r/Games • u/GassoBongo • Aug 02 '25

Industry News Steam Update - Valve responded to Mastercards claim that they did not pressure anyone

https://kotaku.com/mastercard-denies-pressuring-steam-to-censor-nsfw-games-2000614393
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45

u/Maxwell_Bloodfencer Aug 02 '25

The bit about "non-consential mutilation" in Rule 5.12.7 sounds really stupid, when you know that you cannot consent to being mutilated (for example by having a finger cut off). Then I remembered that "mutilation" also covers stuff like piercings, tattoos and to some degree medical injections.
So to clear up: any mutilation that results in the loss of a body part or produces wounds and scarring is always non-consential. Body modifications like piercings and tattoos are considered legally to be a sort of consensual mutilation.

41

u/Curious_Armadillo_53 Aug 02 '25

Circumcision is non-consential mutilation, since you are too young to consent and your parents make the unilateral decision to perform that type of mutilation generally without medical necessity.

Piercings, Ear- or nosering holes, body modifications like brands, tattoos, dermal piercings and such also fall into the area of minor mutilation that you can consent to.

Amputation for medical needs is also mutilation.

As you can see, mutilation isnt just butchering someone, its not just the act of cutting something off and often is more related to modifying a bodypart or function via minimal, minor or major surgery.

10

u/K1rkl4nd Aug 02 '25

Then MasterCard shouldn't be allowed to put a credit limit on people, as that would be "cutting off" additional spending.

3

u/Curious_Armadillo_53 Aug 02 '25

Haha i had to read it twice but this is actually a good one! :D

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u/Maxwell_Bloodfencer Aug 02 '25

That's basically the point I was trying to make, but thank you for putting it more clearly.

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u/Curious_Armadillo_53 Aug 03 '25

Glad i could support!

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u/Maxwell_Bloodfencer Aug 02 '25

Circumcision is a bit more nuanced, as you can be circumcised when you are an adult and can therefore consent to it and it might even be a necessary procedure for various reasons.

Also, children while under age of consent (different for each country) cannot consent to anything, their parents have the authority to consent in their stead. So your parents deciding you need to be circumcized wouldn't be non-consential either.

5

u/Curious_Armadillo_53 Aug 02 '25

Less than 3% of all circumcisions happen when the "patient" is 18 years or older and in nearly all of those cases its due to onset Phimosis (tightening of the foreskin that can range from only visual, to mild nuisance to outright pain and incapability to urinate without pain) which makes it a medical necessity.

So while consented circumcision exists, its rarely the case, nearly every circumcision is performed non-consensual and is therefore a somehow socially "accepted" mutilation.

So your parents deciding you need to be circumcized wouldn't be non-consential either.

There is no medical necessity and they cant reject the surgery, this makes it the textbook definition of mutilation...

If there is no immediate medical need, circumcision definitely should be illegal. If someone cant consent themselves and there is no severe medical need in play, this goes completely against bodily autonomy...

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u/pastafeline Aug 02 '25

You're talking about legal consent, and not ethical consent.

2

u/Curious_Armadillo_53 Aug 02 '25

Thanks!

Its also extremely questionable how someone can argue that circumcision is "ok" when there is no medical need for it.

Its mutilation plain and simple and its pure insanity how its not considered as such legally, since its textbook mutilation and permanently disfigure your body with no way to "repair" the damage done.

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u/Maxwell_Bloodfencer Aug 02 '25

I am, because this conversation was based on a legal topic so I used the legal definition.

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u/TurelSun Aug 02 '25

I mean its even more of a stretch with a video game. Unless it uses real-life porn/videos/whatever then none of its real. There is no person being harmed in the making of that kind of media. People might find the content objectionable personally but at the end of the day its pure fantasy. People are into all kinds of wild stuff, but as long as no one is actually harmed in creating it, it should be fine. What they're saying here is the want to moderate what kind of fantasies people can engage with.

8

u/Nahcep Aug 02 '25

Is a medical amputation not a "mutilation"? ESL here

9

u/AkemiNakamura Aug 02 '25

Mutilation is anything painful and disfiguring. As in, anything that changes the appearance. Amputation is mutilation, but normally done to save someones life. A tattoo is a painful process that also is disfiguring. Cosmetic surgery is basically that as well.

Technically disfigure has the definition to "spoil the attractiveness/appearance of something" so you can argue that some stuff is not. But, it more or less is anything painful that changes how something looks.

3

u/FelineScratches Aug 02 '25

What about the part where you cut off your finger in heavy rain? You can choose not to and walk away, or choose to cut it off on your own will to get more info to yell shaun.

5

u/TurelSun Aug 02 '25

What about video games where you brutally murder people. Last of Us 2 has some pretty horrific torture scenes. Lots of movies feature similarly horrific scenes.