Although various forms of online sexual harassment have been with us since the dawn of the internet, recent news suggests that it\u2019s moving into another dimension \u2013 the third, to be precise. Gropers are now finding a way to target women through the fully immersive headsets of virtual reality.<\/p>\n
Writer Jordan Belamire recently wrote of her experience of virtual sexual assault<\/a>. The man\u2019s disembodied hands, in the \u201cQuiVr\u201d virtual reality archery game, simulated constant groping of Belamire\u2019s virtual body \u2013 specifically, rubbing at her avatar\u2019s chest \u2013 and chased her through the game world, heedless to her cries of \u201cStop!\u201d over the game\u2019s voice chat.<\/p>\n Some of the response \u2013 not least from the game\u2019s developers<\/a> \u2013 was encouraging. But the internet\u2019s id manifested itself in the comments on stories<\/a> about the incident, heaping imprecations, slander and abuse against Belamire. If we analyze the content of these comments, we gain insight into why these assaults \u2013 and online harassment more broadly \u2013 are occurring, and what might be done to stop them.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll have to grapple with some of the most toxic parts of our communities, and find new ways of creating and enforcing social norms in all the virtual worlds we\u2019re creating. As a scholar of online harassment, I know that most fundamentally, we must address the false belief that online harm isn\u2019t real<\/a>, because the internet itself isn\u2019t real. When human beings are involved and interacting with each other, it\u2019s very real indeed. And in VR, it\u2019s even more so.<\/p>\n At the bottom of an emotional article written by QuiVR\u2019s developers<\/a>, apologizing for what happened to Belamire and promising reform, is the following comment: \u201cYou weren\u2019t a victim of anything. The VR community has just become a victim of the outrage brigade.\u201d<\/p>\n Another commenter adds: \u201chere\u2019s some advice for you. TURN OFF THE F\u2014ING GAME YOU STUPID B\u2013CH!\u201d<\/p>\n A third writes, \u201cI gotta say, you don\u2019t have a frigging clue what sexual assault is if THIS is what you consider sexual assault.\u201d<\/p>\n Several others, meanwhile, noted that Belamire writes romance novels and suggested she should \u201cbe above\u201d the abuse, or claimed that she\u2019s just seeking publicity. \u201cShe writes an adult lesbian romance novel and feels harassed by digital gloves,\u201d mocks one commenter. T\u2019was ever thus: If a woman evinces any sexual sensibility whatsoever<\/a>, she must give blanket consent to any and all sexual contact.<\/p>\n But by far the overriding theme of the angry comments is that they accused Belamire of making a mountain out of a molehill because it was an online experience. These were \u201cfloating hands\u201d in a \u201cvirtual world\u201d that she could easily turn off, or just \u201ctake off her headset\u201d to escape from.<\/p>\n These outraged players never seem to ask why men do not worry about encountering hands-y people with boundary issues when they play games, or why such people should determine who plays and who doesn\u2019t. Yes, Belamire chose to play the game, but that doesn\u2019t mean she signed up to be sexually assaulted.<\/p>\n These notions illustrate the core mentality of both the abuser and their legions of apologists in the world\u2019s comment sections: What happens online is not real, therefore it\u2019s all okay.<\/p>\n In this abuser-apologist world, people who complain about harassment are at fault themselves, and at times demonized as the actual problem. It\u2019s an inherently contradictory idea: The \u201cgames aren\u2019t real\u201d argument doesn\u2019t seem to dissuade angry commenters from taking Belamire\u2019s complaints personally.<\/p>\n \u201cGames are supposed to be a place to mentally get entirely away from this world, these rules, with a character in another one,\u201d laments one commenter, arguing that anti-harassment efforts will interfere with his escapism. \u201cFeminists basically want it to be a crime for men to even approach a woman in the street, and now they want to do the same in virtual reality?\u201d says another.<\/p>\n Often, in a single comment, someone yells at Belamire for complaining about an \u201cunreal\u201d groping and then caterwauls about some forthcoming Orwellian regime in gaming. One commenter actually tells Belamire to turn off the game, right before likening the idea of tracking repeat offenders to the Third Reich. (One wonders why he doesn\u2019t turn off his computer for a while, if her story so offends him.)