Iron Hand

On Women’s Bodies & Violent Men in the ‘Life Is Strange’ Finale

[Trigger warning: Discussions of sexual assault and violence against women. Please take care before reading.]

Although it is neither new nor surprising, violence against women in video games still feels more and more like an inevitability. For a game where your narrative choices are supposed to matter, Life Is Strange took the power out of the players’ hands in its final episode, “Polarized.”

Let’s start with where the last episode began. Max was captured by the nefarious—to say the least—Mr. Jefferson, who was revealed to be the true killer of this tale at the end of the fourth episode. In the final episode, the player wakes up strapped to a chair in front of a photographer’s white backdrop located deep in Nathan Prescott’s bunker, otherwise known as the “Dark Room.” The room is dim, save for the blinding professional lights reflecting off of Max’s face. The only thing the player has control over is the camera, where you can scan the room to find your frienemy Victoria tied up and unconscious next to you on the ground in addition to a cart filled with plastic gloves and drugs.

Over and over, you hear the frantic thoughts of Max, who says that she “can’t remember” anything that happened. Eventually, the player uses Max’s rewind powers to relive the moment of Mr. Jefferson standing over her unconscious body with his camera, whispering to himself about the “purity” of Max’s unconscious expression and thinly veiled threats like, “Don’t move, or this will hurt very much.”

V-A-S-E-C-T-O-M-Y you heard of it??

You are twisted enough to manipulate men to become infertile. Coils and condoms have no such effects you freak.

And don’t get me started on condoms dude. Just don’t. Grown ass couples with three kids don’t use fucking condoms. And most of the time women don’t mind, but the guys do. So don’t even mention it. Couples HARDLY use them at all.

And WOW i must say,if you decided your wife was a bitch, you’re automatically assuming your kids are bitches too? You not gonna raise them just because you had lady-problems? Ice cold. But be my guest! See how happy you’d become with 11 different kids, dude. With the amount of anti-feminist bs on your blog, I assume that’s what you’re going for.

Oh yeah, I definitely want to know that I have my kids split between two women, because I wouldn’t be able to trust one who told me to neuter myself because of rare side-effects you’ll just assume happen. Especially as she’ll get custody. Cause she’s a woman. And she’ll raise them to be trash like herself.

I would definitely love 11 children. I won’t likely have the money but it would be awesome raising such a grand brood of strong sons and daughters. It’s also a shame I’d have to use a woman to get them, considering the shameful, unfeminine state of modern womanhood, who thinks woman’s rights and being an entitled misandrist rape hoaxer are part of the same package.

V-A-S-E-C-T-O-M-Y you heard of it??

You are twisted enough to manipulate men to become infertile. Coils and condoms have no such effects you freak.

I think its very common, especially in sort of “mainstream” celebrity saturated feminism to think of feminism as a kind of “personal empowerment” philosophy. But I think this is too simple, too small scale, and too co-opted by  commercialization. It doesn’t actively push for changes to the status quo.

And I think very often, and for understandable reasons, many people go for the “advocating for equality between all genders” approach. This is better, I think, because it does actively push for changes in the status quo, but I’m not sure it really accurately describes the full scope of feminism.

For me, Feminism is a movement for the advancement of rights, issues, and causes that are important to women and seeks to end gender inequality. 

This, I think, is really what we aim to do. 

For example, if we talk about the importance of guaranteed, paid maternity leave in the US, this isn’t an issue of men having rights women don’t have. Men don’t have guaranteed access to paternity leave, after all. BUT, paid PARENTAL LEAVE, for both parents, is absolutely a feminist issue. It is important to women and affects many women, after all.

For example, access to abortion, pre-natal care, reproductive health services, and affordable child care. These things are not guaranteed to men and denied to women, but they are feminist issues. They are important issues to many women and many women (and some non-binary folk and men) are affected by them. 

I think we need to recognize that feminism isn’t just about trying to level the playing field for men and women, it IS about that, but it is ALSO about RAISING THE WHOLE FIELD to a better place for everyone.

Feminist: so as you can see from these government statistics men make up 90% of violent criminals

elbowing each other in the face- a lot of porn does show bloopers, especially if you buy your porn, even non indie porn. but also this sounds terrible, like…. something weird I’d only see in a romcom and I’m sorry it happened to you… at that point I’d stop having sex to ice my face and unless we were both fucked up I’d be pissed. I don’t want a broken nose.

leg cramps- I mean, who wants to see this while masturbating? unless you get off on watching people in pain in general. but once again, see above. and I really don’t want to see this while having sex, I avoid froggy style for this reason, and it really sucks when I see this happen to men, because it means we having to stop this. 

queefing- ok there is actual queef porn, lie it’s an entire category. people even have queef fetishes. 

accidentally pulling each other’s hair- once again, bloopers, or they just don’t react to it, because you know, they’re acting. they’re pornographic actors. and indie porn shows a lot more “realistic porn” if that’s what turns you on. 

ass pubes- there’s an entire fetish for this. hairy girls are an entire category of porn. and a lot of people don’t have ass pubes. and a lot of people get rid of them (because pubes trap in smell, and whether you choose to keep all your hair is your own prerogative, but let’s not hate on women who choose to get rid of hair around here) 

things they also don’t show in porn:

sleepy morning sex- indie porn often does this type of porn, and even bigger companies make “romantic” or other types of porn like this. 

mutual giggle fits over awkward situations- actually I know a lot of clips producers that include this, also once again bloopers, and “realistic porn” really is gaining steam more and more. 

sex fading into cuddles fading into sex and back into cuddles- once again, indie porn producers, clips producers, “romantic” and “sensual” porn companies.

your lover’s o face- while a lot of porn actresses fake orgasms (because this is a fantasy), many porn actresses have very real orgasms (including cam girls, content producers, etc), I mean “beautiful agony” is free porn (i believe) completely based on watching people’s faces as they orgasm. gay porn often focuses on the actors face as he orgasms. porn is varied, like any media! and yah, it’s not your lover, but you won’t see that unless you have sex. 

so don’t ever compare yourself to porn thank you don’t compare yourself to media in general. whether it’s adult or non adult films, TV, magazines, books, etc. as a non professional ice skater, you wouldn’t compare yourself to a professional ice skater? so don’t do that with this.

and if you’re under 18 and watching porn… you shouldn’t be really doing that, there’s a reason they’re restricted. but I don’t see bullet points posts about how sex scenes and romance in PG13 movies aren’t real, so maybe don’t just single out porn, because when you single out a group of exclusively marginalized people, that’s fucked up. and OP of this post was being whorephobic, whether they meant to or not. I’ve seen multiple porn producers and actresses say this post is inaccurate as well, and being a good sex worker ally is listening to us thank you