She has a point

Maia at Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty blogs:

The Labour Party’s Let’s Not game has been out for a few days.* I’m not linking to it, for reasons that will become apparent, but I do want to discuss one of the offensive parts of it.**

If someone puts their finger in someone else’s anus without their consent then that is sexual assault. This is still true if the two people involved are on a rugby field.

Ten years ago John Hopoate puts his finger in three other players anuses during a rugby league match. Apparently the people who were making this flash game thought “You know what we should do? We should animate this in an amusing way. That’ll help us win the election and be awesome.” Apparently people being violated without their consent is kind of funny if it’s men on the rugby field.

One of the basic rape-myths that help uphold a culture where sexual assault is endemic is that sometimes consent doesn’t matter. If you ever say that some people’s violation doesn’t matter – if you ever set some people up as unrapeable – then you, or in this case the Labour Party, are upholding that rape myth.

Now personally I’m someone who believes that humour will always offend someone, and I am sure Maia finds much of my humour offensive also.

But while it is rare that I might agree with Maia, on this occassion I have to agree it is inappropriate for a political party to make and promote an online game which jokes about sexual violation.

Maybe this is why Clare Curran was posting on Trade Me, telling people she didn’t like the game?