7 ms·

The game has no major female characters who aren't hookers. No arguing that LSL has its place in gaming history, but it doesn't have a place in a future that i

• andrewfelix 15y ago
  I have to agree with this. A lot of people are probably remembering the game through rose coloured glasses. It was a great game when we were all kids and got excited at the prospect of seeing a nipple. It's a little disappointing to see immature misogynistic entertainment getting so many upvotes on HN.
  • sgt 15y ago
    Oh my, you guys are boring.
    • tbsdy 15y ago
      I know. Respect for women is SUCH a dull way to live your life.
      • tbsdy 15y ago
        Yeah, downvote me. Clearly it was sarcasm.
        • reitzensteinm 15y ago
          Actually, I think we got that. In general, if you're going to be snarky here, you'd better be witty or intelligent about it. Or, you know, funny.
          • tbsdy 15y ago
            Noted!
  • Tichy 15y ago
    Seeing a nipple doesn't excite you anymore? Then you are probably dead. I am not for misogynistic entertainment, though. But sexual attraction exists in the real world, we can not just make it go away by pretending that we don't see it.
    • andrewfelix 15y ago
      Misogyny and sexual attraction are not mutually exclusive. For example Mass Effect tackles the issue of sexual attraction relatively tastefully.
• shashashasha 15y ago
  I'm sorry you're getting downvoted. I think this comment adds to the conversation quite a bit, and this is actually the conversation I was expecting to see when I came to check out the comments. It's crazy to see this so recently after Geeklist, Sqoot, etc. Please, downvoters, read this essay: http://notrichyet.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/whats-the-big-deal/ http://notrichyet.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/whats-the-big-dea...
  • kmm 15y ago
    I'm not able to downvote so I didn't, but what if I'm not interested in a discussion about sexism in tech again. Most certainly not one that started of on the wrong foot, as the LSL games aren't sexist, at least not against women.
• tbsdy 15y ago
  I have to agree with i386. There's a pretty disturbing screenshot where Larry says that "this is the hooker's seedy bedroom. The bed's a mess, so is the hooker!". http://www.replaygamesinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/tumblr_lik4z2KBjJ1qambyno1_400.jpg http://www.replaygamesinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/tum...
  • dagw 15y ago
    Which bit to you find disturbing? The fact that the game acknowledges the existence of hookers, the fact that the game draws attention to the fact that many hookers work out of pretty seedy bedrooms or the fact that the game draws attention that many hookers end up looking less than their best. Would you have preferred "this is the hooker's fabulous bedroom. The bed's perfectly clean, so is the hooker!"
    • tbsdy 15y ago
      Try not to use begging the question as an argument. But what makes me sad is the second part. Because it's in a game, and it's done to be funny. I'm not shocked by the existence of hookers. I should be, but I'm desensitized.
      • crystalis 15y ago
        Oh yeah he asserted that question so hard. unf.
        • deleted 15y ago
          [deleted]
      • toyg 15y ago
        Oh come on, how could you ever be shocked by what is commonly known as "the oldest profession"? I'm not saying it's a nice job, but neither it is fixing sewage pipes. You should be shocked that pimps exist, maybe, but then again their role is quite natural and I'm sure some of them are quite the professional. The massive amount of abuse surrounding the "industry" is a problem, but it's hardly the only industry where management can abuse the workforce.
• guelo 15y ago
  Extreme violence and gore? No problem! Consensual sex between adults? Disgusting!
  • potatolicious 15y ago
    I don't see where he claimed extreme violence and gore is okay. Ridiculous straw man is ridiculous.
    • guelo 15y ago
      I just assumed he's not on a crusade against the entire current gaming industry.
      • edanm 15y ago
        If the op isn't, does it matter? Not actively fighting something is not the same as agreeing to it. Does the fact that the op doesn't fight for human rights in Africa make them unable to fight for anything else?
        • deleted 15y ago
          [deleted]
    • tmh88j 15y ago
      I don't think he was referencing this game, just society's perception of sex vs violence. Does anyone remember hot coffee from GTA? In a game full of gangs, drugs, stealing and killing the media became upset because of virtual sex.
      • danso 15y ago
        That'snot accurate, there was plenty of coverage since the game's inception that complained about its violent content.
