Some gaming blogs seem to have written about this text-based browser game, and I shall do the same from my own perspective. I also have a bit of guilt to let go in this blog entry, so please bear with me.
It’s not much of a game, since it’s just a series of text links, but it does send a bit of a message. Of course, there were some liberties taken in exaggerating how it affects the female. Most of the time, women are expected to slap or pepper-spray whoever dares to sexually harass them. In here though, they seem turn tail and run back home to bawl their eyes out and eat chocolate fudge to recuperate from the emotional trauma of being felt up.
I was led to this really short game by an episode of Polaris’ Co-optional Podcast, wherein YouTube personality Jesse Cox talked about this game in some length. I decided to give it a try, then I talked about it with a lady friend (who shall remain nameless) over Facebook chat. She seems to support its message, and it got me thinking a bit about the topic of sexual harassment.
The aforementioned lady friend told me of her encounters with perverts in public settings, the most extreme of whom were exhibitionists who would flash their penises at her and frotteurs who would rub against her in the train. If it’s ever a consolation, at least she hasn’t gotten into a rape scenario. While she’s quite pretty, I do know that she doesn’t dress provocatively; I’ve never seen her in a skirt or in shorts before. Therefore, it was neither her state of dress nor her interest that attracted those miscreants.
Despite the hyperbole, it does show the ridiculousness of being harassed wherever you may go and whatever you may be wearing. The main point of contention with this game though is in how it portrays the woman as an overtly-weak creature who scampers home to lick her emotional wounds after each episode of harassment with every single ending. It makes use of satire and parody to get the sheer lunacy of reality across, albeit not as well as it should.
This goes on to other topics regarding sexism and patriarchal ways of thinking, like victim-blaming, slut-shaming, and so on. Plenty seem to be against feminism and how its female adherents seem to be bossy bitches who shout about equality and yet raise the “ladies first” card when it’s convenient, which irks quite a number of men. My own opinions on the matter are like that of George R.R. Martin and how he writes female characters
On that note, I’d like to end this with what I think about chivalry and the lone gentleman.
Chivalry died because we all killed it, men and women alike. The gentleman was curb-stomped by the notion of “nice guys finish last”.
