At level 13, my wizard is dressed much more appropriately.

The lack of cosmetic character customization in the Diablo games has always been a quibble for me. I played the rogue in the original because I didn’t want to play a male sorcerer (though I did play though again as the spellcaster). I got lucky in Diablo II and was able to play a female spellcasting character (though I did have objections to her wardrobe). In Diablo III, I am able to choose my class and gender, but the female wizard begins the game wearing nearly nothing while the male wizard gets a complete outfit.
Curious, I looked at the starting gear for each class. The women are definitely more scantily clad. The female demon hunter is in heels. I don’t even know where to begin about the witch doctors.
And I haven’t even started on the gameplay yet. — The lack of cosmetic character customization in the Diablo games has always been a quibble for me. I played the rogue in the original because I didn’t want to play a male sorcerer (though I did play though again as the spellcaster). I got lucky in Diablo II and was able to play a female spellcasting character (though I did have objections to her wardrobe). In Diablo III, I am able to choose my class *and* gender, but the female wizard begins the game wearing nearly nothing while the male wizard gets a complete outfit.

Curious, I looked at the starting gear for each class. The women are definitely more scantily clad. The female demon hunter is in heels. I don’t even know where to begin about the witch doctors.

And I haven’t even started on the gameplay yet.

Color Chaser, by London-based artist Yuri Suzuki, plays different sounds depending on the coloration of the path beneath it.

[T]here are things one loses in giving up God, and they are not insignificant. Most importantly, you lose the guarantee of redemption. Suppose that you do something morally terrible, something for which you cannot make amends, something, perhaps, for which no human being could ever be expected to forgive you. I imagine that the promise made by many religions, that God will forgive you if you are truly sorry, is a thought would that bring enormous comfort and relief. You cannot have that if you are an atheist. In consequence, you must live your life, and make your choices with the knowledge that every choice you make contributes, in one way or another, to the only value your life can have.

Some people think that if atheism were true, human choices would be insignificant. I think just the opposite — they would become surpassingly important.

At The Dish, a reader reflects on the first gay first kiss:

Dan Savage wrote: “The growing civil equality of gays and lesbians—from marriage equality in Canada and New York to the end of DADT in the USA—is revealing a lot of things.” Among them, just how non-existent a threat it all was, he says. And I think in retrospect that THIS is what the right was most afraid of. Not that society as they knew if would crumble, or that God would damn everyone. But that things wouldn’t change at all. That their story about hellfire and damnation would be revealed for what it was: pure fiction. And that in large measure, their authority (moral or otherwise) would be diminished.

And it is.

Exploratory Study Finds Over Half Of Self-Reported Multi-Person Sex Experiences Among Adolescent Women To Be Coerced »

Recently published in the Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine is an article discussing disturbing statistics for multi-person sex (MPS) among adolescent women in Greater Boston. From EurekAlert:

Emily Rothman, associate professor of community health sciences at BUSPH, and colleagues surveyed 328 females who had utilized a Boston-area community or school-based health clinic, to explore whether they had ever had sex with multiple partners — either consensual or forced. The authors call this sexual experience “multi-person sex,” or MPS, in order to underscore that it refers to any group sex experience on a continuum from gang rape to sex parties.

Of the 7.3 percent who said they had group sex, more than half reported being pressured to engage in the group-sex situation. Forty-five percent reported a lack of condom use by a male participant during the most recent group-sex encounter. Participants with MPS experience also were more likely to report cigarette smoking, dating violence victimization, or ever being diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease, the study found.

In addition, those who had seen pornography in the past month were approximately five times as likely as those who had not seen pornography to report ever having had a group-sex experience.

In addition to the listed, MPS is also associated with sexual initiation prior to the age of 15 and childhood sexual abuse victimization, but the relationship between these factors and MPS is unclear. With such a limited sample, not much can be concretely deduced from the data. Any amount of non-consensual sex, however, is too much. Further research is needed to determine exact prevalence and among whom, but education on active consent—for any form of sex—needs to and can happen today.

The mainstream media mostly caught onto catchphrases such as “group sex” or “disturbing teen trend”. Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon already noted the misleading and panicked headlines. While she rightly criticizes her colleagues for sensationalizing this news, she is incorrect in making light of coerced sex and rape. Even though the absolute numbers are small, there still are adolescent women being raped. It is just as irresponsible to minimize as it is to sensationalize important issues. Rape is not just a cause for hand-wringing but also a call to action.

The best attitude is that taken by Dr. Rothman and Joanne Patterson, director of prevention and education programs at REACH, in their interview on Radio Boston. Both express concern, not about MPS itself but about the risks associated with sexual activity and what can be done to prevent non-consensual MPS. There are increased health risks with MPS, but just as with two-person sex, MPS can be enjoyable and safe with active consent and safety plans. There are still many questions to be answered about who is most at risk and how best to educate, but there is no question that preventative measures against rape need to be taken.