With the fast developments last night regarding DesignsByQueeny receiving unsolicited pictures from CSGO Pro League coach Jared 'osorandom' Hartman, I began to ask myself, how prevalent is sexual harassment in CSGO & esports in general? Through the course of 2017-2018 we have seen sexual harassment claims rise in the wake of the #MeToo movement that has taken the world by storm. Ranging from actors such as Kevin Spacey to Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, we have seen household names specifically called out on sexual harassment . Would we be naive to think esports is a safe place?





GFX artist & streamer known as Soph or "DesignsByQueeny" on Twitter released a screenshot of an apology last night given from Jared 'osorandom' Hartman for sending unsolicited pictures, continuing to tweet about the situation throughout the night. A vocal response from the community followed via the Global Offensive subreddit.





I reached out to "DesignsByQueeny" for comment





Q: Do you feel sexual harassment is an issue in esports that has been untouched?

A: " Yes. Every now and then a post will appear however there are never any long term discussions about the actual problems of sexual harassment/misconduct or the effects it is having on many members of the community"





Q: W hy do you feel it has been low profile until the recent firing of osorandom from eUnited?

A:" I personally believe its been kept to a low profile because people are scared to speak up. It takes a lot of courage and will to be able to speak publicly about any sort of issue that one would find degrading or just disgusting."





With her belief that people are scared to speak up, is it really unreasonable to say that hers is not a rightful fear? Once the tweet began to gain traction on Reddit the community backlash towards "DesignsByQueeny" by sharing an experience of sexual harassment, started to form. From this experience we need to ask ourselves, why should we ignore it any longer?





Continuing on "DesignsByQueeny" goes on to say





"They were the first organization I had contacted about one of these issues and it was quite nerve wracking, no one wants to be the person to email an organization saying one of their members is causing some sort of havoc or discomfort and with that I believe comes a lot of shame."





"when I contacted eunited I left quite a bit out of the email because I actually felt so bad, the idea of someone losing their job because of me was something I didn't want to deal with."





Everyone makes mistakes now and again; however, I am of the opinion sexual harassment has no excuse in any form. We come again to the big question: is this a one time incident? Or is there a bigger issue lying just under our noses?





Commenting on this exact issue "DesignsByQueeny" may give us a glimpse of our answer





" Looking back at it that was a mistake and since I went public about it a lot of other people contacted me about similar issues, some even to tell me that I was not the only girl osorandom had sent unsolicited pictures to."





Now with this, we continue to dive deeper into the issue of what do we take as facts? What do we take as an exaggeration? Do I personally believe we should take everything everyone says at face value? The answer to that question is no; however, what does the accuser gain by going public? In this case, overwhelming support was not given. "DesignsByQueeny" has been publicly lashed out at by members of the community, including an unnamed female streamer seen in this tweet.





Retired CSGO professional Sam "DaZeD" Marine had this to say on twitter.





" Sending dick pics is a firable offense? It’s really weird and cringe that he did it unsolicited... but firable? If a girl sent me random nudes out of the blue I wouldn’t leak it but also if I did i don’t think she’d get released from her job for it. Iduno it’s a weird situation."

@GODazed on Twitter





Does this tweet from "Dazed" show how ignorant the community is? Is the tweet just a symptom of how unprepared we are to face the issue?





"DesignsByQueeny" tweeted about some of the responses from others in the esports community, and going as far as to point out an unnamed female streamers response.





" How many people speak about sexual assault, harrasment etc and get positive attention without ruining somewhat of their rep... Like I'm getting called an attention seeker from a female streamer and I just don't understand.."

@ DesignsByQueeny





In the quote, she expanded on this topic.





"they're accused of lying, false information is spread and a lot of negative backlash is directed towards them...they will be bombarded with hate messages. Within the last 24 hours I've received multiple messages telling me I'm worthless, how i deserved it, mocking my appearance and that's not something I would ever want someone to go through."





Is esports ready to handle sexual harassment? Are we ready to confront the issue now presented to us? I am of the personal opinion that, by the response from the community, we are yet to comprehend the complexity of issues like this. Do I think eUnited was justified in the firing of ‘osorandom’? Of course I do; however, that does not change my question: why did an action only occur swiftly after it was made public? Are we led to believe the organization was unaware this entire time? Even after an apology was forced by the organization towards DesignsByQueeny?





Written By: @DocArin0







































