An intriguing question. And a most intriguing discussion that it began. Brace yourself, the incompetent word-steward is about to dump far too much hot text in your lap!
Frankly, I do agree on the general nastiness of a lot of media nowadays. This peculiar sex-fiend arms-race in detective fiction is part of the reason why I do not like anything grittier than Father Brown these days, as far as television is concerned. Of course, not all contemporary crime dramas participate, but there is an unpleasant tendency to attempt to come up with new and fresh atrocities to keep the public shocked. For a while, it is as if a crime drama had no chance unless it featured some woman murdered in some ghastly, ironic manner.
I suppose I may simply be squeamish, but I cannot say that it is my type of entertainment, which is the operative word. At least the dreadful adverts featuring clips of abused animals have the purpose to draw in some money to the fund that means to help them.
I can see horrors and cruelty unbound whenever I please, behind my eyelids, if I look for it. I do not particularly want to, so I cannot say that I appreciate the service, even if it is meant to carry an element of catharsis.
I partly lay the blame at Stieg Larsson, at least locally. He exorcised some personal demons rather more publicly than I would consider proper, and then it seems to have become a sort of fad. One where ladies are the canvas the monster of the week is painted on. A standard. The trend is shifting, at last, but I think my general aversion to grit is permanent.
Indeed, George R. R. Martin is a most gifted author, and I do admire the solidity of his work. But I do not like it. I like me fairy-tales. They need to have something dark in them, but they need to be cosy. Wondrous, swashbuckling, grim and baroque at times, but they must have a space for cosiness. Post Game of Thrones, there seem to be an impression that fantasy must focus on cruelty and cynicism. As if Game of Thrones succeeded where other tales failed, and the cruelty that made so much of its stock had anything to do with it.
Lord of the Rings would no doubt had been greatly improved if Aragon had gouged the eyes out of a few rivals to the throne, Sam had sold Frodo out for a newly conquered fiefdom and Gimli had raped a few elves while they were passing through the elf woods.
I respect Mr Martin's authorship and I am happy for his successes. But when this dark legacy dissipate from fairy land, I shall be a very happy man.
Now, then. As a note on the subject of expectations and growing up. When I was a boy, I had a doll-house. I had made it myself and was very proud of it. It was vaguely modelled on 221b Baker Street, I seem to recall. Of course, no one could ever know. It was my little secret, something just for me. I kept it very close, and had a lot of good times with it. No one outside the family knew a thing.
I cannot say that I was truly ashamed of my little 'vice'. It harmed no one, and no one would ever know. You are in charge of making your own fun in this world. I would have died of embarrassment if it had become known, of course. Less because it was something to b e ashamed of, and more because it was a secret little deviancy, all of my own, and there were a lot of meaner boys out there. They could hurt you, and it felt so hideous, the very idea of the school-yard bully getting a chance to come in and destroy your private little world. It was not actually wrong of me to make dollies solve mysteries and decorate rooms in my own time; it was simply very unwise to let it become common knowledge.
I still think that people should be allowed this private space for themselves. My secret doll-house is now mostly an amusing anecdote to friends and a box of good memories, but I think that everyone should be allowed a secret garden.
Similarly, I recall another discussion I had with another boy. I was (and remain) fond of horses and horsemanship. He maintained that it was girly. I countered with knights, cowboys, caroleans. I think that he agreed, and saw my point (enough to not think less of me, at least), but he remained adamant that horses were now inseparably and irrevocably in the realm of girlhood. Sometimes, you are reminded even in youth that things do not necessarily make sense.
Peculiar things, these expectations there are. Of course, there is always room to defy them.
As to why the sexual violence inflicted upon soldiers is not mentioned very often, I am unsure. I have not thought of it. It is quite common, however, as is all modes of cruelty in a war. It is odd that it is not present more in the media that is decidedly anti-war and presents it at its most hellish. However, I cannot wonder that it, among with a lot of other hideous and utterly inglorious things are omitted in works that, if not glorifying to war, certainly tones down its horrors for the sake of the story or style of the piece.
It is a bit like an old naval warfare phenomenon that (mostly rightly) does not make it into the swashbuckling pirate films. All the chaps on the battery decks tend to have soiled themselves after a while. Partly out of fear or want for a break, but mostly because of the reality of firing a broadside in an enclosed area. Yesterday's dinner must go somewhere.