<\/p>\n He\u2019s articulating a Mobius strip of thought, folding two contradictory notions into a single idea: The offending action wasn\u2019t real and should be ignored, but any remedy would be real enough that we have to worry about the impending Nazification of our games and get very, very angry about it.<\/p>\n Video games are not just unreal playthings. The mediating interface of a game does not make abusive behavior between two or more real people any less abusive. Slurs are still slurs; unwanted sexual advances are still both unwanted and sexual. The addition of computer graphics<\/a>, a game controller, or an unfashionable headset does not render human interaction unreal<\/a>.<\/p>\n In VR specifically we confront another contradiction. The entire selling point of VR is its unparalleled simulation of reality. It presents a physical, embodied experience that surrounds you, fills your senses, and is tactile in ways unlike any other video game<\/a>.<\/p>\n This has been a holy grail of game design since the dawn of the industry: fooling a player\u2019s body into feeling like it\u2019s really in the game world<\/a>. We should not be surprised if a simulated sexual assault, then, feels real enough in all the ways that matter.<\/p>\n This point was addressed head-on in a discussion about designing safer VR games at the Game Connect Asia Pacific conference<\/a> in Melbourne in late October. One VR developer, Justine Colla<\/a>, cofounder of the Alta<\/a> VR studio, argued that the \u201cvisceral\u201d nature of immersion in VR can give abusers more power. \u201cUsers retain memories in VR<\/a> as if they experienced them in real life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This, she said, combines with an inability for players to physically push away offender to ensure that attackers have \u201call the power with none of the consequences.\u201d Assaults feel real, and the target has no way to fight back.<\/p>\n We cannot have it both ways, touting VR\u2019s realness while casting aspersions on people who complain of abuse in VR. Trying to do so would be laughable if the consequences weren\u2019t so dire. Virtual reality is virtually real.<\/p>\n Fortunately, QuiVr\u2019s developers are modeling good behavior for the whole industry. They wrote a pointed article that explains why they not only believe Belamire but take personal responsibility for what happened to her<\/a>. They also explain what steps they\u2019re taking to improve the experience. Foremost among them is a move they call a \u201cpower gesture:\u201d<\/p>\n putting your hands together, pulling both triggers, and pulling them apart as if you are creating a force field. No matter how you activate it, the effect is instantaneous and obvious \u2013 a ripple of force expands from you, dissolving any nearby player from view, at least from your perspective, and giving you a safety zone of personal space.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is a bold step in the right direction. It not only provides an instant reprieve for harassment victims but allows them to actually embody their strength through a gesture that feels empowering. It\u2019s an elegant solution, but this one solution may not work for every VR environment. We need something more: a change of mindset.<\/p>\n As games are being developed, quality assurance testers often try to \u201cbreak\u201d the game, finding ways that inventive players might unexpectedly use game systems<\/a> that the developers did not intend. Testers should include in this ongoing process efforts to identify ways players could harm each other. Developers should deal with them the same way they do other problems in the game\u2019s design. It\u2019s not \u201cjust a game\u201d anymore.<\/p>\n Katherine Cross<\/a>, Ph.D. Student in Sociology, City University of New York<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a><\/strong>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gropers are now finding a way to target women through the fully immersive headsets of virtual reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":220,"featured_media":92211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1807,23220,6050],"class_list":["post-110420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-online","tag-sexual-assault","tag-virtual-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Into the pit of online comments<\/h3>\n
What\u2019s virtual, and what\u2019s reality?<\/h3>\n
It\u2019s not serious, except when it is<\/h3>\n
Online experiences are real ones<\/h3>\n
Game developers respond<\/h3>\n
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