THIS!
Those tornaments are just a bunch of kids high on caffine right? They probably don't even know what they're saying (I don't think you can even call them professional without joking or take them seriously).

Ok, so trash talking is part of the culture of the "sport." Fine. I'm sort of familiar with this subculture...I used to be pretty competitive with the fighting games in arcades back in the day, so I certainly understand the concept of "psyching out" your competitor. However, it was obviously making her uncomfortable in an inappropriate way. I'm not sure I understand how demeaning your teammate is going to help their performance in any way. There's a difference between trash talking and being downright abusive. And...why was he trash talking his own teammate again? Nonsense.

*bangs gavel* Guilty.

I really have to disagree. Trash talking may be part of the sport, but that was pretty much sixual harassment no matter how you look at it. If one or both of my daughters end up extreme gamers, and ended up in a competition like that and some dude started saying [censored] like that to them, well, needless to say he wouldn't be participating in that competition anymore. You can trash talk without saying crap like that.

I semi redact that. I half-read the article I guess, or got distracted. I misinterpreted it as 'lol you ho I can beat you' and random such. I seemed to have glossed over the sixual harrasment. Then again, I doubt it would have been as reported if it had been some guy saying sixual harassment lines to some guy. When a girl is involved, suddenly victim issues come to play. I'm not saying it's 100% true. But when a girl is at the recieving end of something, they're usually 'the poor victim'.

Okay, see, here's the problem. In any other venue, ANY other venue, it would have been an isolated case. It would have been "Some guy harrasses some woman".

But for some reason now it's "the fighting game community" and by proxy "people who play video games" harrasing some woman.

Is harrassing someone and making them uncomfortable wrong? Probably. Was her life ruined by being questioned about her bra size? Probably not.

Are all people who play video games now responsible for this? Absolutely not.

No denying that the article is a bit sensationalist. I think it's probably more likely that Bakhtanians is just an [censored].

I reckon the only type of abuse that men get often enough which is similar is homophobic insults (which can possibly veer into sixual harassment). I don't think that's acceptable either. Like another commenter said, it's not condoned in any other sport, and if they want to seem legitimate, then they'll have to start acting like decent human beings.

@Steampunk: I disagree with the "any other venue" comment. Take football - racism is taken seriously in that sport, and if either the fans or they players are judged to be seen as racist it does affect the standing of the community as a whole. It's a common stereotype of football fans, even if the vast majority don't deserve it.
And it doesn't help that the team leader then comes out to try to legitimise his comments by specifically saying it's a defining part of that culture in video games. Of course all gamers aren't responsible, but unfortunately it will reflect badly on the majority unless it's pointed out to d-bags like this guy that he's a moron and doesn't in fact speak for the community as a whole.

I'm going to take up a job where I have to fight people!
Whaa? Being spoken to as if I'm a rat is part of psyching me out
Damn I should have been a plumber

Really though who gives a [censored] she's there to fight them - if she didn't like those comments she should have been more determined to win or just walked away, it's what comments like that are designed to do.

- She could just have easily guessed about his [censored] and whether or not he needs tweezers - If someone fights dirty you fight dirty too instead of crying like a ..... girl

Assuming they are both fairly serious about participating in fighting tournaments, you could almost consider it to be a job. Would you tolerate stuff like that being said to a woman on a job? Or a guy for that matter? It's sixual harassment, and it's crude. Telling someone to "svck it up" is a pretty jerk move to be honest.

Perhaps if more gamers made a concerted effort to not be so creepy...

She wasn't there to fight him though, was she? The impression that I got, form this and other articles I read, was that the guy was either her team-mate or coach or something.

I assumed it was their jobs to compete in fighting tournaments, when you watch boxers going at each other to psyche the other out who bats an eyelid. Sure they might feel something from the "abusive" but that's the point of it, to put the reciever down so you can gain an emotional advantage.
Would I tolerate that if it was being said to a he or a she - Yes, it's not my job to look after their emotional well being, those people signed up for the job, they should be prepared emotionally and physically for the fight. If such talk hindered their performance then that's their problem to deal with in a manner they see fit, my opinion shouldn't matter.
It's not a jerk answer, and I didn't say svck it up either. She choose this career path, she should be dealing with her problems herself. Much of what he said was just creepy, not really offensive.

