Fox News Bites @ MindSay 
censor this, assholes
The latest video gaming controversy has been over Mass Effect, which is by far my favorite Xbox360 game in the entire gaming world. Apparently Fox News thinks that Mass Effect features full frontal digital nudity, and that it is unsafe for adolescents to view. They had a segment about it, during which Geoff Keighley and some female psychologist who wrote a book "discussed" the issue. Neither the psychologist nor the female reporter had even played the game, and said the sex scene was "degrading" to women, and presented them as an object, and that all adolescent boys are definitely going to opt to see the sex scene. The following panel of dimwits and fucktards discussed how little kids could play daddy's video game after school, and this was debilitating to Our American Families.
First off, censorship in this country is ridiculous and offensive in itself. My least favorite form of censorship is requiring women to have a certain amount of clothes, in fear of "objectifying" or "sexualizing" girls as they are brought up in our society. This act in itself perpetuates the sexualization of women, telling young girls that certain parts of their bodies aren't okay to show in public, parts that are natural and not necessarily genitalia, i.e. shoulders, stomachs, backs, thighs, et cetera. The message it gives is that these parts are too sexual to display, and continues to jade many women with the concept that their only power is sexually over men. Sexuality and bodies are natural. Everyone has shoulders, everyone has a stomach, everyone has backs and thighs. Where is the rule where women's shoulders are rated as more dangerous if shown than men's shoulders? Where is the logic in this double standard, in teaching young children that women's bodies are less okay than men's bodies?
Now, onto the actual game content. As a devil's advocate, it is true that Mass Effect shows a sex scene, and for sensitized children who do not know about sex or do not understand what it is, it is incredibly damaging to see intimacy before learning about what it means or what it is for from a reputable source (hopefully their parents). However, that is all I can say from a devil's advocate standpoint, since, as Geoff Keighley made quite clear, there isn't just an option that asks you if you want to have sex. The romantic relationship a character can develop with one of three amazing AIs is something you must actively work towards, by regularly communicating with that character, and choosing responses that the character values. Not only that, but it takes almost the entirety of the game to develop the relationship to a sexual level. After about 29 hours of the 30+ hour game, a two minute sex scene is available, IF you have up to that point worked towards creating a relationship with that character. The sex scene shows side-boob and a butt, which last I checked was not full frontal nudity, digital or otherwise. (My dad joked, "'Digital' nudity? What's that, naked fingers?") As far as degrading women, you can actually play Mass Effect as either a man or a woman, so why aren't they complaining about degrading men while your female character romances the male AI?
Microsoft has since released a statement about their family settings options, which does include the ability to bar your child's accounts from playing games of a certain rating, as well as password protect the adult accounts on the console. Oh yeah. Didn't you guys know? M is the rating on Mass Effect. M means 17 years of age or older. So definitely we have young adolescent boys coming into game stores and purchasing Mass Effect with their fake IDs, and definitely the game is marketed to these same adolescent boys. That's why the suggested age is older than the marketed demographic. Geeze, those guys at Bioware are genius!
EA games, which has purchased Bioware, has written a letter to Fox News, imploring them to correct their plainly false statements. EA says that not only is it unfair to portray a game so falsely on national television, but game ratings work as well, if not better than television ratings, and Fox itself features shows with higher sexual content at a lower rating than that of Mass Effect.
All of the gaming biases aside, I was an editor for a newspaper at college, and I was a reporter before that, and I believe I can say with experience that this is simply bad journalism. None of the people reporting on this segment had even played the game. None of them had any experience with the things they were talking about. I would think that before airing a segment about a particular topic, the journalists should research the topic, and know what they were dealing with, before proclaiming false statements, which is slander, and typically a no-no. Out of ignorance or simply eagerness to jump on the GTA San Andreas' Hot Coffee bandwagon, this feature was not ready to be publicized, and obviously so to anyone who has experienced the true nature of the sexual content of Mass Effect. If Fox News had any credibility, some just went down the drain.
