Yesterday, a community poster reported on Townhall.com’s Kevin McCullough and his insane, uninformed, reactionary rant about the orgasmic rape simulator that is Mass Effect.  Well, the intronetts just about exploded when informed gamers saw the column.  Mr. McCullough was flooded with emails full of corrections to the many, many mistakes in his article, and has decided to answer gamers en masse on his website.  Of course, he still hasn’t actually played the game at all, nor does he really make any corrections, just rationalizations based on a youtube video he saw and some friends who have allegedly played the game.  

I thought it might be fun to pick apart his ridiculous arguments here, and guess what:  I was right!  It is fun!

1. "The most realistic sex acts..." - from the YouTube footage I saw, I still concur, to me these acts are the most realistic put in video games - that I have seen. In the lesbian version one woman's hand appears to stimulate the crotch of the other passing between the legs. (There is nothing in any of the sex videos that could even be misconstrued as manual crotch stimulation)  Today many of the more perv-oriented gamer-nerds took delight in describing for me the detailed description of games they claim are MORE realistic... Ok fine, I'll take them at their word, but for me the statement stands... (Because he says so, I guess)

2. "One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, race, hair style, breast size of the images..." Evidently the only thing I got wrong on this was the breast size, (and, of course, the rest of it) though I would like someone to explain to me how the female characters end up having different sizes again on the YouTube footage I witnessed with my own eyes...(Because they’re different characters.  Sometimes, they’ll do that in video games.  Make more than one character) But the rest of it was true. race, hair style, color - etc. (Well, not “True”, but true enough for Mr. McCullough.)

3. "...the video game "persons" hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of." Again true (not that there are that many combinations of human sexuality to begin with.) But since the makers of Mass Effect decided to throw in a little alien booty both hetero and homo it seems to me that they covered the range. Would these gamer-nerds have preferred that the game included bestiality? (Where the hell did THAT come from?!?!)  Later in the column I make a reference to being able to perform sex acts, homo and hetero, with whomever... Ok - you can't have sex with every single character in the game... But between copulating with Aliens, girl on girl, guy on guy (Not in the game at all), and according to my gamer-nerd friends who I checked with - it does not take a great deal of manipulation to add a few extra "kinks" to the mix for those who know a little bit about such things.(No idea what he or his gamer-nerd friend is talking about here.  Maybe your friend isn’t really a gamer.  Or maybe he’s not really your friend.)

4. They (the gamer-nerds) also took outrageous umbrage to the claims I made in the column that the game is marketed to teen-age boys. (Though many of those giving me feedback happened to be under the age of 17/18.) The common argument is that because the game is marked "M" that means that no kid under 17/18 (depending on your state) would be allowed access to it. Asinine thinking through and through though. Simply like the fact that movie theaters are this night allowing children underage to purchase tickets, refusing to ask for ID (Then why aren’t you railing against them?), these games are being sold over the counter by the major chain stores with no enforcement of the age limit suggestions posted on the games themselves. The Gamer-Nerds act as though the packaging itself is all the responsibility that needs to be taken (Well, that and parental guidance). Of course they themselves probably started hiding their collection of Hustler Magazine under their beds when they were eleven and have thus a good idea of how the "letter of the law" differs from the "intent."(Huh?  No, seriously, what does that sentence mean?) Thus the explanation of why they were so sore with me for pointing out the obvious. The silly "M" label stands for, and accomplishes precious little.

Well done, Mr. McCullough.  Your corrections are almost as laughable as the initial article.  You've managed to offend me as both a perv-oriented gamer-nerd and as a fan of the English language.  As a side note, Mr. McCullough did not respond when asked for an interview.  Not surprising, but I thought you might like to know.

Look!  Another huge tool!