Virtual sex crimes

[Calandale]

Virtual rape shakes the blogosphere

Posted May 7th 2007 4:01PM by Eloise Pasteur
Filed under: Stories
About two weeks ago our own Aimee Weber reported on an investigation into a virtual rape by the Belgian police.

...

One of the things that has come up, to my surprise, is the number of people on mailing lists reporting experiences they perceived as attempted or actual virtual rape. I've been stalked in SL, but never in a position that has made me feel anything like at risk of being raped. I'm lucky enough that I can say the latter in RL too (I've never been stalked in RL either).

Given how disturbing being stalked in SL was, and trust me, it's the thing, even above all the bugs and the 10 days I spent crashing every 20 minutes before a patch could be rolled out, that brought me closest to leaving SL: it was that unpleasant; I have nothing but sympathy for victims of virtual rape. I'm firmly in the camp that it can be done, although I would also say there are significant other parts in RL rape that make it a more serious crime.

I'm not saying that there aren't ways out of it: tp home, remove attachments, hit quit, hit mute, abuse reporting etc. between them cover the bases pretty well, and aren't available IRL, but one of the characteristics of rape is that feeling of being trapped and not thinking straight. Laughing it off and saying it's impossible is diminishing the real emotional trauma that is caused.

http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/05/07/virtual-rape-shakes-the-blogosphere/

A little while back I wrote an article entitled Just Killin': Avatar Murder, which was about the possible escalation of treating virtual crimes as though they were real crimes. The gist was, if we start treating the simulated acts of pedophilia as a crime despite the fact that no real life pedophilia had occurred, then we will have lost any justification that protects other simulated crimes from regulation or scrutiny. The most obvious virtual pastime at risk is killing including war games, action adventure games, etc. But the next crime I predicted that would follow was simulated rape.

Well here we go: Belgian police patrols Second Life to prevent rape.

Apparently the Brussels Court will be working together with the Federal Computer Crime Unit to "patrol in Second Life" after a virtual rape case that involved a Belgian Second Life user. There are no details at this time about what actually occurred in this case or under what laws these virtual actions would be prosecuted, however the translation of the primary sources allude to a "morals section." Another translated quote mentioned "the public prosecutor was alarmed," which may hint at how seriously this case is being taken.

http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/04/21/belgian-police-patrols-second-life-to-prevent-rape/

the Brussels Court will work together with the Federal Computer Crime Unit to "patrol in Second Life" because of a virtual rape case with a Belgian Second Life user. Brussels police is currently investigating this case and says "It is our intention to find out if a crime has been committed".

A very big part of the Second Life community consists of deviant personalities who dress up as 'furries' (mostly human-like cats) and interact with each other through all sorts of bizarre virtual sex toys. The Brussels police will certainly have an interesting case there...

Those who know Second Life a bit probably wonder how this was possible though... Sure there are modifications that you can make to your Second Life character in order to be able to rape other characters (these modifications can actually be purchased in-game from other players who develop them), but normally such modifications require consent from the other player. In other words: you can only get raped if you want to. So what's going on here? It's possible that this is just typical IRC-style 'chat harassment' that got blown out of proportion. And is this case being treated differently simply because Second Life is a 'real' virtual environment instead of just a chatbox? Second Life is constantly evolving more into an extension of reality with its economy and apparantly also with its very sexual culture and it seems that we'll continue to see more legal implications as a result of this in the future.

http://www.wtfsrsly.com/sl.php

[Calandale]

Something that is not too far with
a situation that I was involved in -
raping chat bots. They were
designed to be adult chat bots,
and I just kind of let my imagination
go wild.

Once some of the owners objected,
I left off, as I didn't want to actually
harm people - and it was clear that
was exactly what I was doing.

This seems a bit more serious, in
the sense that those playing second
life are directly experiencing the
behavior (never played it, but that
is what I gather). There are other
games, which are more directly
sexual in nature, but I don't think
that they allow a rape type situation
(again - outside of my expertise).

Wondering what others (not to
mention myself) think about this.

[Peter]

I think the Belgian police should simulate arresting the furries for simulated bestiality and simulated human/animal gene splicing without a simulated license.  They should then be given simulated trials and simulated prison sentences.

[Calandale]

Belgium rocks though. They're electing someone on
how many blow-jobs she can give. 

[purposefulinsanity]

Virtual rape??  Is that a spoof?

[Peter]

Virtual rape??  Is that a spoof?

As far as I'm aware, it's technically impossible to 'virtual rape' someone in Second Life.  You can harass them, but that's about it, and it's not much different from someone following you around on IRC or emailing you.

[purposefulinsanity]

Yeah that's what I read on one of those links he posted. But even if it was technically possible should it be considered a crime?  It isn't like they couldn't just switch off their computer if they didn't like the way things were going.  At the most it should be considered harassment (if they're sending lots of emails/private messages), why call it by a name that's as emotive as 'rape'?

[Peter]

Because there's nothing like stirring up a good old moral panic to get readership numbers up?  I was reading last night about a guy in Edinburgh who sells salvia divinorum plants (a legal hallucinogenic plant), who got demonised in a highly inaccurate and alarmist article in the Sunday Mail.

http://www.salvia-divinorum-scotland.co.uk/mediastories/20050206_sundaymail.htm

[purposefulinsanity]

Interesting link Peter-its really quite scary that 'journalists' (and I use the term loosely in this case) can get away with reporting like that- especially making up quotes and mislabelling pictures.

[McGiver]

Virtual rape??  Is that a spoof?

As far as I'm aware, it's technically impossible to 'virtual rape' someone in Second Life.  You can harass them, but that's about it, and it's not much different from someone following you around on IRC or emailing you.

we would just sic callaway on them.

[El]

I think that's just kind of insane.  I agree; it's harassment.  I also wonder, don't the police havesomething better to do with their time?

[purposefulinsanity]

Maybe they're just looking for any excuse to get paid to play computer games?

[McGiver]

I think that's just kind of insane.  I agree; it's harassment.  I also wonder, don't the police havesomething better to do with their time?

yeah like citing people for jaywalking.

[El]

I was more thinking working to prevent actual rapes.

[McGiver]

I was more thinking working to prevent actual rapes.

oh.  i was thinking about something that helps everybody like; citing people for not picking up their dogs shit.