Also, why did the majority of the stupid reporters and speakers have to be women? Especially this psychologist, who is supposed to be promoting feminism by saying that Mass Effect "degrades" women. Why must women and feminists constantly give others reasons to believe that they are full of shit? Smarten up, earn your gender a good review for once.
First off, censorship in this country is ridiculous and offensive in itself. My least favorite form of censorship is requiring women to have a certain amount of clothes, in fear of "objectifying" or "sexualizing" girls as they are brought up in our society. This act in itself perpetuates the sexualization of women, telling young girls that certain parts of their bodies aren't okay to show in public, parts that are natural and not necessarily genitalia, i.e. shoulders, stomachs, backs, thighs, et cetera. The message it gives is that these parts are too sexual to display, and continues to jade many women with the concept that their only power is sexually over men. Sexuality and bodies are natural. Everyone has shoulders, everyone has a stomach, everyone has backs and thighs. Where is the rule where women's shoulders are rated as more dangerous if shown than men's shoulders? Where is the logic in this double standard, in teaching young children that women's bodies are less okay than men's bodies?
Now, onto the actual game content. As a devil's advocate, it is true that Mass Effect shows a sex scene, and for sensitized children who do not know about sex or do not understand what it is, it is incredibly damaging to see intimacy before learning about what it means or what it is for from a reputable source (hopefully their parents). However, that is all I can say from a devil's advocate standpoint, since, as Geoff Keighley made quite clear, there isn't just an option that asks you if you want to have sex. The romantic relationship a character can develop with one of three amazing AIs is something you must actively work towards, by regularly communicating with that character, and choosing responses that the character values. Not only that, but it takes almost the entirety of the game to develop the relationship to a sexual level. After about 29 hours of the 30+ hour game, a two minute sex scene is available, IF you have up to that point worked towards creating a relationship with that character. The sex scene shows side-boob and a butt, which last I checked was not full frontal nudity, digital or otherwise. (My dad joked, "'Digital' nudity? What's that, naked fingers?") As far as degrading women, you can actually play Mass Effect as either a man or a woman, so why aren't they complaining about degrading men while your female character romances the male AI?
Microsoft has since released a statement about their family settings options, which does include the ability to bar your child's accounts from playing games of a certain rating, as well as password protect the adult accounts on the console. Oh yeah. Didn't you guys know? M is the rating on Mass Effect. M means 17 years of age or older. So definitely we have young adolescent boys coming into game stores and purchasing Mass Effect with their fake IDs, and definitely the game is marketed to these same adolescent boys. That's why the suggested age is older than the marketed demographic. Geeze, those guys at Bioware are genius!
EA games, which has purchased Bioware, has written a letter to Fox News, imploring them to correct their plainly false statements. EA says that not only is it unfair to portray a game so falsely on national television, but game ratings work as well, if not better than television ratings, and Fox itself features shows with higher sexual content at a lower rating than that of Mass Effect.
All of the gaming biases aside, I was an editor for a newspaper at college, and I was a reporter before that, and I believe I can say with experience that this is simply bad journalism. None of the people reporting on this segment had even played the game. None of them had any experience with the things they were talking about. I would think that before airing a segment about a particular topic, the journalists should research the topic, and know what they were dealing with, before proclaiming false statements, which is slander, and typically a no-no. Out of ignorance or simply eagerness to jump on the GTA San Andreas' Hot Coffee bandwagon, this feature was not ready to be publicized, and obviously so to anyone who has experienced the true nature of the sexual content of Mass Effect. If Fox News had any credibility, some just went down the drain.
Also, why did the majority of the stupid reporters and speakers have to be women? Especially this psychologist, who is supposed to be promoting feminism by saying that Mass Effect "degrades" women. Why must women and feminists constantly give others reasons to believe that they are full of shit? Smarten up, earn your gender a good review for once.
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