As most of you may know, I am pretty into gaming. Love me some good ol' zombie murder. But there is something that always dampens my mood:The identification of my ovaries.
It's a tale that is told over and over again, as a female or anyone female sounding has been verbally abused while gaming. Not even gaming, shit, we get attacked in general over the internet.
So, I have a deeper voice than the usual lady. My voice online apparently sounds like a prepubescent boy so I actually have that bias against me at the start when I am playing. But then when I explain my age they slowly figure out that I am a girl. Rather than the fun banter we were having prior to this moment and the team work it turns into more often than not "SHOW US YOUR TITS! GIRLL I WANT TO SKULL FUCK YOU" "ARE YOU HOT? LETS DATE" or my favourite "YOU MUST BE FAT AND UGLY BECAUSE YOU ARE GOOD AT THIS GAME".
Now let's talk about the last one for a second. The last one usually comes after their inital "smooth talking" (hint, it's not smooth talking at all - see the first two comments) doesn't work. I have so many questions about this. If I reject you, it's clearly because I am unattractive? Apparently I have to be unattractive to be good at this game? Why is that? Because if I am hot I would be compliant with your offers of being skull fucked?
Now I am not saying all guys are like this. In fact the people I game with the most are guys I have met online and had some geniune great gaming fun with them. These guys were not and are not assholes and they haven't once treated me differently than any other gamer out there. I have been gaming with a core few for about 5 years. I brought up once with them about my usual hesitance with VOIPing (Voice over Internet Protocol - voice chatting) and they were shocked that indeed, it was a thing. Then, it happened. I chatted freely and without hesitation while playing with two of them and the rest of the team (who we had never played with before) went ape shit. The abuse was nothing out of the ordinary for me but as always disheartening. My mates couldn't believe it and abused them back with the same language and kicked them.
This has been something they have done for me which I am forever grateful for. When I explain to guys that this indeed is something we deal with every day, if they haven't done it themselves, they don't really believe me. But when I have a clan of guys backing me up saying "Yes, they literally asked her if they could skull fuck her and her mum" it reinforces that these people exsist.
Why did I rant about this now? Becuase today after I rejected someone after they asked me out and got asked for nudes they abused me for it. I got asked this via pm from a discord channel that I joined after gaming with some people who I had a hella fun time with. These other guys welcomed me into their community without bias and without need of nudes. But yet, this douche canoe who I have never spoken to or gamed decided it was okay to be a fuckwit.
Am I over reacting? No. You know why? Because I ignored a guy who was wolf whistling me on the street and saying some lude things late at night while I was walking. And because I ignored him he beat the shit out of me.
So why should women just "calm down it's just the internet" when this is what we deal with day to day. Guys who aren't douche canoes - Thank you. Thank you for being awesome and allowing us to have the same joy gaming as you. Please look out for your female gamers, I all for hurling banter at each other and telling people off when they are being an idiot while playing a game, That's just being a moron, that's got nothing to do with gender.
But those of you who are gender specific in your abuse...
Go skull fuck yourself.
Have a look at some other comments in a brief sample of everything we experience