There is a reason that this is not modelled. It is rather hard to illustrate on film, and if it is one of those adventurous pirate pictures, it would rather break the mood. The same reason why the pirates are generally not shown branding, buggering or cutting the lips (and frying them) off of their victims, as was a distinct possibility amongst real pirate crews.
Indeed, the frequency in which the participants soil their underpants in battle is fairly great. It likely always have been. Battles are always terrifying, Marathon to Mosul, and as they are generally an all-day event, you could hardly duck out of the phalanx to tend to necessities. Considering the pressure and the shock-waves of the modern battlefield, I can only imagine that there is a significant expenditure on underpants on deployments.
There is the lice, too. I do believe George Orwell, in one of his novels, say something on the lines of 'All soldiers are riddled with lice in war. The pacifists would be wise to use pictures of them in their pamphlets. The men who fought at Verdun, Waterloo, Thermopyle, all had lice crawling over their testicles.'
Both lice and turds are difficult to illustrate, of course. Difficult to model in a game. And in most war stories, there would be little point. In a Big Serious War is Hell picture, most certainly worth trying to bring across. Less so in Where Eagles Dare, for instance. Or indeed Call of Duty. War as entertainment is a different question all together.
There is, however, good reason to discuss where sexual violence is specifically absent and where it is not. Would 'Lawrence of Arabia' have benefited from a rape scene? It is doubtful, and I can understand its omission. However, would the matter be treated differently if it had been 'Laura of Arabia' instead? I imagine it would, and that I find the disagreeable part.
Well, on that note, there practically was a Laura of Arabia. Queen of the Desert, about Gertrude Bell. Nicole Kidman, I believe. It rather failed to capture her, I fear. Ms Bell is a very intriguing woman. To make a boring film of her is almost as doubtful an achievement as making it needlessly unpleasant.
As for the original question, I am unsure. I am a firm believer in the power of checklists, but I think fiction may be the exception. Tests of this kind is useful to keep in mind, but I myself remain hesitant to use them, or at least stick to them. At least partly because I imagine I would simply muck it up.
That said, it is worth the time considering. A perfect agreement may not come, and I do not think that every work owes it to be spot-free, checked and tried. It is worth examining what stories that feature old-model Orcs à la Tolkien may say and what it may not say, but sometimes, a nasty old Orc is just what you need to make the blasted tale work as it needs to.
That all being said, I can't help but feel as though there's something incorrect about this whole discussion. 
Right. We were talking about discrimination tests in the first place.
Are really useful in videogaming?
_
(sorry if my first reply in this thread started a separate discussion and sidetracked the initial question) 
As for tests, I can agree that the Bechdel test isn't too useful when it comes to video games, due to many games not featuring conversations between npc's in the first place (everybody just hanging out waiting for the player to interact with them being an old standard in gaming),
but that doesn't mean other forms of discrimination tests don't matter. As I mentioned previously, as a girl, only seeing boys in video game marketing and only seeing burly men with guns on the covers made me feel alienated as a kid, and it was seeing cool female game protagonists like Lara Croft, April Ryan and Zoe Castillo that got me into gaming, and eventually made me want to try more different games (including those with burly gunmen on the cover). So yeah, I think representation matters in gaming because I've experienced the effects of it firsthand, and I think having media tests can be useful in discerning broad trends and help people start to think and discuss the matter.
Maybe an alternative to the Bechdel test more adapted to video game-style narratives would be to ask if a game has;
1. A named female character (with an actual name, not a title)
2. Who has a full conversation with the player character/protagonist (more than two sentences),
3. And her conversation isn't about a romantic or sexual relationship with the player character
Any thoughts on this?
An interesting list, although as all such lists, it needs to remain somewhat open. Sunless Skies fulfills the second and third most easily, but it fails the first. This is simply because with the exception of the chosen player name and Her Renewed Majesty, Empress Victoria of Albion, Slayer of Suns, there are no names, only titles. 'Repentant Devil', 'Incognito Princess', 'Indurate Veteran', 'Inadvisably Big Dog', and so forth. They are all characters, but the Sunless games do not often 'do' proper names. It works better than it sounds, believe me.
