Ok, so I don't like tabletop RPGs, but I love @JacobBurgessVO and @loadingreadyrun , so I figured I'd give this a watch.

The extended discussion of consent and boundaries was fucking wonderful. https://twitter.com/loadingreadyrun/status/1334190888495419393

Part of the reason I loathe tabletop RPGs is the near constant ill-use I recieved at the hands of DMs and fellow players.

I was frequently the only girl at the table. This almost always lead to awkward flirting from the other players, none of which was wanted or encouraged.

When I failed to respond to their romantic advances IRL, it almost always escalated to romantic advances in game. Which, when you're playing a game where you're saving the world from supernatural horrors, feels super out of place.

More than once, I shared a table with a guy that really took my refusal of his advances personally. To the point that he attempted to RP his Barbarian 'ravishing' my Ranger. With some dim notion that after he raped her, she'd fall helplessly in love with him.

And when my Ranger responded to his rapey advances by shooting him, somehow I was the problem at the table. My suggestion that she was taking aim at his left eye, and fully intended to kill him was not collaborative, or fair play.

He was instructed to take the hint, and not rape my character at this juncture, but I got a talking to about collaborative play later on.

RPing a rape? At that table it was OK.
RPing resisting a rape with all the tools at my disposal? Ruining everyone's funtimes, and not cool.

Subsequent campaigns saw that same player RPing peeping at me when we stopped at an inn. Or swatting me on the ass for good luck. Or demanding hugs or kisses at the end of combat.

And when I complained, I became the problem.

I talked it out with our DM. He promised to make some changes to how we played to keep us all on task, and reduce distractions.

He imbued the Barbarian with a special power, where he could compel other characters to do his bidding, and we'd be powerless to resist.

Guess who used his power to tell my character to get nude, and crawl to him on her knees.

I packed my shit up and left. I could find another table to play at, surely.

But, my reputation preceded me when I tried to find other groups to play with. I was too uptight. I didn't want to collaborate on the story we were telling. I was not a cool chick.

My character was almost always saddled with some disadvantage. I was given shitty backstories about how I was a disgraced, fallen woman. I was cursed.

It sucked. And I finally quit trying to play.

If anyone I had encountered back then had taken 5 minutes to discuss boundaries, or what anyone was comfortable with, and hadn't treated my disgust at rape play as some annoyance, or you know, like even CARE about how others felt, I might not have quit.