Two points before I explain the current situation:

One: The newly released Batman: Arkham City is awesome. Like, Game of the Year awesome.

Two: When playing as Catwoman, it is quite common to hear the game's enemies (Gotham City's criminal element) refer to her as a "bitch." This usually coincides with their attempts to punch her or otherwise inflict bodily harm.

Now that you're all up to speed, here's the thing: Apparently this has upset some people. Specifically, Kotaku's Kirk Hamilton who took to the popular gaming wing of Nick Denton's Gawker empire to rail against the use of the word toward this fictional feline lady.

As a result, my Twitter stream is now full of gamers and comic book fans weighing in on whether or not the word "bitch" is an apropos sentiment in this game, whether the term itself is innately damaging to women and/or how stupid people are for being insulted by this in the first place.

I'm going to abstain from offering any personal commentary on the topic, but I thought I'd toss the question out to Portland's enlightened masses via a precise, scientific poll. *Nex points downward*