• mkramlich 15y ago
  In my future, sex is OK. Jokes are OK. Playfulness is OK. And hookers probably still exist, regardless of whether they should or not. Also, I think humans are pretty much hard-wired to objectify sexual interests. And there are places and situations where it's okay to express it and act on it, and places where it is less so. But not it's some black-or-white thing where it's always bad or always good. Is it OK in computer games? Heck yes. Should it be in all games? Probably not. Is the world going to end if it's in just one game, or a small subset? Heck no.
  • kabuks 15y ago
    I like your version of the future, and would love to live in it. However in my present, every ninety seconds, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. Tens of thousands of girls and women are trafficked for sex, and one out of 3 women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Our society is fucked up around sex. It's not LSL's fault, but it certainly isn't helping. It pisses me off that someone is trying to raise 500 thousand dollars to put LSL on an iphone. Is it their right? Yes. But it pisses me off.
    • Lazare 15y ago
      I'm actually a little confused. You list some very negative things, which I strongly deplore, and then you say it "isn't LSL's fault, but it certainly isn't helping". Those are, indeed, very negative things! But... A lot of things can be described as not being at fault, but not helping reduce the number sexual assaults in America. Apple pie. The Toyota corporation. Cows. Vegetarians. The colour blue. If LSL really isn't at fault, as you say, then why is it problematic that it isn't helping? Just because it has sexual content? I don't understand. Doesn't your criticism apply to, well...almost everything in life? (But especially almost every PG or higher rates movie and a huge number of television shows? Most of which have vastly higher budgets?) (There's also, of course, the question of whether this is even a useful avenue of attack. There is some - confusing and contradictory, admittedly - evidence that violent games reduce violent crime, and pornography reduces sexual assaults. We have a lot of experience trying to repress basic human nature, and we have very little evidence that it ever works.) Edit @rogerbruan: I've certainly been accused of being overly literal before. :) Still... The original comment said that LSL isn't at fault. You're saying that it is a part of problem. I'm not sure how to square those two ideas. Either LSL fosters sexism, rape culture, and sexual assaults, or it doesn't. If it does, then it's at least partly at fault for these ills, and if it's not, then it's not bad for society, right? Still, I think you're broadly right: The original commenter was trying to blame LSL, and just phrased it oddly.
• bishnu 15y ago
  I find it quite disturbing that so many HN posters think sex with a prostitute is consensual.
  • mkramlich 15y ago
    If a woman chooses to be a prostitute, and chooses to engage with a "John", then heck yes it's consensual. That's what that word means. And is there plenty of evidence that some women choose to be prostitutes (no gun pointed to their head, they have other employment options, etc.)? Heck yes. Not even controversial. Are some women forced to do it? Yes, of course. So in those cases it is not consensual. If it's not consensual in one case it does not mean it's not consensual in all cases.
    • bishnu 15y ago
      So prostitution is consensual, except when it's not. I would call that not consensual.
      • jaredsohn 15y ago
        You have a funny sense of logic then. Isn't it possible to be consensual in some cases and not in others? If I said "In some cases it is legal to download a video and in some cases it is not", would you call that "never legal to download a video"? The fact that I can't legally download a movie currently in the theater shouldn't affect me from legally downloading a video licensed under a creative commons license.
    • DanBC 15y ago
      People trafficking is a huge business with profits for organised crime of over $30billion. Significant numbers of women are forced into sex work in countries across the world. (http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/issues_doc/labour/Forced_labour/HUMAN_TRAFFICKING_-_THE_FACTS_-_final.pdf http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/issues_doc/labour/Forced...) Even if the person is not trafficked there are consent issues around addiction: Can a person addicted to a substance make a free informed choice? Here's some research showing that many people involved in prostitution are also drug users. (While this research isn't great it also references a lot of earlier research) (http://myweb.dal.ca/mgoodyea/Documents/Health%20and%20wellbeing/Prostitution,%20drug%20use,%20and%20coping%20Young%20J%20Drug%20Iss%202000%2030(4)%20789-800.pdf http://myweb.dal.ca/mgoodyea/Documents/Health%20and%20wellbe...) In theory there's nothing wrong with someone buying or selling sex. In practice there are often horrible problems.
• VMG 15y ago
  There is pretty good evidence that people are able to differentiate fiction from reality. If we apply the idea that game worlds should be moral, what about GTA?
  • rytis 15y ago
    Every now and then things like this happen though: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/02/teenager-daniel-bartlam-jailed-murder http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/02/teenager-daniel-bar... Ban Coronation Street? Perhaps not. But we can't really say that media is not influencing our behaviour...
    • icebraining 15y ago
      That influence is only bad if he wouldn't have killed his mother if he hadn't played the game. Otherwise, it just influenced the means, which is more or less irrelevant.
