It’s no secret that gaming has a sexism problem. Since the Magnavox Odyssey, gaming as a hobby has been completely dominated by men. Whether it’s the lack of strong female characters in games, or being told to make a sandwich in a Halo 3 lobby, women across the globe have experienced the wrath of misogynistic gamers time and time again. While plenty of the issues that gamer girls face have already been addressed, the issue of the unnecessarily gendered term “teabagging” has not.
For the uninitiated, teabagging refers to the act of crouching on a fallen opponent’s body in order to lower your character’s “teabags” into their face. While that might seem innocent enough at first (who doesn’t love a hearty cup of tea in the morning), I recently learned that the “teabag” referred to in teabagging is actually a double entendre, referring to testicles, and not Earl Gray.
This is an absolutely disgusting term and it should never be uttered into any gamer’s headset again. I hate to break it to all of you women-hating nerds, but some gamers don’t have testicles. There are all genders of gamers out there, and if they want to be incredibly, bannably toxic towards a slain enemy, they shouldn’t have to engage in a ritual that necessitates having testicles!
I know some sticklers may want to make the argument that the characters in the games may have testicles, and that’s what the term is referring to. Well, until you’ve seen Master Chief’s cock and balls, you can’t assume anything about his genitalia! Being a genetically modified super soldier, he may be as smooth as a Ken doll down there, despite the likelihood that he’s packing some serious heat.
Changing the name of teabagging to something gender-neutral like “face-crouching,” “salty-squats” or “corpse crotch kiss” won’t solve the problem of sexism in gaming, but it will be a good start.
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