“You deserve to get raped”: Female gamer speaks out against rape, incest games and rampant misogyny in gamer community

During our campaign to get 3D pornographic rape and incest simulation game No Mercy off the Steam gaming platform, we heard from many female gamers distressed about the game. We have shared some of their stories already - gamers who were also survivors of sexual assault including incest. We have since discovered hundreds of other rape and incest-themed games on Steam, as well as a large number of child sexual abuse simulation games on Itch-io and other platforms. We’ve also learned that PayPal even facilitates and profits from their sale. As a result, our campaign against games which treat sexual violence as entertainment is ongoing.

Here’s Ashlea’s thoughts and experience as a female gamer.

Threatened with rape, told to kill myself, asked for intimate details about my sex life, subjected to abuse for being a woman…

My name is Ashlea and I am a 34 year old female Australian. I am an avid video gamer and play daily. At university as part of my degree I studied video games and wrote an essay on ‘Sexism and the role of females in video games’. Here I would like to not only share my experiences as a female gamer and the sexism and abuse I experience, but also share some sources that can help teach and educate on this subject and why it matters.

The news that a game like No Mercy existed was shocking to me. A realistic, graphic rape and incest simulator? The thought that people think this is OK is saddening. The idea that if something is fictional makes it ok is wrong and alarming because ideas and thoughts are real and matter. Thoughts and ideas can affect physical actions and even if they didn't, are our minds not real and important as well? Planted like a seed, thoughts and ideas can grow and influence.

Rape and incest are NEVER OK and creating a game to explore these themes normalises and desensitises these crimes. This matters for both men, women and children everywhere. If you are a decent human being, this should matter to you too. It's dangerous not to take a stand.

I used to play a lot of PVP (Player Versus Player) and MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games, but negative interactions with other players in various forms of sexism has seen me steer away from interacting in game with other players (in some games this is an essential part of game play) and playing in isolation, or not playing games at all.

When I do play games with other players, I rarely use voice chat to communicate because I know the majority of reactions to hearing my female voice will elicit a negative reaction. I have even had male friends relay my communications in games because I know they won't have the same problem. I don't believe my online username is masculine sounding, but I have often had players express surprise that I am a girl when I have spoken in voice chat. It is also often accompanied with a negative change in behaviour towards me after learning I am a female.

Whenever I have had sexism thrown at me, it has never been from a female-voiced player. These are some of the following examples I have experienced over the years. They are often paired with vulgar language.

Told to get back in the kitchen where I belong.
Told to make a sandwich for the speaker.
Told to perform sexual acts on them.
"I hope you get raped."
"You deserve to get raped."
Told our team lost because we had women on the team.
Been told to stop getting emotional when I match other players’ emotions with my own.
Mocked when I have told people off for saying bad/mean things and told I’m getting emotional.
I have actively heard/seen players cooperate and respond to me with no problems, but as soon as I have spoken, the behaviour has changed dangerously.
Told to shut up and that I don't know what I'm doing because I'm a girl.
Laughed at and told "that's what you get" when something bad happens to me in game.
Had players refuse to help me and ignore me when asking for help/co-operation.
Had men ask me intimate details about my sex life and my menstruation.
Had men tell me repeatedly they could teach me and “show me things” regarding sex in graphic detail.
Had an online friend say he wished we lived in the 1600s so he could accuse me of being a witch and I would be burned at the stake while he could get away with it. This occurred just last week.
Been told to kill myself. Repeatedly.
Had players say they wish my parents had had me aborted and various creative versions of this.
While playing with a male friend, a team mate asked if my friend and I were dating. The player proceeded to ignore me and speak to my male friend about me and tell him to "control his girl", "deal with me in the bedroom" and also remarked that I must be good at giving blow jobs for my friend to keep me around.

I play with female friends and I have noticed the difference in how they change when interacting in game with other players. By acting like a “egirl” and having a submissive feminine voice, men react differently to them and will do things for them in a game as long as they aren't opposing them in some way. If I speak with my regular voice, a strong or loud voice, or express opposition to male players (like giving a different opinion etc), the response is aggressive, condescending and abusive.

While my casual online friends who are male don't actively engage in sexism in games, they remain silent when they witness it and it is only my female friends who speak up and support me when hearing abuse and I also for them. It is tiring and isolating. I have also noticed that regardless of how you sound, or what you say or do (even if you are good at playing the game), if someone is sexist towards you, they will always find a way to put you down.

I also once considered becoming a video game streamer but decided against it because it would involve revealing what I look like physically, and I didn't want any abuse about my physical appearance.

I also think it is worth exploring how female characters in games are treated and the responses to them. When female soldiers were introduced into Battlefield 5 in 2018 there was a large negative response to them, including graphic and sexually violent in-game responses.

More recent examples can be found with backlash to the introduction of female leads in games such as Assassin's Creed: Shadows, GTA 6 and Horizon Forbidden West. To quickly summarise the reactions to female leads and characters in these games, the responses have varied from (but are not limited to) the characters not being beautiful or attractive enough, playing as a female character breaks the immersion of the game, playing as a woman is not accurate and that allowing a female lead to exist in the spotlight without a male is not profitable or popular.

Women in Games Argentina did a study and experiment in 2023 where they had successful male streamers use a voice filter to play as a female and experience what female gamers experience daily.

The study found that the win rate and kill statistics dropped dramatically for the male gamers once they used the voice filter and the male gamers experienced a range of abuse and frustration that female gamers experience constantly and they were unaware of. One gamer even commented “honestly, you don’t even want to play anymore. I can’t imagine experiencing this every day.” People’s reactions and experiences to the experiment have varied from the unsurprisingly sexist to the eye opening.

The global video game market is worth over $67 billion and to those who don’t play video games regularly I feel there is a lack of awareness as to the size and power that the world of video games has.

As the virtual online gaming environment has developed and been shaped by its makers and users, it has seen beliefs transfer with its users from the real world. I know that the topic of sexism and equality gets heard a lot and as soon as those words are heard, some stop listening because they believe it is being repeated unnecessarily, but it’s still being talked about because to those of us who experience it, it is still real and still matters.

And it does affect everyone, even if you can’t see a direct connection. It has been proven that the importance of these topics depend on the person perceiving it, and the lack of importance to people is often seen side by side with sexist views of women. My hope is that by sharing my experiences and meeting others with compassion, I can continue to learn and educate myself, and in turn help make the world a better place.

If you too are interested in learning more, here are some additional sources I have found enlightening: