by Annabs Sanchez

Cybersex: The Virtual is Political

Photo via StudioFOW

Right now, I just finished reading an article on video game porn about a genre called non-con.

Non-con is an innocuous term that's short for non-consent, which is a despicable semantic play on the word rape.

Because, what is the abduction and repeated gangbanging of a woman, anything else but rape? What else is forcing a woman to have sex with demons until semen and vomit gush from every orifice of her body, anything else but rape? What else is a slave girl gangbanged by orcs until her ribcage break, anything else but rape?

But as with anything virtual, we are constantly reminded that these are only fantasies. It's not real. The abductors are not real. The demons are not real. The orcs are not real. The women are not real.

In the article, Darkcrow from StudioFOW, makers of non-con porn titles such as Lara in Trouble, Kunoichi, and Arena of Depravity says, "We animate digital models in a safe environment, and the voice talent records from the safety of their own homes, which means that our medium is the ideal platform for exploring these darker themes with a clear conscience."

Or what can be translated to: The women are not real, therefore, we can do whatever we want with them, including being raped in the most brutal of ways - guilt-free.

And to further emphasize the virtual nature of these women, a certain tech-savvy scientia sexualis language (Source engine, particle physics, lip-synching) is used to describe them. As if telling us, "Relax. They are nothing but images on a computer screen. The women are not real."

But what's real is its similarities to cybersex operations.

See, through crowdfunding site Patreon, StudioFOW gets donations, sometimes amounting to as much as USD $6,000 per video from non-con fans who want to see more rape fantasy videos. And if they want something more specific, like consensual sex between characters, StudioFOW is more than happy to do it for USD $10,000.

When Philippine authorities arrested members of a cybersex ring in Bataan, it said the "syndicate operated a website at which clients could ask women to perform lewd acts for a fee"  - similar to StudioFOW's business model.

When police and social workers ask parents of children rescued from cybersex rings if the shows are harmful, many of them "believe the performances are not harmful because there is no physical abuse" - similar to StudioFOW's belief that non-con films is a "safe, non-exploitative medium."

When Terre des Hommes created Sweetie, a virtual 10-year-old Filipina girl and put the image in internet chat rooms to lure pedophiles, "20,000 people from 71 countries contacted the fake girl asking for sexual performances" - similar to all of StudioFOW's non-con films, the women are not real.

Sweetie via Terre des Hommes

You may also like:

Violence Against Women (VAW) in the Digital World: Emerging Issues, Challenges and Opportunities

Gender at the Internet Governance Forum

The Invisible Work of Invisible Women