Virtual rape as an illocutionary speech-act

“Was it a rape or simply an inert description of the act? If the latter, does anything really occur in LambdaMOO?” —MacKinnon, Catharine. “Only Words.” Feminism and Pornography

Virtual rape defined as: “a sexually-related act of a violent or acutely debasing or profoundly humiliating nature against a character who has not explicitly consented to the interaction. Any act which explicitly reference the non-consensual, involuntary exposure, manipulation, or touching of sexual organs of or by a character is considered an act of this nature” —LambdaMOO user-authored petition, quoted in Mnookin, Jennifer L. “Virtual(ly) Law The Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO.” Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 2.1 www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol2/issue1/lambda.html

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