Sex workers cry foul, say game "accrues points to players for the depiction of rape and murder of prostitutes."

The Grand Theft Auto franchise is getting attacked from all angles. Joining the ranks of politicians, policemen, and attorneys in their crusade to see the game lifted from shelves are the nation's sex workers. On its Web site, the Sex Workers Outreach Project USA is asking parents to assist them in calling for a ban of Take-Two Interactive's controversial game.

Citing a 2001 document from the National Institute on Media and the Family's David Walsh, SWOP is calling "on all parents and all gamers to boycott Grand Theft Auto."

The organization quotes various points from Walsh's paper, including, "Children are more likely to imitate a character with whom they identify with. In violent video games the player is often required to take the point of view of the shooter or perpetrator."

Though the organization admits to being "adamantly opposed to any and all forms of censorship," as concerned parents themselves, they "wish to inform other parents of the potential danger extremely violent video games pose to children." Likewise, in the interest of promoting the rights of sex workers, the organization is opposed to the depiction of the rape and murder of prostitutes.

In the games, players can solicit "services" from prostitutes by driving their cars slowly near them. No sexual acts are in clear visible view, but during the "transaction," the player regains health and loses money. Though the player cannot actively rape prostitutes in the game, a possible rape is alluded to once during the storyline of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The prostitutes, like every other character, are also subject to homicide at the hands of the protagonist.

According to its Web site, SWOP USA is an organization dedicated to improving the lives of sex-industry workers and to the promotion of a safe working environment for the industry.

By Tim Surette -- GameSpot


http://www.gamespot.com/n...44286.html

Yes. I'm certain Grand Theft Auto is at the top of the list of prostitute concerns. That, then lockjaw, then crotch rot.

TheSmyrk said:

dayum.....

Finally, somebody is concerned about this too! Next, we drug-abusers will demand an immediate ban on Pacman.

Novabreaker said:

Oh shit....I spit water all over my computer....

Most of the prostitutes I go out with are massively offended.

Hos need to be treated with respect, people!

god, I remember when Leisure Suit Larry was risque`

pardonme4livin said:

That happens to me all the time.

CaptainChaos said:

no way , why?

It looks like this game is untocuhable because people have been trying 2 ban this game for years. Has any video game ever been banned?

In other words, it wont happen. U know how it is...the filthy stuff sells (whether it's gansta rap or video games) and people in high places r getting rich off of it.

they are offended over a video game?... shit when you make your money by laying on your back. you dont have the right to be offended.because the prostitute has offended herself by choosing to make her money by bein a ho' simple as that.

that's the best part of the game!

I think they should be more worried about
a movie called "Murder-Set-Pieces". You can see the brutality more vividly here.

Anyone who disrepects hos will the feel the wrath of the Captain! Hookers need love too!

goat2004 said:

Yeah, some in the 80s. Mostly due to copyright violations though, the best-known example is "The Great Giana Sisters" that ripped off "Super Mario Bros." very blatantly.

But there have been some titles that have been banned for moral reasons in individual countries.

umm..okay, murdering prostitutes is a bad thing. I understand that but if all the game shows is the character getting serviced by a prostitute then I don't see why these people are all upset. Last time I checked, that's the basic job description of a prostitute. So what are they upset about? A video game portrayal of reality?

TheSmyrk said:

!!!!!
Don't forget waffle crotch and herpesyphaghonnaroids.

I call for a prostitute ban

IAintTheOne said:

???? So you are saying they are sex workers, they deserve to be portrayed as targets for shootings and viloent rapes, more than say, a white collar embezzler who makes his or her money by ripping off a company and it's customers and ruining everyday people finacially? Mmmmm, okay....

