the internet may have its first sexual assault victim.

during a romp in the land of play­sta­tion 3’s home, an inno­cent, unsus­pecting female player was gath­ering acorns when the attack occured. real-​life eye-​witness and the victim’s roomate recounted the hor­ri­fying details of her encounter with the pred­atory cyber-​rapist:

This morning I learned that my room­mate was sexu­ally assaulted near the Festive Tree while she was helping others with the puzzle. She would move and the har­asser would follow. Each time trying to get behind her and use the crouch ges­ture. This appar­ently went on for some time. The har­asser was warned mul­tiple times and laughed at the thought that someone might report him for his actions, which was even­tu­ally done, and also, I’m proud to say, by other bystanders.

It should be obvious to any clear thinking person that more needs to be done in these situ­ations. Report, def­in­itely, but at the same time the har­asser should be imme­di­ately dis­con­nected and then not allowed to enter a instance were their victim is loc­ated, keeping them apart. Like a Restraining Order. If the har­asser has a string of vic­tims, then let them find them­selves all alone or better yet, only with other harassers.

other bystanders who wit­nessed the event were hor­ri­fied. “how could this happen?” they exclaimed, shocked. “the crouch button should never be used in this way! it is against everything we stand for! thank god we reported him when we did. who knows what could have happened to that sweet girl.”

“i feel like my inno­cence has been robbed,” said one avatar, almost in tears, con­tinuing “the internet is such a friendly place. i just don’t under­stand. when did we become such mon­sters to each other?”

playstation’s parent com­pany, sony, have been silent on the issue, which has led to out­rage on the play­sta­tion forums. 13 pages on-​going of protest, pleading for sony to break their silence and save the inno­cent from pred­atory beasts from crouch-​raping in-​game avatars in the play­sta­tion home world.

“there needs to be a way for female players to pro­tect them­selves from this kind of assault,” said a well-​groomed avatar. “maybe cyber mace, or the ability for an avatar to kick or punch.”

on the other side of the argu­ment, some avatars were against the idea of such drastic moves. “you cannot fight viol­ence with viol­ence. crouching is an action that can be used for good and evil, whereas actions like kicking and punching will only bring on more violence.”

another added, “while we feel that this was a grievous incident and genu­inely hope that it will never be repeated, fighting viol­ence with viol­ence is not the answer.”

asked what his solu­tion would be, the anonymous avatar simply replied, “this is prob­ably the stu­pidest thing i’ve ever heard of.”