    • toyg 15y ago
      This was a 14-year-old. Any modern LSL game would be rated 18+. I'm not saying media influence isn't real (heck, I don't think i've ever wanted a big house until I watched Desperate Housewives), but that it can and should be managed to a degree.
• gaius 15y ago
  Just as most FPS games have no male characters who aren't steroid-addled loons and/or cannon fodder. It's only a game. Lighten up!
  • potatolicious 15y ago
    > "Lighten up!" Do we remember the last time that exact phrase came up as a topic on HN?
    • res0nat0r 15y ago
      The difference is this is a cartoon computer game, not the workplace.
      • potatolicious 15y ago
        The line between media and real life is never really that wide. FWIW, I'm not sure how to feel about this - it seems juvenile and somewhat insensitive, but I have no desire to censor it. But as a racial minority I'll say that media bleeds into real life plenty often - even in the most liberal, diverse parts of this country I'm either supposed to A) beat someone up with mad kung fu or B) be really good at math and talk nerdy. There's a compounding and cyclical effect in media portrayals of anything - it begets more skewed perceptions which begets more skewed portrayals. Media and real life reinforce each other - fiction is not consequence-free. It's easy to sit back and ask everyone to just take the joke in good humor - until you end up on the wrong end of it. I'm not a woman, nor a sex worker, nor someone resembling Larry, but I've seen enough of these issues to know that when complaints like these arise, there's most often a valid rhyme and reason behind it.
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
• thetron 15y ago
  I don't think 'Fawn' (the woman whom Larry marries and who later ties him to the bed and robs him) is a hooker. I would consider her a major female character. If LSL serves only to objectify women, then doesn't Grand Theft Auto serve only to glorify crime? I always felt like these games were less about the women, and more about the comedy, stupidity and repulsiveness of the main character.
• noneTheHacker 15y ago
  Why can't something exist that deviates from what society deems as the social norm? Do you feel that other forms of art and entertainment should also not objectify women? Do you feel porn should be banned? I personally feel that there should be a clear line between real life and art/entertainment. While I completely agree that we should not objectify women in real life, I feel that an artist or an entertainer should have the liberties to create any imaginary world they want.
• joelmichael 15y ago
  Of the four main female characters, there is only one prostitute. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leisure_Suit_Larry_in_the_Land_of_the_Lounge_Lizards#Plot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leisure_Suit_Larry_in_the_Land_...
• terhechte 15y ago
  We won't get rid of hookers until we change or get rid of capitalism, which is the major cause for self-inflicted objectification in our society.
  • spindritf 15y ago
    > We won't get rid of hookers until we change or get rid of capitalism While that's true, prostitution was just fine in every other system. Maybe if we could get rid of scarcity of resources, there would be nothing to trade for sex. But that still leaves us with all kinds of psychological reasons, so maybe if we could get rid of human nature...
    • terhechte 15y ago
      Here's a study where scientist introduced a group of monkeys to the concept of money, and soon after they understood it, the monkeys themselves developed prostitution: http://www.zmescience.com/research/how-scientists-tught-monkeys-the-concept-of-money-not-long-after-the-first-prostitute-monkey-appeared/ http://www.zmescience.com/research/how-scientists-tught-monk...
      • jerf 15y ago
        Actually, that disproves your point, not bolsters it. Monkeys use sex extensively in their dominance hierarchy without money, too. In multiple different ways, depending on species. Money merely tweaks the details of the underlying social forces, it didn't even remotely create them.
    • Gormo 15y ago
      > there would be nothing to trade for sex No? Prostitution is itself purely a service; why wouldn't people trade sex for other services in a kind of barter exchange? (One might note that this kind of informal quid-pro-quo is in fact an element in many 'traditional' sexual encounters.)
• jtchang 15y ago
  Whoa. This is a game. In the future games like this can be made and most people will enjoy them for that they are: games.
• aw3c2 15y ago
  Huh. Larry is a loser. A sad loser who fails with women all the time. So this game has no major male character who is not displayed as a complete loser. This is sexism! Or did you never play Larry and posted after looking at random third-party media about it? Seriously, the game series is about the struggle of a stereotype of a "disgusting" male. And it is dark humour, sarcasm, cynism, you name it.
• EricDeb 15y ago
  Disagree... Mainly because I could easily envision a society in which this argument snowballs, careening down a slippery slope until all comedy (South park, family guy, etc) is seen as harmful to society and made illegal or highly censored. I've never played this game, but I'm guessing it is supposed to be humorous, and I think protecting satire and supporting comedic efforts is extremely important.
