Mercedes Carrera’s #ImmoralSupport – Moral Panic: Pornography and Gaming

By Mercedes Carrera

If some of you have been watching my Twitter activities, you’ll see that I’m actively involved in the gaming community, and often the conversation includes the consumer revolt which utilizes the hashtag #GamerGate. While more information can be gathered at http://www.gamergate.me than I could possibly consolidate into an article, I’d like to highlight a few important points which, whether one is involved in gaming or not, affect the porn industry.

The adult industry has, for years, been a bastion of free speech and first amendment rights, no matter how controversial (see this article for an interesting analysis of the matter). While pornography might be taboo or simply distasteful to many, it is an accepted and sizable portion of web viewed content and commerce. It has been argued by those who oppose pornography that the viewing of such content has an adverse effect on society, particularly in regards to sexual violence. However, once studied it was concluded that not only is there no causal link between pornography and rape, in fact the opposite may be true. While this information may be irritating to the many so-called and self ordained moral bastions of society, it proves that pioneers of freedom of pornography have been correct all along, and now there is data to support their claims.

The gaming community has for years faced similar controversy and claims. Currently games are censored throughout the world, largely for violent content although sexual content is often frowned upon as well. Again though, we ask, what are the statistics supporting linking violent crime with violent games? Is it true that there’s a causal link between gaming and violence? Recent studies indicate not. In fact, the study cited found no noticeable causation at all between violent video games and real world violence. In addition, prior studies have found that violent video games may in fact reduce real world violence by creating a kind of psychological outlet for violent impulses. Sound familiar?

Recently, the gaming community has been accused of being filled with nothing but “misogynists”, and ironically the opponents of this supposedly “misogynistic, largely male gaming community” (not true, by the way: roughly half of all gamers are women) are the same type of radical feminists who have been opposing pornography for ages. These radicals are outliers even in the feminist community for their lack of inclusivity and hatred of those who are outside of their party line. Even negating data from studies previously cited (as they often do with pornography), these same groups are citing moral grounds, fear-mongering illusory threats to society and making unsubstantiated claims that video games in some way promote “male supremacy.” Ironically, the last time feminism took up a cause against society that has so little grounds was the suffrage movement’s pet project enforcing temperance upon society, ie. prohibition. And while third wave feminism subgroups may dislike pornography greatly, due to various laws and interpretations of rights and free speech, it’s not going away anytime soon.

However, we are seeing now that the same radical feminists that have had their eyes on pornography are now also eyeing gaming, and under similar moralistic judgmental grounds. Once again negating evidence to the contrary, the charge at this point is similar to that against porn: that games support the mythical “misogynistic, patriarchal” structures that many radical feminists like to imagine they live within to support their internalized victimhood pathologies. But are we seeing a real reaction to games, or little more than a group whose members secretly hate all men and would like to censor any activities which normal, typical males might enjoy and find fulfillment from? If the lens through which such groups are viewing gaming is from the vantage point of the hatred or fear of an entire gender, it’s important that such concerns voiced by said subgroup be understood from the context of fear and hatred and not treated as academically investigated truths.

Recently, we saw radical feminist groups react with extreme vitriol to a shirt senior scientist Dr. Matt Taylor was wearing on television the day the Rosetta mission landed Philae lander spacecraft on comet 67P. Fortunately, aside from the hysterical shrieking of harpy non-scientist “social justice warriors”, the internet community was largely appalled at the treatment Dr. Taylor received for his fashion choices.

Equity feminists such as Dr. Christina Sommers swiftly and academically rebutted the false rhetoric regarding shirts keeping women out of science. And as this article so justly points out, in regards to #ShirtGate we are seeing fascism cloaked as liberalism.

As a former engineer who worked on space-based satellite programs, it was saddening to see such an important day of scientific achievement overshadowed by the petty sex-negative radical feminism fashion police. Hip shirts with sexy pin-up girls never kept me out of STEM, and methinks that perhaps those not bright enough to cut it in the hard sciences are grasping for straws to explain away their own ineptitude. Ironically, the shirt worn by Dr. Taylor was designed especially for him, as a birthday present and for good luck, by a supportive female friend.

(In response to this, and due to a general interest in science and technology, the gaming community is now tentatively planning launching a satellite under the flag of gaming, freedom and lewdness. In fact, should the mission go, I shall be combining my two favorite interests- porn and space- by donating the proceeds of gaming theme porn to the mission. To find out more about this project go to www.spacechan.org.)

Be aware, fellow supporters of free speech and pornographers who live in full creative expression: should this societal creep continue, we may not only be seeing hip shirts censored on scientists, but many other forms of expression deemed “lewd” or “misogynistic” such as gaming and pornography under fire and restricted. We might be seeing the genesis of prohibition 2.0, and this time it won’t have the interesting cultural overtones of a speakeasy in downtown Chicago. Instead, it will creep into the fundamental freedoms of entertainment you enjoy in your own home; and for those of us in the adult industry, into our place of employment. It reminds us of this prolific quote, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross”. Yet this time it will come wrapped in liberalism and carrying mandates on post-modernism and moral panic.

About Mercedes Carrera:

A card carrying member of the Illuminaughty, Mercedes is often known as: High Priestess of Depravity, BasedMILF and Social Media Slut. She’s a card carrying engineer, gamer, pornographer, whore, good-time girl and all around irritant to anti-sex radical feminists. She enjoys chess and can drink absinthe like nobody’s business.

Follow Mercedes on Twitter.