The following is a nearly paragraph by paragraph response to Kevin McCullough's article located here: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/KevinMcCullough/2008/01/13/the_sex-box_race_for_president

I have omitted several paragraphs that I deemed unnecessary to respond to. I'll post my responses if others feel I truly need to. So, without further ado, here we go.



""It's called "Mass Effect" and it allows its players - universally male no doubt""

First of all, this is a fallacy. The first of many in this article, as a matter of fact. Not only do a vast number of females play video games in general, a good number play RPGs (an acronym meaning Role Playing Game, in which the player takes control of a specific character or set of characters and acts out their "roles" within the world of the video game). For example, I point your attention to the Frag Dolls, a world-renowned group of female gamers. Visit their webpage at http://www.fragdolls.com.

""- to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived. One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, race, hair style, breast size of the images they wish to "engage" and then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game "persons" hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of.""

Incorrect. There is exactly one scene in the entire game (a game, mind you, that it took myself and several close friends an average of 45 hours to complete). The scene in question lasts approximately 35 seconds. Afterwards, there is a short (as in six or eight lines worth) of possibly racy dialogue before the story picks up once more.

The following is the extent of nudity and/or sex that occurs during the entirety of Mass Effect: The side of the character's breast is visible for roughly 3 seconds. Also, the nude hip of the character is visible for roughly the same amount of time. I have personally played through the game four times now, and unless there is some sort of programming error in the copy of the game that Kevin McCullough OBVIOUSLY must have played for research purposes before writing this fine article, that is it. There is nothing more. Ever. This particular scene is never even mentioned during gameplay after this point. Period.

""Starting with the disgusting idea that one can "create" their own versions of what people look like, removing warts, moles, and bald spots while enhancing - shall we say - the extended features of the game's characters tends to objectify women, sex, and human relationships. Right? We can all agree on this?""

As you have no doubt guessed by now, no, we cannot agree on this. First of all, yes, you can indeed create your very own version of the hero or heroine. And while you can certainly make an idealized version of a person with no visible flaws, you can also add scarring and other such features that make the character more "real." You cannot, however, "enhance" the parts of the body that Kevin seems so enamored of. There is no option to make your female character's breasts triple-Ds. Likewise, there is no option to make your male character's member (since I can't come right out and say pen is) larger. It just isn't there. Kevin is out and out lying, or imagining things.

""Then there's the dishonesty behind the game' title. "Mass Effect" sounds like a war game with a deadly virus that is spreading unless the GI-Joes are able to defeat the evil and deadly substance and it's covert war plan. By it's design, kids could ask for it, or for their parents' Best Buy Card to go purchase it with nary a raised eye-brow. Generic, non-descriptive, and relatively harmless.""

Wrong again, Kevin. First of all, all in-store purchases of Mature-rated titles must be accompanied by a driver's license. If the purchaser isn't over the age of 17, it doesn't get sold. Many larger chains, such as GameStop, actually require you to be over 18 to purchase a Mature-rated title. While this sort of protection does not exist online, a child attempting to purchase this or any other Mature-rated title online still needs to have an account with whatever online store they are purchasing through, as well as a credit or debit card. There is no other way to purchase these things online, and so it is exceptionally easy to monitor and regulate for any parent paying even a modicum of attention to their children's activities. Secondly, the title is not misleading in any manner. Mass Effect is the technology used within the game to allow interstellar travel. Mystery of the Misleading Title solved.

""Now if I have trouble with my son taking his James Bond 007 games a little too emotionally, imagine the powerful effect that hormones add to the mix when the player's own character is copulating like jack rabbits with super-models, actresses, and anyone else they can spend the patience to create, name, and "put into play." ""

Once more, I feel I must reiterate the indisputable fact that there is exactly one "copulation" scene in the entire game. I also feel it is my duty to once again inform those still reading that the scene is, in fact, completely optional to even view the scene.