  • aqme28 15y ago
    Don't disagree with someone because of what the slippery slope could lead to. i386 didn't argue for making any comedy illegal. i386 simply just stated his/her reasons for not supporting LSL. There's a reason the slippery slope argument is considered a fallacy and not something that should be taken seriously in any kind of argument.
• rimantas 15y ago
  > a future that is trying its hardest to remove > objectification of women from society How about the future where women decide for themselves what to do (including providing sex for money) instead of some righteous males knowing what's the best? Whatever happened to the awareness of the context? Ironically some of the most common female sexual fantasies involve them being objectified one way or other—because in this case they are not responsible and have no guilt for acting contrary to the expectations of the society which wants them to be serious, shy, prudent, etc. Guess who is responsible for such expectations. And yes, why fictional violence gets free pass, but sex is tabu (or even crime). Imagine the outcry if instead of "shooter" S stood for "sex" in FPX games played by teens. How come that depiction of killing other is OK, but sex, which is key to our survival is not OK?
  • yummyfajitas 15y ago
    ...because in this case they are not responsible and have no guilt... Or simply because they are fun.
• 127 15y ago
  Two things. You're ready to censor entertainment on a political basis. I am not. If men stopped seeing women as sexual objects, human race would die out. Maybe it's beyond your comprehension that males do have strong sexual urges. Wheter you call it objectification, or arousal triggered by visual stimuli is semantics. In the end you're just blaming the men for being men.
• grepherder 15y ago
  I'm not going to partake in the discussion about whether fictional work should or should not objectify women. I have my take on it and others theirs, and we can agree to disagree. No moral absolutes. But to be against a work of fiction that _parodies_ negative concepts, like objectification of women, which is clearly what LSL is about if you ever played it, is not acceptable from a freedom of speech perspective. Once you start finding disagreements with parodies, you're on a slippery slope. Next thing you are disagreeing with religious or political parody. A parody is about conveying a negative concept humorously after all, if the common mindset found the concept agreeable, it wouldn't be called a parody in the first place. This really just boils down to saying, "the society is too stupid to understand subtleties, so we better keep humor and entertainment direct and remove any irony/parody/cynical/dark humor". There are countries where this mindset is common, and censorship is what it leads to, I know this because I've been there.
• ekianjo 15y ago
  We have enough people trying to mess up with the real world, leave games alone. If we go down that path we end up burning books, remember ? Free society begins with free speech, no matter if you like what is being said or not.
  • aqme28 15y ago
    So you're saying that we shouldn't have dissent about games because that stifles free speech? I think you're mixing up two mutually exclusive messages here.
    • ekianjo 15y ago
      No, it is OK to have dissent, but saying that " it doesn't have a place in a future that is trying its hardest to remove objectification of women from society." is very close to saying "we should forbid it" or something like that, and that crosses the line to prevent free expression. Nobody is forcing anyone to play or buy that game. If you don't like that kind of contents, don't buy it. Leave the ones who enjoy it alone. We don't need a higher moral authority to tell everyone what's right or wrong.
• crikli 15y ago
  Downvoted. Sexuality is one of the strongest, maybe the strongest undertone in society. This is (was) a game lampooning some of the silliness. Take a deep breath and laugh at the silliness.
• walru 15y ago
  Education is the way to fix things. Not abstinence. Take a look at teen pregnancy numbers in Texas after they stopped teaching sex education in schools. http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/10/19/govenor-perrys-restrictive-policies-are-taking-their-toll-on-the-sexual-health-of-texass-young-people http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/10/19/govenor-per...
• bitwize 15y ago
  I counted only one hooker. Most of the women are sex objects, sure, but Larry still has to woo them into the sack.
• paulhauggis 15y ago
  "The game has no major female characters who aren't hookers." So? It's just a game. If you don't like it, ignore it. But no, you would rather have it so nobody else can enjoy it either. "but it doesn't have a place in a future that is trying its hardest to remove objectification of women from society." Do you honestly think that a women that poses in Playboy doesn't want to be objectified? If you truly want society to stop objectifying women, women need to stop voluntarily putting themselves in a position to be objectified.
• mhartl 15y ago
  There are many who have no problem with (sometimes) treating women as sexual objects. Such people often do have a problem with the use of language as a political weapon. See: objectification, sexist, misogyny, patriarchy, glass ceiling, etc.