And I refuse, I refuse
CASE of LAMBDA MOO-- made known by Julian Dibbell's
"A Rape in Cyberspace" published on December 21, 1993; Village Voice,
legba vs. Mr. Bungle (1993) where a virtual court had to be established
regarding the culpability & punishment of the online perpetrator.
Reading by Jennifer Mnookin, University of Virginia Law School.
You're in Lambda Moo's spiral space.
Go direct to GenderFuckMeBaby's Palace of Unparalled Cynicism, west to Last Tango in Paris
north to HiveMind, east to The Puppet Quarter, south to The Home of The Puppet Mistress.
-- gashgirl
"They say he raped them that night.
They say he did it with a cunning little doll,
fashioned in their image and imbued with
the power to make them do whatever he desired."
--Julian Dibbell
legba: I am requesting that Mr. Bungle be toaded for raping Starsinger and I.
I have never done this before and have thought about it for days.
He hurt us both.
Mr.Bungle: I engaged in a bit of a psychological device that is called
thought-polarization, the fact that this is not RL (real life) simply
added to heighten the affect of the device. It was purely a sequence
of events with no consequence on my RL existence.
legba: He wasn't normal seeming when he repeatedly voodoo-dolled really nasty,
really graphic MOO-rape to me and someone else repeatedly in the Living Room,
for a good 20 minutes or so.
A virtual "rape", also known as "MOOrape", is defined within
LambdaMOO as a sexually-related act of a violent or acutely
debasing or profoundly humiliating nature against a character
who has not explicitly consented to the interaction. Any act
which explicitly references the non-consensual, involuntary
exposure, manipulation, or touching of sexual organs of or by
a character is considered an act of this nature.
---a definition
legba: I know, I know, this is VR (Virtual Reality).
It's not really happening. I'm not even a female character, for chrissake.
We're all safely distant from biosurvival anxiety.
It's all a game.
THIS ROOM IS AN ARBITRATION FREE ZONE.
(a criss-cross chat session in process)
user A: I am # 2057, black doll.
You didn't set your gender and description.
guest A: describe me as Gender set to neuter.
Your gender is currently neuter. Your pronouns: it,it,its,its,itself,It,It,Its,Its,Itself
Available genders: neuter, male, female, either, neither,
Spivak, splat, plural, egotistical, royal, 2nd, 3rd
guest B: black as in afro american or as in dark and mysterious?
guest C: I sleep with humans too..so am I a slut? Can I be a slut?
guest D: I'm a bleeding heart pinko retro-feminist...
guest A: black as all color, black as early morning coffee--
guest D: I'd rather be a trollop than a slut.. yes I would.. if I only could..oh yeah!"
guest B: Interesting description...does black describe your heart or your skin?"
guest D: a slut is a slut forever, no matter you're upper or down..
but a pimping slut is a genre of its own
guest C: between body and heart lies flesh
guest D: Where does the body end and the mind begin?
guest A: Is not the mind a part of the body?
guest B: the body Is the mind.
legba: Mostly, it doesn't happen here. Mostly, perhaps I thought it wouldn't
happen to me. Mostly, I trust people to conduct themselves with some
veneer of civility. Mostly, I want his ass.
Legba vs. Mr.Bungle, a legal experimentation
a system of self governing vs. wizards presiding
legba: This is me, legba, Rebel Scum and anarchist.
I think that Mr_Bungle was being a vicious, vile fuckhead,
I want his sorry ass scattered from #17 to the Cinder Pile.
I'm not calling for policies, trials, or better jails.
I'm not sure what I'm calling for. Virtual castration, if I could manage it.
starsinger: I concur with legba. Something has to be done. And frankly,
I'd rather he not be around to do such things again. It's not something
that should continue to be _tolerated_ like it is, this harrassment, rape,
and equivalent other painful acts. It hurt, I'm sick of it happening,
let's begin _stopping_ it. Thanks.
@BOOT
@CONTROL, QUIT
(what followed was an exercise on self-defense, governing and punishment
--quoted from e-mail posting on *social-issues
parcftp.xerox.com/pub/MOO/contrib/mail )
#A: What are you trying to protect yourselves against?
Nasty losers who do_what_? Come in and move people?
