How Penny Arcade Made It Worse

[theotherbaldwin]

Originally posted as a comment by me at metafilter:

)TRIGGER WARNING for discussions of rape, requoting of rape humor, and rape survivor shaming)

Comments

[namiko]

Well, they both posted what is probably the best you're going to get out of them: a plea to their fanbase to knock off the harassment.

[theotherbaldwin]

Man, about time. Good on them, then.

[sevoo]

wow, and wow. I have nothing substantive to add; just that this is full of awesome.

[theotherbaldwin]

Thank you.

If you don't mind, may I ask how you found this entry?

[sevoo]

I saw your comment on the Shakesville open thread, and you mentioned the original, so I googled you & found this lj via midspark.net Which sounds like a lot more work than it was. :)

Mostly I wanted to be able to point people to what you wrote & didn't know how to link to a particular Shakesville comment instead of the whole page.

[theotherbaldwin]

Wow, okay, well, thank you for taking so much time to find this entry. I didn't mean to be so much trouble. ^_^;;

Feel free to link this or previous entries wherever. If you want to stick around, I hope I'm interesting enough! I'm glad my words were compelling.

[fatbottomfemme]

Thank you for speaking out. I'm a survivor of another sort (workplace shooting), and I relate to a lot of what rape survivors experience when it comes to being triggered. What you said about wanting the content to be a CHOICE is spot-on for what I experience. When there's a campus shooting in the news, I'm pretty anxious for the rest of the day, and prone to anxiety attacks. Especially because these are things that office co-workers want to talk about, and my trauma happened AT THE OFFICE. (Not the office/employer I'm currently with, mind, but that doesn't seem to matter.) And ya know, I did my therapy. I did my EMDR. Most of the time, I'm fine. But largely that is due to filtering the information I receive. I only read/watch the news when I feel like I can handle it. My partner tries to alert me when I might want to avoid the news by saying, "Something upsetting happened in the news today, do you want me to tell you what it was?" 98% of the time, I say yes. But the important factor for me is that I was ASKED, and I said

[theotherbaldwin]

It was bridgeportcat's patient explanation to me of why using a cut tag on LJ keeps that choice in place that helped me fully understand the mechanisms of choice and agency.

Re: A view from the other side

[theotherbaldwin]

I had a very long response here that covered why the intial comic wasn't the issue so much as the responses afterwards. I'm pretty sure you got here from the Debacle timeline, so the the "Shawn Struck" link has my article on the matter, the entry in this journal labeled "This is Why I Speak Out" covers some of the more cultural stuff, and this entry breaks down all the antagonism Gabe has been engaging thing in making things worse. There are ton more places all around the internet that have also handled this, and honestly, judging by what you've said on your twitter account, it sounds like your mind is made up on Penny Arcade, its response, and mocking of survivors and others. That's fine-- you are making it pretty clear that you don't think they behaved badly, and I don't think I'm going to change your mind

[onelittlesleep]

I followed link to link to link to a well-spoken comment of your's elsewhere and just wanted to say you are lovely. That's all. It's just...nice to know there are people out there like you.