Developing this video game began with a dare, right?

By contributing hater, Kenny Darter

I don’t often get to advocate torture and dismemberment, but for the creators of the video game RapeLay, anything less would seem pedestrian.

Yes, you read that title right, and no, it doesn’t translate into something non-horrific in another language. The game’s objectives: stalk a mother on a subway train, follow her home and rape her. Level 2 is completed by raping the woman’s two teenage daughters, or “virgin schoolgirls,” as RapeLay so eloquently calls them.

This makes Grand Theft Auto – with its solicitation and murder of prostitutes and general degradation of women in the eyes of its young, impressionable players – look like Mario Kart.

Video games don’t have to be dehumanizing, kids.

I had a tough time wrapping my hate around RapeLay. Creating a recreational activity out of one of the most dreadful and traumatizing crimes a human can commit is repulsive on an assortment of levels.

I remembered back to the sociology of gender course I took in college, and a question that consumed an entire class period. We had just watched the brutal rape scene from the 1988 movie, “The Accused,” and our professor kicked off a discussion about the tacit acceptance of rape in American culture. A few minutes passed and a girl sitting near me raised her hand.

“I’d rather die than be raped,” she said matter-of-factly. “I wouldn’t want to live after going through that.”

The discussion continued, and our professor posed a question. She asked how many girls in the class agreed with their classmate’s statement – that they’d rather be dead than raped.

More than half of the 50-or-so girls raised their hands.

“Definitely,” one girl in the front row said. “Death over rape any day.”

The RapeLay game was made in Japan and first marketed in 2006 by a god-forsaken company called Illusionsoft. Besides the initial stalking and raping of a mother and her children, the player can play a “freeform mode” that allows for gang rape. And if your victim gets pregnant, your mission is to force her to have an abortion. Oh, and if she refuses, your aim is to throw the woman in front of an oncoming train.

If you’re not brimming with hate quite yet, here’s a subtle detail about RapeLay that caught the gaming world’s attention: a little girl’s eyes “glisten” with tears as she’s attacked.

Would you sign a petition for the torture and dismemberment of RapeLay makers yet?

Amazon did the right thing last month and pulled a RapeLay listing from an independent seller off its site. And New York City Councilwoman Christine C. Quinn called for the game’s boycott last month.

Craig A. Anderson, an Iowa State University professor who has conducted extensive research on the effects of violent video games, points out that games like Grand Theft Auto are consistently linked with the most negative human reactions.

“Some studies have yielded nonsignificant video game effects, just as some smoking studies failed to find a significant link to lung cancer. But when one combines all relevant empirical studies using meta-analytic techniques [it shows that] violent video games are significantly associated with: increased aggressive behavior, thoughts, and affect; increased physiological arousal; and decreased pro-social (helping) behavior.”

Hang with me, and your basic human decency and sense of right and wrong will erode in no time. I promise.

While RapeLay might not create a generation of remorseless rapists, it does, in some ways, make rape acceptable, even palatable.

You heard the jokes in school. Your friend takes an exam, comes out of the classroom full of confidence and says, “I totally raped that test.” He (or she) is probably stupid enough not to realize the implications of such a statement, but a person feeling comfortable enough to utter such a callous remark is evidence that rape is often not seen as the monstrous act that it is.

The term “cartoonishly evil” comes to mind, but RapeLay is much worse than other games – and there are lots – that objectify and excuse or encourage violence against women. The goal is to degrade, humiliate, hurt and kill. And other hyper-violent, hyper-sexual video games shouldn’t get a free pass. Don’t be mistaken – they’re on the RapeLay spectrum.

RapeLay, its creators and the people who sell it and play it represent everything that’s wrong with humanity. When President Obama addressed Congress last month and declared that the United States does not torture, I would have liked for him to wait for the applause to quiet, lean across his podium and add, “except for the makers and sellers of RapeLay, of course.”

Gitmo's still technically open for business, guys.

I’d be cool with that.