Toxic gaming behavior comes in many different forms. Sexual insults are one of them.
Sexism is prejudiced behavior based on sex or gender as experienced by people who play video games, primarily women. Harassment takes form in many ways such as sexist insults or comments, rape threats, death threats and/or male players demanding sexual favors in exchange for virtual or real money. Threats that start online continue offline and sometimes result in stalking.
Why does this happen?
In many games, women are seen as less skilled or players feel that they shouldn’t be in certain games. Male players in the game feel that they have the right to treat female players differently than male players. Sexual insults happen frequently in gaming. . Research has shown that even less skilled male players tend to make frequent sexual comments to female players.
What to do:
- REPORT REPORT REPORT – this is not acceptable behavior and should be reported immediately.
- Mute players
- Leave the game