As we all know, ladies and gents, when you are harassed and threatened with violence and rape in a space you visit for entertainment — like gaming — it's your fault.


It's your fault, and you should be banned from the game. Oh, I know — we should also leak your personal information to thousands of said players who have been harassing you, so that they can harass you more! You need to toughen your skin, and the job of any caring game company is to help you enjoy your gaming experience. By making you afraid to take part.

See, out there is a CEO who just gets it. One day, there was this gamer, username TheIneffableSwede, who just got all up in said CEO's ruining-my-day-with-your-basic-human-decency-crap space. TheIneffableSwede (who is probably really, really in-f-able, AMIRITE?) had contacted the game's operators previously regarding harassment and threats she received while part of a million-large MMORPG player base. Of course, this company knows how to pick good employees, so their response to her initial complaints was as follows:

1. It's your fault for choosing a username that reflects your gender. You should change your name to something that is gender-neutral.


2. If you are concerned about this, report it to the police.



DUH. Are you new here? You with your thinking you could pick a name you liked that reflected your being part of half of the world's population, are you a moron? And yeah, the police! Because they totally have jurisdiction over our worldwide base of Internet users. God, this woman.


In other words, even though these personal threats were against the game rules, the game's staff assumed no responsibility for enforcing the rules, or else blamed me for 'provoking' the male players. (One game operator did tell me that I 'provoked' the threats by 'playing too well' and suggested I deliberately lose more often so as not to bruise male egos. This game operator was, by the way, female.



WELL IF YOU ARE GOING TO PLAY GAMES AND HAVE A VAGINA AT LEAST HAVE THE DECENCY TO SUCK.


All of this is common sense, right? But noooooo, she wasn't through. She complained to the CEO. Which, let's be honest, this had just gone too far.

Eventually, I complained to the CEO himself of the gaming company and his response was to ban me from the game because he was 'tired of hearing about this problem'. The players who threatened me with rape, mutilation and death are still active in the game and some of them have been given jobs as game operators (the referees of the game).




So sick of it. Just, stop, with your wanting to have any sort of positive experience gaming with my company. You want to play a game, you better get used to being threatened with the worst possible violence and violation, because that's just what people do.

Obviously, this chick needed a wake-up call, so the company's well-trained employees generously decided to help her grow as a person, and accidentally on purpose shared her info with thousands of gamers.


Before I was banned, one of the game operators, an employee of the company, released my real-life details (full legal name, physical address, email, telephone number, link to my social media, such as Facebook, etc.) to thousands of other players (I had given this information when I registered for the game) and encouraged people to harass me outside the game, which several of them did. I had to change my mobile number, cancel my Facebook account, and even considered moving house at one point to escape the harassment.



Oh yeah, and then they banned her, because geez, what would YOU have done?

If she had had any kind of brains, she would have just pretended to be a dude. Penises are magic, kind of like how the Dark Mark will allow you to pass through certain magical barriers. But this woman just doesn't learn, and keeps harping on the fact that just having a vagina in an online world makes you sub-human.


She holds out a challenge to men who think that women exaggerate the extent to which they are hassled and abused online.

One (male) commentator – with an avatar showing Peter Hitchens – whosuggested: "Try playing under a male username and you'll see that guys are subjected to the same name-calling and threats. It's just part of gaming and if you're too fragile for it then you shouldn't play."


Her reply: "I did change my name in the game to a male because I got tired of the abuse. The other players praised me for my ability and we had some good-natured banter, but not one scary threat. Certainly no rape threats. I reverted to a username that clearly identified my gender and within a week, more threats and name-calling (dumb cunt, stupid bitch, fat cow, etc.).

"Same thing happened here on Guardian Cif – just in the past few days. I removed my selfie as my avatar and put up a Japanese Kanji. People assumed I was a man (called me "he") and respectfully disagreed with me. Put this current selfie up [showing a female picture] and I'm already piling up the dumb blonde/stupid bitch abuse."


She then offered the reverse challenge: "Why don't you try substituting Hitch's photograph with a female avatar for a week and see how it goes for you?"

NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD DO THAT. Seriously, who wants to be a female? These women, I swear.