""I hear the libertarian Ron Paul's answer already, "Government has no business censoring freedom of expression." Figures, he's a libertarian.""

Of course they don't. The Constitution says that there shall be freedom of speech. Period.

""Yet here's a question that deserves to be asked, and in all likelihood will not be: "How much moral judgement should the President push into legislative issues that are likely to severely damage our children's innocence, function, and capability?" ""

There is no conclusive connection between video games and real world violence. It just isn't there. Every person under the age of 25 that I have ever met has played violent video games at one time or another. And not a single one has killed another person. Not ever. Just about everyone I know has played a game with scenes that might be considered "erotic" or "explicit" to some people. Not once has anyone that I associate with begun objectifying women because of something they saw in a video game. Not ever. I myself absolutely worship the ground that my fiancee walks on. I love her with all of my heart, and would never in my lifetime even contemplate taking her for granted or doing anything that might hurt her in any way. It just wouldn't happen, because that is who I am. Moral judgments are just that: moral. It is up to the individual parents to draw their own moral lines about what is alright for their children to watch/play/read/etc. Government has no business restricting it based on an arbitrary feeling from middle-aged and older members of our illustrious country's governmental structure.

""If a pre-teen, teen, young adult, or adult male plays such a game in which the women DO submit without choice, are made to appear as Barbie streetwalkers, and perform whatever act can be imagined, what's to stop that same male from assuming that the women in his "other world" shouldn't be forced to do the same.""

They do not submit without choice. That is rape, and there is nothing approaching rape in Mass Effect. They do not appear as Barbie streetwalkers. The women in Mass Effect are portrayed as strong, capable, and intelligent people with minds of their own. Your character is not some space pi mp.

""We now know because of the lengthy track record of serial killer after another that addictive use of pornography was prevalent in case after case - long before the switch got flipped and what their masturbatory imaginations have given into became what they were forcing real live human beings to do.""

Again, there is absolutely no legitimate link between video games and real-world violence. If there were, everyone who has ever played a Grand Theft Auto game (over 65 million, according to the most recent figures from Sept. of 2007), would be out killing police officers for fun and running over prostitutes with their cars. But they aren't. That is because the only people that might possibly be affected by acts perpetrated within the world of a video game are those already genetically predisposed toward losing the mental link between reality and fantasy.

""And because of the digital chip age in which we live - "Mass Effect" can be customized to sodomize whatever, whoever, however, the game player wishes. With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away.""

While I'm sure you wish this were the case so you could justify your, quite frankly, illegal slandering of a perfectly legitimate form of digital expression, there is not only absolutely NO "over the net" capabilities. There is no sodomy. There are only three characters that the player can interact with in an "erotic" manner. It's a terrible shame that no one seems concerned about little things like facts any more.

""Yes there will be many snickers that I decided to bring this issue up in the Presidential cycle of 2008 but how refreshing would it be for a President to prove to the nation that his own manhood was not in question and put his pen and signature to a bill that dealt with such simulated sex excess in a way that was punitive to its creators to such a degree that they would never recover from it?""

Why, exactly, would a person's manhood be compromised or questioned by a video game? This has me scratching my head a little bit, I'll admit. Is that really an issue with conservatives? Their manhood? I mean, seriously?

""Here's hoping that as the next President will be forced to deal with this continual emerging reality - and enemy that has set its site to our destruction from within - that we will have elected a man of such character that he will have precision in the clarity of his response.""

Here's hoping that in the future, Kevin McCullough will adhere to the simple, common rules of spelling and grammar that the rest of us are forced to live with.
Site: a location.
Sight: vision.

And: a conjunction.
An: the form of the word "a" which precedes words beginning in vowels.

Also, commas were a huge hit back when they were invented by Aristophanes of Byzantium in the 3rd century BCE. You'd like to think that by now, they'd be in more common usage. The Game Guru has spoken, and hopefully enlightened those of you who didn't immediately write me off and finished reading the entirety of my posting.