-Who doesn’t like jumping to their death while wearing a latex body suit? Feministe brings us this handy write-up of indie PC game “Mighty Jill Off,” in which a queen a queen’s servant in BDSM gear has to leap back up to power, avoiding painful obstacles. The message: gaming’s inherent masochism. “Hemmed in by the demands of an almost arbitrary system of constraints and rules, you willingly submit in search of an elusive and transitory experience of ‘fun.’” See, gamers, we’re all subs at heart.
-Personally, I’ll be bringing voluntary pain upon myself in the coming days by heading up the Women in Games International’s annual fund raiser. In all seriousness, I’m really psyched to be getting off my butt and actually working with an awesome organization like WIGI–instead of just writing about it. Now who’d like to hand over some cash? Huh? Huh?
-And in unrelated, though downright impressive news, Wonderland reports that there are now more than 100 virtual worlds specifically oriented at players under the age of eighteen. That’s a lot of Club Penguins, people. Uncomfortable as it may, it’s also all the more reason for researchers to head into those world and observe first hand whether they really are as sexually “safe” as they’re supposed to be. Also, it’s an excuse to player Connect Four with nine-year-olds.
Happy Weekend!
Bonnie Ruberg is a sex, technology, and video games journalist who contributes regularly to publications like The Economist, Forbes, and The Village Voice. By day she's also a comparative literature PhD student at UC Berkeley, where she studies French, English, gender, sexuality, surrealism and perversion. You can reach her at [her first name and last name, all one big word] AT gmail DOT com.
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:14 am
I sometimes wonder if those who research if something really is save for underaged persons are not pedofiles themselfs, I mean searching for kiddy porn would be a great job for a pedofile. The only bad thing for him is that he has to make sure it gets erased but atleast he had seen it ^^.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:19 am
That was a great game. I liked how the BDSM element was not there to titilate and had a sense of humour about it. The ending was spot on.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I hear your concern, Soulofaqua. Of course, that kind of research needs to be done tastefully and with the goal of overall safety in mind. However, I think we also have to be careful not to label people who want to understand the sexuality of children as pedophiles. Just because it’s a field of study that’s uncomfortable to talk about doesn’t mean it’s tied to sexual attraction in researchers.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Er, Jill is the Queen’s sub/servant.
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:22 am
Thanks, Dan. As mentioned it’s a PC game, and I’m a Mac user, so I’m working on hearsay :). Correction made!