I love jokes, I love banter. With my clan buddies we herp derp all the time making largely inappropriate jokes about each other’s genitalia, family members, sexual orientation, race, nationality and well the fact that I have boobs.

It’s all in good fun, when we over step the mark we’re good at apologising and moving on. We know the boundary of what is acceptable and unacceptable is when someone (even if it’s just one person) feels uncomfortable. That’s the line. That’s what humans do, when you fail to do that then it become it becomes victimisation and it is wrong. 

This is something I guess Aris Bakhtanians has failed to understand.

About 1 hour 47 minutes into this video he defends sexual harassment in the fighting game community. In fact he goes as far to say that they are one and the same. He then goes on a tirade against E-Sports, positioning Fighting Games as a more ‘spicy & flavourful’ community. I laughed at the part where he says it is ethically wrong to try and remove sexual harassment from the Fighting Game community. Aris refuses to accept that the line moves for different people. 

The worst part about that video is that it is Day Five of the competition they’re in. Want to hear Day One? Here, it’s gross. He guesses her bra size, he tells her she needs to wear a skirt that he’s the coach and she needs to just go along with it. I was incredulous at his banter. He didn’t stop when she told him he was being creepy. He sniffed her?! What the holy balls. I can’t imagine how he thought this was appropriate behaviour in a professional context. He didn’t care if he was being filmed, which creeps me out the most. He was comfortable being so wildly inappropriate to her in front of so many people, so public, with so little shame. 

Some commentators have noted that she laughed along with the jokes in the Day One video. What the hell would you do in that situation? She was quite literally surrounded by people who obviously didn’t see anything wrong in his behaviour. What she should stomp her feet and protest and then be labled as a ‘GUURLL GAME3RRR’ who only plays games for the attention? Jesus. 

I’m lucky I’ve had a positive gaming experience. I can count on one hand instances where someone has been seriously sexist during my ‘gaming career’. When I browse r/girlgamers sometimes I feel shocked that the sexisim still continues. It needs to stop.

I and the large majority of all the other female gamers who are out there don’t want sympathy, special treatment or honestly any kind of special attention. The same way our male counterparts come to play and kick ass, we want to play and kick ass. Nothing more.