Sailors are going to learn how to read another person’s verbal cues and body language with a Kinect training game meant to curb a sexual harassment/assault issue that has become increasingly embarrassing to the US armed services.
Like all great things in the military, this game has a very literal and no-fun title: “Avatar Based Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Training”. I’m surprised they didn’t just use the acronym “ABSAPRT”, though God knows how you’d pronounce that. In any case, Avatar Based Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Training allows participants to act through scripted scenarios, with the avatars swappable by gender and race, in varying environments and scenarios. It’ll be used at the Navy’s boot camp at Great Lakes.
The developer is an outfit called Organic Motion, Inc., which has done other training games for the military in the past. It’s part of an $US86,000 government contract.
Comments
15 responses to “The US Navy’s Found A Use For Kinect: Stop Sexual Assault”
Really sailors actually need to learn verbal cues and body language for this…So how does this work the avatar says no and looks uncomfortable = no groping. You don’t need kinect to teach you that theres a book called How Not To Be An Asshole 101.
Just make them watch a bunch of Arrested Development. Maybe then they’ll understand ‘NO TOUCHING!’
I serpose its better than tattooing “do not rape me” onto all the female saliors….I think this is what you get when you lower the entry requirements too much.
Lowered requirements; do you mean intelligence or that they let women in?
Embarrassing doesn’t even begin to cover it. It’s been absolutely shameful, disgraceful, humiliating, and discrediting for the armed forces.
—- On another note, is anyone having issues using the bold, italic,underline,quote buttons in the replies? They don’t work for me. The mention one offers me a prompt, but the spoiler one doesn’t work. I am using the latest stable version of chrome.
Yep, the buttons don’t work for me in Chrome also.
Typing the tags out works fine though.
It’s embarrassing that they have to spend $86,000 on Kinect games to learn about body language and verbal language indicating that people dont want to be touched or harassed. Corporal punishment might work too. If for instance a female sailor is harrassed by a guy, let her kick him in the balls a couple of times while saying no means no. Then have the perpetrator suspended for a while.
Thats no different than saying its ok to slap a woman if shes giving you grief…..I get your point but that last part was inexcusable. Anyone who kicks me in the nuts without me threatening violence first is going home with a few less teeth.
For the record, i dont think its right to slap (or threaten or actually harm) a woman for any reason. Sorry should have changed “harassed” to sexually harassed/threatened with violence. That to me is inexcusable. Admittedly, I probably did go too far in saying what I did, but all these coverups just pisses me off and so does some lame attempt to train them using avatars. They should know something so simple. They shouldn’t need training.
Its meant to grab headlines, not to actually work. The modern military leaves me conflicted. Sexual assault is never excusable, and on paper i have no problem with women in combat roles. But the realist in me knows that having a woman, any woman, in proximity to a group of stressed, frustrated men is a recipe for disaster. Not all men will do wrong, but it only takes one to cause an incident. One which then costs thousands of dollars in legal fees and months of bad publicity.
In short, the modern man me wants a fully integrated military, but the traditional man me understands why military affairs has been a boys club for almost all recorded history.
Well, at least someone’s found a use for Kinect.
Why do we need video games and simulators to teach us not to participate in rape culture? This is bloody ridiculous.
Obviously this isn’t trying to tackle “rape culture”. This is looking at the far subtler forms of sexual harassment that a perpetrator may not even realise he’s doing. Hence the need to teach them to recognise the subtle cues that could avoid the incidents.
The problem is that men usually know what they are doing is inappropriate and still do it anyway then try to make excuses for it.
Now show kinnect where the bad sailor touched you…….everyone Is mentioning women are any men being victims of sexual assault, sounds like a navy thing.