Like Guitar Hero? Well you’ll just love Vagina Hero! Or not.
Dude, you know what would be, like, awesome? If there was a Guitar Hero for girls! No, not a more girl-friendly game featuring Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill or Hole, I’m talking about a game where instead of controlling a guitar, you’re controlling a woman’s vagina! Awesome huh?
The dweebs at Ripten.com have created a hil-a-rious parody of Guitar Hero, called Vagina Hero. The purpose of the game is to fill the ‘climax meter’ by pushing the right buttons on the vulva-shaped controller, although you can also speed things up with ‘the shocker’ by repeatedly jamming the buttons which on the controller represent the vagina and anus. Once you’ve finished one girl, you move onto the next level girl.
Advice on using the controller includes “You could also just mash all the buttons at the same time with your fist and hope to get lucky.”
There are also plans for a Pro Bundle costs about $600 extra. Because as creator Dan Landis explains, “We wanted to prepare our players for the inevitable truth that dudes with money are more successful with women, even if they aren’t any more skilled.”
Why create this stupid fake game? Because acording to Landis, “We all know what the girls are thinking anyways when they get all googily-faced over guitarists, even fake guitarists. Might as well stop faking the funk and try to teach them boys something useful.”
But relaaax! It’s not offensive to women: “If anything, we are doing women a great service. We are making foreplay interesting and exciting for guys while simultaneously giving them the practice they need so they know what they’re doing when they get there. I think women should be excited by the idea of no longer walking away from a sexual encounter with blue balls, or whatever the equivalent of that would be for women.”
So how does Vagina Hero score on the sexist hate-scale?
Objectifies women: 10/10
Reduces women to a body part: 10/10
Women as goldiggers stereotype: 10/10
Women as groupies stereotype: 10/10
No female musicians stereptype: 10/10
No female gamers stereotype: 10/10
Men hate foreplay stereotype: 10/10
Men are crap at sex stereotype: 10/10
SCORE: 100% sterotyping sexist bullshit! Suprise!
[Found via Lesbian Gamers]
Posted by Milly on 5 August 2008, at 10:58 AM | Comments (20)
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Feeds
Lara The Second said:
Oh dear god fucking shit.
I don't know what to say first about this.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 11:26 AM
Sabre said:
That's so weird and lame. I don't really see it taking off here though. I have more faith in people than that! Having said that, the comments under the article are worrying.
I hadn't realised I was getting all googily-faced when I went to see bands. I thought the expression on my face represented my enjoyment of music and appreciation of guitar-playing skill, but perhaps I was really just thinking of being finger-f***ed. Yes indeedy
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 12:05 PM
Leigh said:
Questioning your use of the word 'Dweebs'.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 12:12 PM
Stephie said:
That is a vile little game. Puke.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 12:35 PM
NorthernJess said:
There must be one modelled on a penis as well surely? I don't know whether to be offended or just to laugh. I have been baught a novelty penis thing before in the past at some hideous 'hen' party scenario, and this seems similar. It is more the language used that offends me as well as the idea that it encorages men to believe they score 'points' with women purely by attempting to make them orgasm.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 12:36 PM
Anna said:
I don't even know how to respond to this. It's completely insane!
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 12:38 PM
Debs said:
I actually did nearly vomit reading that...
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 1:12 PM
Sabre said:
I can just imagine the young boy who after playing this game gets intimate with a girl for the first time. Feeling confident, he takes a look and then panics when he realises real women aren't colour coded! What can he do? “You could also just mash all the buttons at the same time with your fist and hope to get lucky.”
This stuff is dark
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 1:47 PM
Ellie said:
Um, has it occured to anyone that this might be made up?
Have a look at the comments below...
Also the official Activision site says nothing about it. I think its probably just a hoax. For which I am eternally grateful.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 2:28 PM
Milly said:
The game is a parody, so it's not actually real - thank god! Sorry if I didn't make that clear enough in the post.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 2:38 PM
JENNIFER DREW said:
Despite this game being a 'fake' still it manages to impose the widespread myth and acceptance that 'foreplay' means only male-centered notions of what supposedly encompasses 'real heterosex or what I term phallocentric sex' is real. Apart from that - just another yawn misogynstic dehumanisation of women. So what's new?
