OT: Words fail me

[AMF]

Hunpecked said:
The "pimp" makes "money" by playing certain cards to "abuse", "exploit", and "addict" certain game objects called "women". When the game is over, however, the player (or "pimp") has no more of the real-world commodity we call "money" than he (or she) started with (and probably less, having paid some to the game's manufacturer), he doesn't drive a real-world "pimpmobile" (unless he already had one), and he hasn't done the slightest microscopic iota of harm to any real-world creatures we call "women".

Let me quote that last one again. You claim that "he hasn't done the slightest microscopic iota of harm to any real-world creatures we call "women". "

If we are engendering, even in the slightest, a generation of boys who treat women like "objects" then don't you think that we are doing at least some damage to "the objects we call women"?

I mean, shoot man, women are already treated like objects whose only real worth is physical in almost every magazine ad, movie, and other form of media. Now we sound like we're actually going to take that one step further and tell young boys that women are of even *more* value if they are your prostitutes?

Don't think that's the world we live in? Don't think the media is like that? Try this thought experiment: go see a movie. Take an action movie. Look at the genders involved and how they react and, more importanly, how YOU react to them.

Now, take that EXACT same movie and replay it, in your head, but with the genders reversed. And see how you react to that. Odds are, if you're honest with yourself, you'll react very differently to each of these movies. Why? Think about it. And think about how it affects the opposite gender, growing up with the roles as they are.

I repeat: I am *not* sure if the game in question is problematic. But I am pretty sure that there must exist *some* line of common decency, which, if we cross it as a society, there is some measure of injury. To say otherwise is to imply in part that we as humans develop completely free from any social norms or pressures that might mould who we are later in life. But, that is patently ridiculous. if I had grown up in different circumstances, then surely I'd be a very different person than I am? I can tell you for sure that if I hadn't gotten the boxed D&D game when I was fifteen, I'd be very different than I am today.

Who's to say what I would be like if, instead of D&D I got this "Pimp out women" game when I was fifteen?

No one can ever say (except perhaps the big guy upstairs). But I am not willing to say that such influences make NO difference to a person's attitudes in life and towards women.