Say nasty words in public? Let's Admit the fact that most incidents
have two sides, and we can't just have idiot policemen running and going,
hold it (@boot , @toad, ) over petty issues ...its degrading,fascistic,
and it does nobody any good.The idea of justice is not to punish but to prevent
crimes. Keep that in mind.
#B: I *am* interested in better self-defense mechanisms, and in ways to
make them as bullet-proof as possible. It would be nice if there were
*less* need for wizards or para-wizards or whatever, so that MOO could
be a self-running society.
#C: Though I don't intend to claim that there are any such things as 'rights'
on a mud, I think it is reasonable to assume that you should have the
freedom to move among public rooms at will,regardless of whether
someone in the room dislikes you.
#D: Discipline...Why not just tickle them 'til they puke? That'd make me stop!
#E: The way I see it, a punishment for manners violations won't be effective
unless it limits the abilities of the player to interact in a socially
irresponsible fashion.
#C: Punishment for "Rude" behaviour? What is this, the third reich?
The morality brigade? The inquisition?
#A: True, I must admit that some people are definitely rude in a public social setting,
but how can one person, a theoreticalpoliceman, really make that judgement call?
I think that giving that kind of deciding power to some kind of police force is not a
good solution. It sounds kind of like the Nazi Youth, in a way.
#D: What if there was some way for people to register a so-called "black-mark"
against another player who truly annoyed them. There could be a whole database,
with a cell for each player. The database would keep a record of how many
black-marks each player received. A single player would only be able to register
a black-mark against another once. If the number of black-marks against a
certain player reached a certain level, it could be brought to the attention
of the wizards. What they do then is up to them.
#A: so each player is given the ability to attach either a black mark,
a white mark, or no mark at all to each other player??
#D: black and white mark as African-American-mark' and `Caucasion-mark'?
or as bad and good? negative and positive?
#B: black? white? Maybe we should call them `In-my-opinion-this-person-is-not-very-nice-marks' and `I-feel-that-this-is-a-generally-congenial-and-responsible-individual-marks'.
#E: I'm baffled as to what mechanism would allow the 'public' to censor material
that is found (by community standards?) to be offensive. I hope this doesn't
degenerate into a shouting match .What are the mechanisms to erase
offensive messages?
#D: Why can't we create a restraining order?
#A: What we want to do is set up a system where certain people who like to harass,
bug, poke people around get the message that that is unacceptable. Punishment
accomplishes nothing, and is simply a barbaric way of getting revenge.
#B: We could use a camera--You could turn on this camera when ever you
thought that someone was harrassing--
#C: How often _does_ annoying, harassing stuff occur? Well, I know one simple test.
Use a morphing class to turn into a female character with am obviously
feminine name. Within a few minutes of login under that name, you'll start
getting messages. Trust me. It's why I had to change my test character's
name away from "Marilyn".
#A: Being a regular female character here (and yes, I *am* a female . . ),
I tend to get a fair amount of `I'd like to eat Spam' and `Can I taste Spam?'--
#E: I used to use my ex girl friend's account at her school, and people would often
think me as female and harrass me. it wasn't pleasant at all! Point is...
Judgement must be swift, para-wiz, police, wizards, voting...all are lame,
they don't cut to the point, they all take time!!!!! Beat the asshole down immidiately!
#B: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. This is pathetic. I don't even think
pathetic describes it completely. We DO NOT NEED any "System" to deal with
the problems that occur. I think I already said this, but people really just need to
LIGHTEN UP. How many of you have been shot by some little kid with a water pistol,
or had some group of drunk slobs driving by shout random obscenities out the window,
or have been harrassed in some other way? What do you do about it? Nothing most likely.
If it gets out of hand, you can always leave or deal with it personally in some way.
Chances are you aren't going to run to the police or your mommy or something unless
it's a serious issue. Just how serious can a bunch of text be?
legba: But I know this. I know that when someone violates my peace,
my conversation, my lovely, little VR diversion by repeated, remote rape,
it reminds me....It reminds me, it makes me remember.
My anger victimizes neither you, nor the rapist. Rape victimizes us.
And I refuse, I refuse to be victimized,
or to feel sorry for you because I scolded you.
an attempt of a virtual court based on
document #1
Julian Dibbell's "A Rape in Cyberspace"
published on December 21, 1993; Village Voice.
document#2
e-mail posting on *social-issues
parcftp.xerox.com/pub/MOO/contrib/mail -
march 25-april 7, 1993