What? You never fought fire with fire?

What I saw is he was one team X and she was on team Y

Quote in the first post.
"But that's probably not enough to explain the way competitor Aris Bakhtanians treated teammate Miranda "SuperYan" Pakozdi".

Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong or it's badly phrased.

My bad, I change my stance to-
That guy has issues if he's doing that to his own team.

- I read this hours ago and didn't re-read before posting, but yeah ^

He was being a total ass, unsportsmanlike conduct towards a teammate. This wasn't trash talk, it was sixual harrassment. She shouldn't have had to tolerate it, shame about that. Sad thing is, she was a "good sport" and standing up for herself would have made some view her as an oversensitive [censored]. The fact that he was her teammate is troubling.

I think he made himself look bad, I don't think the gaming industry, as a whole, looks bad, but if behavior like this is condoned, or brushed off continously, then hell yeah, it will. Whether or not it is man to man, woman to man, or woman to woman, rude and offensive comments, especially those of a derogatory sixual nature, should not be tolerated.

I agree with what you're saying, but at the same time the article tries to pass it off as a cultural problem with video games as a whole. Pervasive sixism holding back the entire fighting game community instead of "Bakhtanians is an ass".

Here's the real problem: with so few sports that compete coeducationally, can we really be surprised if apples and oranges don't play nicely? Games are breaking some new ground, as it were.

Even if it wasn't his teammate and it was his opponent, it's still completely inappropriate. Most of you guys have probably never experienced this, but that type of sixism and harassment is not AT ALL on the same level of trash talk. I've been on the receiving end of both, and I can say 100% that it is not the same thing. I can handle trash talk, but sixist remarks like that is a whole different level. It makes you feel genuinely unwelcome in the community at all, and not because of your skill in the game or whatever, but just because you're a different gender and you're getting sixually harassed. It is just as bad as racist or homophobic comments.

And I say again, in the professional fighting game community, that type of behavior is completely inappropriate. There's trash talk and there's harassment, and there is a fine line between the two.

I see what you're saying, Velorien, and don't mistake me for condoning it, he was obviously out of line - I'm merely pointing out that this guy clearly failed to find that fine line between provocative and outright creepy, probably being well out of his league in being "playful" with the fairer six. If there's any "pervasive sixism" in the general culture, it's because there's still such an ignorant divide between the sixes, and it'll take understanding both ends to bridge the gap.

Oh, absolutely. I have no doubt that that is exactly what happened, as he did not seem to be intentionally harassing her from the description given.

The problem is not with the gaming community specifically or anything like that, it's still with general society.

This is just too funny... yeah, sixual harassment is part of their "culture" because you are not afraid of getting your butt whipped when you insult a girl or someone else across the internet... HA HA Losers!!..

Funny, in my contact-sport playing days, which included American football, boxing, and soccer, the only time I really talked any trash was playing football, and that probably was because of the nature of the sport, where you go all out for a few secs, then you stop, and you may not actually make a play in many series, so when you make one play, you feel compelled to blab .

....Hurting someone emotionally over the net..and thinking it's ok because they can't hurt you back is the wrong way to think. Someone could get hurt bad and want revenge and come very close to acting on it.

well there is a podcast i listen to that is partially about scouring the internet for horrible things and this kind of trash talking came up the other day. the show played audio of male gamers saying very violent and sixual things which i cannot post here obviously, but the number of recorded audio available is just a small percent of what is probably a larger demographic.

it does not surprise me, and i don't think it is always intentionally to discriminate against females, as much as the same trash talker may make the equivalent statement of cutting of the others wedding tackle (genitals) although i very much doubt whether or not such things are deliberately said to discriminate makes female gamers feel any less discriminated.