The incident in a virtual world reportedly left the under-16-year-old traumatised.

Police are investigating a virtual sexual assault of a girl’s avatar, the chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners has said.

Donna Jones said she had learned that a complaint was made in 2023, triggering a police inquiry.

The virtual incident did not result in physical harm but caused “psychological trauma”, the Daily Mail has reported a source as saying. Police chiefs have called on platforms to do more to protect their users.

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The impact of the attack on the girl’s avatar was said to be heightened because of the immersive nature of the VR experience.

    • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
      72·
      11 months ago

      You want to commit virtual rape? Are you for real dude?

      When women talk about toxic masculinity and rape culture, this is exactly what they mean.

      • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
        22·
        11 months ago

        We actually could make a game about raping people. Do you think raping someone in a game would be illegal? it’s not illegal to kill someone in a game.

        • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
          41·
          11 months ago

          What a fucking dumb comparison. Your whataboutism argument is shit.

          I think it’s a horrible idea. But if that’s the point of the game, then it’s expected. And just by playing the game, you’re giving consent for this to happen because that’s the whole point of the game and therefore it’s not rape.

          The VR game the teenage girl was playing was not a rape game. She didn’t play that game to experience virtual rape. What happened to her is a form of sexual harassment and that’s a form of sexual abuse, which young girls and women are overwhelmingly the most frequent victims of this kind of abuse.

          Instead you’re all here continuously defending the guys who harassed the girl, trying to find some stupid fucking argument to excuse their horrible behaviour with whataboutism and red herrings and all kinds of bullshit instead of questioning the men’s behavior.

          • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
            12·
            11 months ago

            Relax, no one here is saying that rape is ok. What people have issue with is actually calling it “virtual rape”. It’s stupid and pretty offensive to actual rape victims. Trying to classify it as a sexual offense in legal terms doesn’t make any sense. It’s all just avatars and animations. It would be possible for 10 year old boys to “virtually rape” grown women or even for 10 year old girls to virtually rape grown men. What’s next? Assaulting people by showing them images? Fraud charges for rick rolling someone?

            Common sense approach is to say that if this would happen repeatedly to a user and it would be intentionally directed at them in order to make them leave the game it could be considered harassment. Same as sending someone offensive messages. That’s it.