"It is taken as normal by far too many people.2
""Agreed it is, but definitely not to the extent that you are suggesting. I do not think it is anywhere near normal and I stay in one of those western countries.""

With all due respect, you are not a woman and might see what is going on as well a the people on the receiving end - can you see that? . And I am not suggesting it, I have my info directly from people it happens to, plus my own experiences. I am not talking about actual attacks (done by, IMO disturbed people) but incidents like these and there is a big group of men who do not understand the reactions to their behavior and way of talking, and who do not want to listen when told, either. They think people should react the way they expect them to react, and do not get through their heads that this is not happening.

"You see where I am going with this. I do not like games with murder and gross violence much, but I do not think that even if they are there people get to think that murder is normal. But an awful lot of people think that above is normal, up to and in some cases including rape. I fear this will reinforce this trend."
""Playing violent games does not make you a violent person. That is sensationalist journalism. Do you ever watch a film and start to act the way the characters are in that film? Or when you watch a tv show? Or read a book? Gaming is no different. Deranged people do terrible things, regardless of what they watch, read or play. It is them being deranged or unstable as a person that is the root cause.""

Agreed, as I said in other mails. I said that the difference between the violence and these mock rapes is - or could be - that while I do not think people will ever think murder is normal behavior from these game, they might think the mock rape is a joke, because this tendency is already there and could be worsened, as it has been worsened in recent years.

"And secondly, the Steubenville case and the others are in too recent memory for me to see this as any kind of joke. They raped and put pictures of the rape on the net, just as these people do with their virtual version. The exact same way. If this is a joke, it is an extremely sick joke."
""If this is a joke about the Steubenville case, then yes it is sick, however no where in any of the articles you have linked to is this game and the Steubenville case mentioned together. I do not see a connection.""

I do not get the connection form the that article, but I have told you that in those cases the rape was taken on photo and photos put online. In the mock rape the same happens. You may not consider the reason the same way I do, but you must be capable of seeing the similarity, especially if you see the links.

"I gather this has come as a surprise, that is the whole point of doing it, isn't it?"
""The whole point in hacking is to do something the games creator did not intend, effectively cheating. Quite often this takes the form of pranks, one hacker on a games server messing with lots of clueless people who can't do what the hacker is doing. Believe me, it can be a very funny experience.""

I believe you.

"As I said, I doubt people are prepared for that, and for the joke to be up-loaded on You tube. But I am more concerned with the people who do this, than the people it is done too, all virtually of course."
"" In a virtual electronic world like GTA 5 they should be prepared for far worse, it is after all a giant crime sandbox game. I honestly think you just dont understand the game itself and the sort of silly antics (planes being landed upside down on buildings, multi exotic car pile ups that would make a blues brothers film blush) all of these things are allowed and condoned in GTA 5. People go there to do daft things and commit pretend crimes in a place where the only repercussion is a mission failure or character respawn.""

I do understand what you say. I do.

But I wonder what you can understand what I say? That so much painful harassment is considered silly pranks or more or less harmless by the people doing it?

"Exactly like these virtual people do. The connection is impossible to miss, actually."
""Show me in the articles linked where the game GTA 5 and the Steubenville rape cases are mentioned together. They aren't. You are taking two completely unrelated stories on the internet and joining them up in an extremely tenuous way.""

I have explained to you repeatedly what is similar. If you do not want to see it, there is nothing more I can say other than you do now want to, because it is glaringly obvious.

"mild?? quite funny and humorous??"
"2Yes. As I mentioned before GTA 5 is a game all about doing crazy things. Hacking the game to force pole dancing player characters is actually really quite funny (this was actually one of the examples from the independent article). Gamers find many bugs and glitches funny, this does not make us crazed insane mass rapists.""

Sigh. I never said it did.