The art of the teabag. Yes, teabagging, that’s what we’re talking about this morning. First, let me explain teabagging for our readers who don’t understand what it is. After which, you and yours can debate whether or not teabagging another player in a multiplayer game is sexual assault.
Teabagging has nothing to do with mint tea, as you likely guessed. Instead, it is when a male takes his balls and places them over someone’s head to form what appears as a, yes, you guessed it, teabag.
In gaming, teabagging tends to occur when a player dies. Another player teabags the dead character as a way to humiliate the deceased, no longer active player. Its been going on for a while now.
Of course, one way to prevent teabagging is by not dying. Which means getting better at the game. If you get teabagged a lot, you might not be so good at the games you play. But I digress, because how well someone plays a video game isn’t what’s up for discussion here.
What is up for debate is whether or not teabagging another gamer’s dead character is sexual assault.
There are two distinct teabagging camps:
Those who find teabagging super funny.
Those who find teabagging as super sexual assault.
These diametrically opposed camps are arguing online.
The art of teabagging in gaming, particularly in first-person shooter games, has been around for a very long time. At least, more than a decade. Teabagging a defeated player is rooted into gaming culture at deep levels. There’s even videos that teach teabagging styles.
But teabagging isn’t the fun and games the above video conveys, at least not to everyone. The anti-teabag group wants teabagging cancelled. They claim its sexual assault. A popular gaming account, Jake Lucky, posted screengrabs from a Discord chat whereas people are pretty angry over teabagging.
One exchange:
“If [teabagging] is sexual assault [I’m] a repeated sex offender”
“I mean it is sexual assault. If I do not consent and someone rubs [their] genitals in my face that’s sexual assault. I wouldn’t be proud of being a repeat offender.
The anti-teabaggers don’t want to hear any solutions involving improving their play so that they die less. They just want teabagging removed, and probably, illegal. If teabagging is this popular and controversial in gaming, something tells me its going to seep into the metaverse also. But we aren’t there, yet.
We aren’t condoning the teabag, rather, we’re reporting the debate and letting you the people decide. That said, we aren’t sure teabagging is going way considering there’s a lot of teabagging support online and the characters are fictional. In other words, lots of people seem to enjoy the teabag and there isn’t much the anti-teabaggers can do to stop the act. Except, die less and kill more and don’t teabag.
Teabagging in porn games isn’t often a true teabag since the player tends to want the sack on their face. That’s more consensual teabagging because the teabagged is alive and thriving as a fictional character. Man, this stuff is complex.
But can teabagging in gaming really be stopped?
If you are anti-teabag and you kill a notorious teabagger, aren’t you going to feel compelled to revenge teabag? A final boss teabag that teaches the routinely offending teabagger a lesson?
Alas, we get down to the core issue: Teabagging is a vicious cycle. It’s bro culture. It’s gaming culture. But we’d be remiss to not mention that female gamers do indeed teabag defeated opponents, so we can’t put this only on the bros.