Feminist Activist Anita Sarkeesian Defends Pornographic Video Games While Condemning "Puritanical Angry Moms"
Feminist activist Anita Sarkeesian defended pornographic video games while simultaneously condemning “puritanical angry moms.”
In a post to BlueSky, Sarkeesian wrote, “Someone give this brilliant book to the puritanical angry moms who bullied payment processors into all but banning porn games. The reason we even have online payment processors is BECAUSE OF SEX WORK. It was invented to pay for porn!”
In a subsequent post, she added, “I really hope someone starts a counter campaign to fight this regressive puritanical nonsense. There are way way way more people who want to buy and support sex work and sexual materials, or at the very least don’t think it should be banned.”
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First off, online payment processors were not invented to pay for pornography. Pizza Hut was one of the first companies to execute an online payment back in 1994 when it launched PizzaNet through PizzaHut.com. The first pizza ordered was reportedly a pepperoni and mushroom pizza.
PayPal would be formed by the merger between Elon Musk’s X.com and Peter Thiel’s Confinity in 1999. The company would eventually be purchased by eBay in 2002 and the service became the default payment method for most eBay users.
Secondly, Sarkeesian’s comments appear to be in reaction to Steam owner Valve revealing that it was pressured by payment processors Visa and Mastercard to ban pornographic games from its marketplace. A Valve spokesman informed PC Gamer, “We were recently notified that certain games on Steam may violate the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors and their related card networks and banks. As a result, we are retiring those games from being sold on the Steam Store."
Following these games being banned from Steam, an Australian activist organization, Collective Shout, proclaimed responsibility for them being banned. It posted on X, “Since we launched our campaign calling on Payment Processors to stop facilitating payments for rape, incest, sexual torture and child-abuse themed games on Steam, they have added a new rule to their policies + removed hundreds of these games.”
The organization shared that it had “counted almost 500 games tagged with rape and incest on Monday, and at our last count, there are 82 left. We want them all gone.”
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Additionally, the organization’s Movement Director Melinda Tankard Reist quoted an extract from an article written by Natasha Bita in The Australian, “Hundreds of sexually violent online games that let players role-play rape, incest and the torture of women and children have been suddenly removed from the global gaming platform Steam. In a victory for child safety campaigners, Steam banned the ‘games’ after Australian-based Collective Shout accused the payment platforms Visa, PayPal and Mastercard of profiting from violent pornography…”