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 3:00 PM
Sabre said:
ohh.... yeah of course I knew it wasn't real.... *feeling embarassed*
Actually I did think it was a parody but it still made me feel angry and insulted.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 3:53 PM
Cara said:
EEEEEUUUUUWWWWW
Yeah, 'cos women are machines that come if a guy presses the right buttons - so he can feel like a big hero for being great in bed!
YEUCH.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 3:55 PM
Jennifer-Ruth said:
Oh god, that made me feel sick...especially since I am gonna go play some Guitar Hero to relax after a long day at work...
As a secondary note:
“You could also just mash all the buttons at the same time with your fist and hope to get lucky.”
Mashing? Jamming your fingers? Yeah...sounds *really* pleasurable.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 5:46 PM
Zenobia said:
Meh, it's really nothing to get angry about, just a slightly unfunny parody on the idea of the guitar as penis substitute. If anything, it's taking the piss out of men who play Guitar Hero, and the idea of the guitar hero in general. It's no more offensive than Frank Zappa whispering 'spoo' to his lead guitarist when he went off on one.
Besides, why expect something like Guitar Hero to have a version with Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill in it? Maybe they'd rather not participate in something like that, you know? It's not to every band's advantage to give their songs that kind of exposure. And to be honest, if I'm tangling with something that requires as much critical distance as the concept of the 'guitar hero', I certainly don't want to be doing it with to the lyrics of Jet Ski. I don't expect a protest version with I Ain't Marching Anymore by Phil Ochs either. I'm sure Focus on the Family probably make one with a bunch of CCM and the Christian version of La Bamba on it, maybe we shouldn't follow their example.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 5:48 PM
SnowdropExplodes said:
Sometimes I think things can be taken too literally.
Back in April, I wrote the following:
[Men believe] "the character on the screen will automatically respond in the same way every time you press the same buttons. The "pick-up" culture relies on the belief that there is a single operators' manual that applies to all women as though they are characters in a video game. Why does it tie in with the no-sex class thing? Because the prize at the end of the video game is... SEX!"
The other obvious point I think nobody else has mentioned here yet: sex, especially foreplay - the KEY element is not "push the buttons" but "communicate and respond"!
But mostly, I think my reaction is just another load of "YEEUUUCHHHKKKK!"
(Oh yeah - and, from a man's point of view - I never realised that my desire to make fantastic music was just about getting into girls' pants, I thought it had something to do with, you know, expressing myself, contributing something beautiful to the world, and shit like that. Just goes to show, huh?)
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 6:14 PM
maye said:
there has already been a game out just like that before way back in the ps1 days, i remember because my friend had it and asked me for help "has he put it " to clock her.
ps: i did so it never learned or showed him anything lol
just another childish novelty for the men who soon got bored with it.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 8:53 PM
Cara said:
Exactly, SnowdropExplodes.
Even though this is a parody...taking the piss out of Guitar Hero because apparently men only play the guitar to pick up women...the criticisms remain valid. The "push the buttons" attitudes we are alluding to are not what is being parodied.
Posted on 05 August 2008 at 10:55 PM
Zenobia said:
Come on guys. Someone photoshopped two Guitar Hero necks together and made a twat of themselves. That's not exactly grounds for outrage, and I don't think anyone other than you guys is actually getting any serious message out of this. I certainly doubt anyone playing this would assume that this was representative of the realities of pleasuring a woman.
And besides, it's not in any way saying that men only play guitar to pick up women, it's saying that becoming a guitar hero has a subtext, among other things, of picking up women. If you can call it a subtext, more like an overtext at times.
I mean, you'd complain about cock rock and hair metal, right, or at least recognise that the element of picking women up and playing them like they're a stringed instrument was present. Why be horrified when someone else does the same?
Posted on 06 August 2008 at 10:06 AM
Brinstar said:
That this game is a parody doesn't matter. That someone thought it up in the first place and thought that it would be funny is just so depressing.
Posted on 08 August 2008 at 7:17 PM