I have no words to respond to this.  I am horrified!  I worry that a whole generation of boys will form their ideas of what women and relationships with them are all about from exposure to this kind of material.  It also confirms my decision to never, ever, use Craigslist again.

I'm going to attempt to share some insight from the gaming industry that... while I suspect will be controversial here, I hope a few people read, digest, and apply to the topic.

Violent videogames are widely accept, especially in the United States. From ripping off someone's arm and beating them to death with it - to beating a prostitude down on the street and taking your money back from her dead corps - it's in a videogame right now.

For some distorted reasoning, we embrace violent videogames (and media in general) and shun anything sexual. There's less risk in showing a gamer the graphic beating of that prostitute than there would be if they showed that prostitutes esposed nipple. (keep this in mind, I'll bring it up again)

With the case above (the rape games) you now have violence and sex blended together in an extremely offensive and troubling way. 

Let me grab a quote from above:

"The fact that these video games, which train players (often young men) how to rape and abuse women and train them as sex slaves, are for sale is bad enough. "

Violent videogames have long been under fire, largely by right wingers. They insist that these types of games train youths to be violent. This is not true.

The quote is an extension of the same misconception about videogames. Yes, videogames do teach - sometimes. More so, games provide an ***outlet***. They allow the gamer to engage an experience in a "safe space".... This is what has been studied and discovered in the violent videogame space.

There are researches who will debate signifcantly the impact of violent videogames, but the only legit studies of their effects have clearly shown that gamers who play violent videogames are extremely passive in real life.

This is particularly true of teenagers. Those that spend large amounts of time playing violent videogames are actually the least likely to be involved in fighting, abuse, and ultimately violent crime. This is important to know and understand.

Videogames allow people to live a fantasy without actually hurting anyone. Why someone wants to live a rape fantasy is probably a link to some other interesting mental issues that could spawn an entirely seperate massive discussion... that I don't want to be involved in.

So back to that point I said I would bring up again. I suspect that the same social issue that makes us flip out about a nipple appearing in our media while we sit passively unoffended by extreme violence in movies, tv, and videogames.... I suspect that the same issue is attached to and deeply rooted with the issues that cause these rape games to have an audience. This is just my speculation, but I'm fairly confident about it.

I have read the scientific research on media violence, and I can understand your confusion, Scott. Media violence does not *cause* violence in real life, but it is a risk factor just as tobacco smoking is a risk factor for cancer.

To fill in the missing pieces, there are two things you need to know. One is that violence is more than just dangerous violent prisoners who belong in supermax - it ranges from murder and rape to school bullying and verbal abuse, something we are very desensitized to. And for every act of murder there is a lot of bullying and verbal abuse. (And researchers are not against violence in the media, just gratuitous violence or violence portrayed as harmless.)

The other is that teaching is only one component of the process of violentization. Being abused, and getting angry about it, also matters. For a detailed description of the process of violentization, check out "Why They Kill" by Richard Rhodes. A must read. (Though he would agree with you on the media violence issue, but then he is only looking at dangerous violent criminals, not the whole spectrum of societal violence, and he has (or had, at the time) not read the research on media violence either.)