You can get off without ever gettin’ on
As I scout and battle my way towards sexual purity there’s a very valid point that has revealed itself. And I promise this has something to do with gaming.
This angst and enmity that a very vocal part of the male gaming community feels is from the early instances of emotional pain. After you suffer through something during childhood or early adolescence you seek comfort. An example would be rejection from a female at school, maybe the loss of love from a parent or lack thereof. And when men (some, not all) seek out comfort and distraction from these feelings what better place than a willing female?
The porn stars don’t say no, the ladies on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition are always smiling for you. So then we get into this habit of seeing women only in this manner - as objects. Now let’s get an example to better visualize this transformation. And some of this is from experience so it is in no way a blanket statement for all males.
A young boy maybe third or fourth grade is very close and reliant on his friends. They hang out and always see each other and are introduced to a world where they can rule when their parents aren’t home. So what’s there to do? Play video games, and now your group of close friends have become your brothers in arms on any game you can name. Now that they’re his brothers, he trusts them as his comfort zone.
So fast-forward two years and maybe an older brother of his friend introduces them to pornography and where they can find it. Or maybe one of them finds a father’s stash and reports back to the squad about this supply cache. Now there’s a seed that he doesn’t fully understand, but now it’s in his mind that these images make him feel good. Fast-forward maybe another year or two and now he’s really interested in girls. Soon he finds himself swimming in images and videos, but his lust is beginning to reach its peak embers.
Societal norms and his friends dictate that he should at least attempt to court (haha) a girl to maybe achieve a status or try to understand what the hell his friends are always talking about. Maybe he reaches too far his first time or isn’t sure how to do it and gets rejected. Now this pain is there, it’ll heal and scar, but how it heals is basically already chosen. He will turn to the women who never say no, who will show him a good time and won’t reject him.
There are many paths from this point, but one that I experienced is the perpetuation of seeing the female gender as objects of desire. Now the brotherhood he shares encompasses the porn, the games, and the jokes. Now that this boy is a young man he has the money to buy his own games and decide what he wants to think of the female characters or even the female pro gamers that are beginning to rise. All too often with the example given he will be angry when there is a larger push for female equality in the industry which could endanger the characters that he loves to see in skimpy clothes. And he might bully the females who have a sense of self-confidence through anonymity while they livestream or compete in tournaments. And worst of all he could joke about or actually threaten them with rape.
Now the moral of the story is - when there’s almost a knee-jerk reaction to treating females with respect in gaming culture there is a barrier that might not be seen. The unfortunate problem is that some males who have gone through this have not developed enough self-awareness to pick up that their thoughts are the manifestation of the emotional pain from a past event, so they don’t see that there is a problem at all. I just hope one day these people can stop and see how futile their actions are and how backwards their thinking was. I don’t want them dead - just enlightened… or do I?
