I was ‘raped’ in VR – the effects can ‘mirror’ real sex assaults

This is offensive, deeply troubling, and, sadly, totally predictable. Julian Dibbell documented similar behavior 30 years ago in his article about sexual assault in the text-only virtual world LambaMOO. (Content warning… sexual assault in a multi-user virtual environment.)

A woman has revealed she was ‘virtually gang raped’  by four male avatars in Meta‘s Horizon Worlds – and she said the trauma is similar to a real-world assault.

Speaking to DailyMail.com, psychotherapist and start-up co-founder Nina Patel said that her attackers may have felt ‘disinhibited’ due to being in a virtual world.

While she does not know the attacker’s true identities, all four had male voices – and one even said to her, ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t love it’ after the attack.

Patel told DailyMail.com that the ‘distressing experience’ happened just 60 seconds after joining the Meta-owned virtual world – a shared 3D space where avatars often meet random people. — Daily Mail