That makes it more irresponsible, even if we agree thatmurder is wordse than rape

There's my two cents worth, anyway, though it's not directly relevant to Cantr.

By and large, I feel that people should go along with their intuition, where this kind of conundrum is concerned, because it's usually two or three steps ahead of conscious reasoning. And if a lot of people feel uneasy about it, that's a good enough reason not to do it in my book. No need to justify that.

[Pirog]

julie>

Actually I think we would see less rape if sex was made less of a tabu subject. It's the same way with pornography...it is as dirty as it is today because it is not accepted.
The more we try to hide nudity and sex the more we focus and think about it. Just look at the Victorian era...where they in the end had to drape the legs of the tables and chairs because people started to draw parallells between the naked legs of the table to the naked legs of humans and then further on to thoughts about sex etc. At the same time women in the African countryside could (and still can in some parts) walk topless without anything thinking about it. You think that is a coincidence?

And regarding the topic...it isn't like rape would be a common sight in Cantr just because we have a discussion about it. Nothing stops people from raping others in Cantr as it is now and I have still only heard of one case, and that was very non-graphic. (and poorly RP'd in general...)

[julie2]

Piroq.

I think you must have completely missed my point, because I certainly don’t disagree with any of yours, as you seem to assume. Consensual sex and rape are two different issues altogether, and the fact that you and others lump them in the same bag and try to apply exactly the same logic to both, just goes to prove your own point: our culture has landed us with some pretty warped attitudes.

If I suggested that we maybe should draw the line at graphic descriptions of child abuse in games like Cantr, would you have presented the same argument? Don’t get me wrong- I do think there’s a place for stuff like that. I don’t think that anything should be swept under the carpet, ever, for the very reason you gave- repression is counterproductive to say the least. But Cantr isn’t the right place. Child abuse and rape both need to be controlled (control, by the way, is not necessarily the same thing as psychological repression) and discussed responsibly. Acting out your fantasies about those things in a medium like this isn’t responsible. It gives out the wrong message, IMO.

As for consensual sex between adults: just for the record, I don’t think the game loses in realism if we don’t make a meal of it any more than it does if we don’t trouble to describe every bite of our potato in graphic detail, down to every little squirt of saliva: so I’m inclined to be swayed by the arguments against including it. But that’s beside the point, and I’ve no really strong feelings about it, either way.

I find arguments such as yours disconcerting. It seems symptomatic of a new form of repression which makes a holy cow of “sexual liberation”, and condemns and represses our --equally natural --emotional reactions to sexual issues.. It amounts to much the same thing as Puritanism really- the repession of our “irrational” functions in the name of an intellectual ideal. I mean people are made to feel ashamed of their “prudishness” if they don’t quite conform to new ideal, and then suffer every bit as badly as those who are made to feel “dirty” for having sexual desires in the first place.

What I was trying to say is that our instinctive responses to these issues (whether pro- or anti-) have a pretty sound basis, often enough, and it pays to take account of them. Our intellects tend to be slow and clumsy when it comes to dealing with human issues, and if we wait for psychologists and sociologists to figure out the dynamics, we’ll make some bad mistakes in the meantime.

OK, instinctive reactions can be misleading especially when they’re labouring under the kind of cultural baggage we’re carrying around, but at least they’re more in tune with our fundamental nature than our intellects are. It’s not easy to to explain why we tend to feel uneasy about certain things. Its not easy to see what harm they could do. But its crazy to just assume that they’re harmless , just because we can’t rationalise it. Look how long it took us just to figure out what was wrong with incest- apart from God’s disapproval. There’s a lot of stuff like that, which we tend to explain in religious terms because we can’t provide a rational explanation, but dispense with God and the taboo still remains. So, I was casting around for a rationale for this taboo against rape scenes. The rationale I came up with might be wrong, but I don’t think it’s safe to just dismiss people’s unease as merely priggish, nor fair to those who feel uneasy about it. That just heightens peoples sense of shame and makes them nervous of saying “I’m not really happy about that idea”

(er , *cough *, I’ll, erm, get down from my podium now... Yeah, I know it's just a storm-in-a-teacup anyway, where Cantr is concerned)

julie>

Actually I think we would see less rape if sex was made less of a tabu subject. It's the same way with pornography...it is as dirty as it is today because it is not accepted.
The more we try to hide nudity and sex the more we focus and think about it. Just look at the Victorian era...where they in the end had to drape the legs of the tables and chairs because people started to draw parallells between the naked legs of the table to the naked legs of humans and then further on to thoughts about sex etc. At the same time women in the African countryside could (and still can in some parts) walk topless without anything thinking about it. You think that is a coincidence?

And regarding the topic...it isn't like rape would be a common sight in Cantr just because we have a discussion about it. Nothing stops people from raping others in Cantr as it is now and I have still only heard of one case, and that was very non-graphic. (and poorly RP'd in general...)

[julie2]

At the same time women in the African countryside could (and still can in some parts) walk topless without anything thinking about it. )

By the way, People are never, ever going to get used to seeing naked breasts here in Britain, Pirog. Know why? Because it's so f***ing cold, that's why. No explanation needed beyond that.

[Pirog]

[Pirog]

june2>

You might have a point...but you have to consider that I come from Sweden, the country of sexual liberation
(And that is by the way a myth...)

I just find it strange how people tend to exaggerate to the extreme every time sex is on the topic. If it's not people suing the shirt of Jos for text descriptions of sex in Cantr the FBI agents will kidnap you and put you to trial in USA. Considering the amount of sexual content on the internet (a vast majority of the whole content actually) it is almost laughable to think that a game like Cantr would be considered breaching the line.

I do though, against my own principles, feel that the line should be drawn by sexual violation of children. I can't really argument for banning that with anything else than it simply shouldn't be allowed...

[swymir]

Could this topic be more controversal than the baby topic? (Well I guess they are related)

[julie2]

Cheers, Pirog.

Yep, there's an awful lot of over-reaction, which just goes to show that we're tapping in to some really strong emotions wherever sex is concerned, doesn't it?

As for the sexual abuse of children, well I've read up quite a lot about that, and had the privilege of getting close enough to an adult survivor to talk through his experiences and his feelings about it (never easy), I don't know if cultural factors augment the associated problems, but I do know for a fact that the trauma sufferered by the victims is very deep and very real, and can leave them emotionally scarred for life. So...good on you for going along with your instincts there.

Like I said, I think public discussion of that issue is a very good thing --mostly because it helps the victims find the courage to talk about it. But role-playing it in Cabnr? No way. (Not that anybody suggested that we should)

june2>

You might have a point...but you have to consider that I come from Sweden, the country of sexual liberation
(And that is by the way a myth...)

I just find it strange how people tend to exaggerate to the extreme every time sex is on the topic. If it's not people suing the shirt of Jos for text descriptions of sex in Cantr the FBI agents will kidnap you and put you to trial in USA. Considering the amount of sexual content on the internet (a vast majority of the whole content actually) it is almost laughable to think that a game like Cantr would be considered breaching the line.

I do though, against my own principles, feel that the line should be drawn by sexual violation of children. I can't really argument for banning that with anything else than it simply shouldn't be allowed...

[Nick]

This comment got me thinking (Nasty habit, i know, but I just can't help it).

No words come to mind when you say that, but...