I think the only reason why we feel that way in America is because we are a puritanical country that demonizes sex. In Europe, where prostitution is legal in many red light districts, the girls are treated as workers, with unions, required health inspections, and they are not subject to the violence and seedy circumstances that American protitutes are, because people don't view sex between consenting adults as "eeeeevil". And that being said, given that the situation with prostitutes in the US is far more dangerous than in Europe, have you ever thought of what actually pushes a woman in the US to "choose" prostitution as a way to make a living???? I mean, do you honestly think that every "ho" out there on Martin Luther King Drive CONSCIOUSLY WANTS to degrade and subject herself to violent circumstances, drug abuse, the chance that when she goes around the corner to drop to her knees and swallow the semen by some man yanking her hair out and calling her mommy, SHE MIGHT NOT MAKE IT OUT ALIVE? Oh yeah, a woman who's down for that is clearly cognizant enough to realize she has no right to be offended by a video game that encourages you plummet bullet holes into prostitutes

Ottensen said:

The article states that in the video game the prostitutes are just as likely to be killed as ANY OTHER CHARACTER. The game doesn't target prostitutes to get killed, they're just there and apparently they provide services to the player. The killing part is just secondary.

I just think it's a bit silly. I mean, prostitutes are more likely to be killed than people in other lines of work, that's just reality and the video game is just portraying that. If the prositutes want to get outraged about something, perhaps they need to get outraged at the reasons why they are more likely to be killed in their line of work as well as getting outraged at the circumstances that put them in that position. This issue is bigger than some video game.

JasmineFire said:

guess I'm sort of sickned ny how many people felt this should be a joke
that someone feels a prostitute does not have the right to be offended
that the game makes the player a killer of innocents, and depicts a rape

although I do not believe in censorship, I am always astounded by how many parents allow this for their kids. I found out my son had played one of these at a friends when he was 12

JasmineFire said:

Since this game is not for children I don't get the ho's stupid plea to parents to ban it; when was the last time you've seen a child visiting a ho for her services and shoot the bitch in cold blood after the deed? This tells me more about the ho's than the players of the game...

1. The game also has your average Joe walking around that one can choose to shoot for money, I don't hear average Joe cry and bitch about that; which they shouldn't because it's just a game which is as influential as a movie or a song...
(people who are that stupid that they let themselves be brainwashed by a videogame, movie or a song are almost as pathetic and weak as the people who let themselves be brainwashed by the media and the government...)

2. The game supports the idea of stealing of cars and airplanes to get around, I didn't see an increase of children or gamers jacking cars or planes because of this game...

Neversin.

JasmineFire said:

I see. And I completely understand your point of view. Again for me, because I'm living in Europe now, the prostitutes I see here are just seen more as "workers" providing a "service", so that the taboo and consequent violence and titilation factors are a bit removed. They are required to have their health papers and insurance in order, and they pretty much dress in a street "uniform" as it were. In the red light district where I live in Germany (the infamous REEPERBAHN), they're actually placed 1/2 block away from Police headquarters, so if one of the girls runs into a weirdo, help is not that far away. The violence factor is VERY VERY low ...and I think it's because people don't get up in arms about sex here. The deviancy factor is removed because you know you can always get what you want, when you want it, so you don't go to desperate aims to express yourself sexually, I think. Instead of going to a back alley to "smack a bitch up", here one can go to a a brothel, a sex discoteque, or a red light district corner and ask some nice girl named Heidi to role play for the same cost of buying drinks at Tantra in South Beach or the Viper Room in LA.

paintsprayer said:

prostitutes being killed and raped is not a joke and it is sad that people make it out to be that way. I do understand that lack of sympathy for the prosititutes and I don;t have a great deal of sympathy for them either but no one should get murdered or raped. No One.

Ottensen said:

But this game was made in america and is a reflection of american culture. We don't have red light districts so your point is a bit moot. whether or not prostitution should be legal in the US is another issue that is separate from american prostitutes protesting a video game.

Ottensen said:

Keep in mind that it's US ho's crying foul not Europeans...

Neversin.

JasmineFire said:

No one should get raped or murdered, but honestly, they know from the beginning that is likely to happen as a risk of the job. Mailmen know they could be attacked by dogs. Cops know they can get shot. Prostitutes know these things happen, if not to them, to other prostitutes they know. GTA didn't start that and GTA has nothin to do with that. That has to do with the sick mentality of the guys who pay for their services. They rely on lonely, unfaithful, sneaky and shady people to sustain them as their only clientele. Drug dealers ain't complainin cause they get shot in the game. That's real.

JasmineFire said:

Point taken.