roudly fighting the War on Emo!

From: "Aerosol Spray Can" <edited out>
Subject: Regarding "Rotten Apples" section.
To: <i_am_talisan@yahoo.com>

While I definitely think there's a place on the internet for profiling bad RSPs, and I do appreciate the effort to compile them for the amusement of your readers, holy shit some of the stuff you say is fucked up.

I'm sorry, but the rate at which you sling around the word "slut" is disturbing far more than it is funny. Nevermind that, you have statements like this in the middle of your "critique:"

"Oh boy, here we go. I'm getting really sick of all the sluts. What is it about hanging a "Please Rape Me" sign around your neck that seems to appeal to every desperate loser out there?"

"Please Rape Me?" Seriously? You don't think that's a little much? Kind of insensitive perhaps? Maybe a bit diminishing? I mean, how is trawling for cyberz, however obnoxious, even remotely similar to rape or to inviting rape?

"So, what? She's a sexually mature, extremely rape-able ninja? I'm also sick of every cookie-cutter whore who also thinks she's Xena. When did feminism come to include both "Rape Me" and "I Will Cut You"?"

Just in response to this statement... Sex-positive feminism is actually an important part of the movement - basically, that women are allowed to be sexual without being called sluts. A sex-positive warrior Xena would certainly be feminist. While I don't think that's what's going on in the RSP in question, I just thought I'd let you know.

I'm not trying to accuse you of being sexist or anything like that, but I do think that this is some seriously skeevy language that should be re-examined. The people writing these RSPs are giving you plenty of material to work with. Throwing around "sluts" and suggesting that looking for sex = wanting to be raped is just... really, really fucked up.

I just want to start by saying, so people don't get the wrong idea, that this person isn't a feminist. This is one of those girls who, after a puppy love crush in high school blew them off, decided to swear off all men forever after taking advantage of the biased rape laws to send him to prison for ten years. This is the sort of people who will fly off the handle at any mention of rape as long as it's a woman being violated, but who also laugh uproariously at any sort of "don't drop the soap in prison" joke.

It's funny, you see, 'cause it's happening to a man.

Real feminists have real issues. Pay disparities. Corporate glass ceilings. Honest-to-goodness sexual harassment. You know what's also a feminist issue? Objectification of women, which is widespread enough as it is without people like this helping it along. What this person calls "sex-positive feminism", I call "setting the real feminist movement back fifty years by being a pretend slut in a video game". There is a difference between "sexually comfortable" and "dealing with low self-esteem by knobbing anything with an appropriately-shaped protrusion."

Even if you don't care about the real world, there are plenty of feminist issues to keep you occupied in Azeroth. Unrealistic sexual dimorphism is a good one. Male character models look like hulking, hunchbacked brutes who've been freebasing creatine all their lives while the females all appear to be anorexic blood elves with different heads pasted on. Or, if you really want to get deep, why don't you go after Blizzard's complete inability to write any female characters who aren't a) one-dimensional bitches or b) bubbleheaded cockteases who cause major global disasters out of sheer stupidity. I feel bad for all the little Azerothian girls of all races for having no positive female role models to look up to.

I mean, what are the parents supposed to say? "Yes, dear, you can grow up to be just like Tyrande. Maybe some day you can also tease two guys and lead them on until one of them tries to blow up the world"? Get real.

In the meantime, for anyone else who would write letters like this, would you please take your misguided and entirely artificial moral outrage and perhaps point it at the pathetic emo-twats playing rape bait for a bunch of basement-dwelling teenage boys because their daddies didn't buy them a pony?

Thanks so much.

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