Am I Sexist?

[Daniel Ferguson]

I've played females before, for those reasons, though not online. Mostly that was in my younger years. I also created a male vampire/demon dude for an animation project (he had to melt) simply because I couldn't, at age 18, control myself if I created a female vampire. I played a Fem Shep in ME1... and went all the way with an npc romance. Was I sexist? Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't, I'm not sure. But I don't think you are.

PS: I knew a woman who this guy had used for sex - he was with a different woman every week - and in Final Fantasy 12, he only ever played the male characters. He considered the female characters inferior, I think was his reason. Or was too embarrassed to use the female characters. Not entirely sure. Thinking along the lines of "use women, don't be them"?

That's my 2 cents.

 

[lacktheknack]

I don't think so. To me, sexism has to include some form of discrimination.

Then you're changing the definition of the word, so there's no reason to ask anyone else what we think, since you're setting the rules of the game rather than asking if they apply to you.

Really?

Yes. "Sexism" is a word that has a definition. Refusing to use the definition of the word and then asking if the word applies to you is maybe not deliberately dishonest, but it's stacking the deck so far in your favor that it's impossible for there to be any answer other than the one you provide, so the only reason to ask us is to get some kind of validation; an amen from the choir.

I don't think that saying that sexism requires some actual discrimination is changing its definition at all.

The dictionary disagrees with you.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism

Actually, the dictionary agrees with both of you. Definition 1 for JimB, Definition 2 for Starbird.

OT: Whenever I play a game with customizable avatars, I always take a heavyset character (be it fat or muscular). Does this mean I'm biased against thin people?

If "yes", then yes, you are sexist.

 

[Overusedname]

Hm. Well, I'm a straight white male. So sometimes I enjoyed playing as the things I'm not.

I played as a Redgaurd (black male) in Skyrim, not for any class or talent reasons, but just because I think he happened to look cool.

I played a lesbian in Fallout 3, just to see the world from a different perspective. It's very difficult for me to play a straight women or gay male when romance comes up, as I have a hard time relating. During all other moments it's comfortable, but then romance happens. And it doesn't feel gross: it can even be emotionally charming. It's just far less relatable.

If you want to create a female character just for the sake of oggling her...that's a little objectifying, yes. It's sadly the very essence of it applied to fiction; creating a female object to ogle it.

Yeah, what you're essentially saying is, "If I have to care about the character, I'll make it a man, but if I just want eye candy, the it's a woman."

I don't mind so much the idea of wanting to have an attractive or even "sexy" character; what bothers me is the idea that a woman seems to be, in your mind, fit only for that role and not eligible for consideration as a character that you are invested in as a person.

^What they said. We could be wrong, but it sounds like you couldn't take a female character seriously, which brings some unfortunate implications with it regarding how you view real women. Fiction and Reality are not exactly detached. At all. Our media says something about us, and we are in turn influenced by it.

Being aroused by someone is NOT SEXIST. Seeing no other point to them probably is.

I don't think your sexist but...I dunno. Why can't you play as women when shit gets real? I didn't have any issues relating to Terra from FF6 or Marle from Chrono Trigger.

 

[Overusedname]

"The female body is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. It's for gettin' around. It's like a Jeep."

- Elaine Benes​

I don't think you're sexist. You just want an aesthetic appeal to your character(s). There's nothing wrong with that.

Interesting thing about that quote. It might be from a women, but it still implies that woman are something to be looked at, were as men are the go-getters.

Don't quote war me on how oversensitive I am. It's literally my job to read into subtext.

 

[Sooint]

I've never understood the guy playing girl argument of 'I'd rather stare at a chick ass for 30 hours than a man ass', because I've played girl and guy characters and never even noticed the fact that their ass is wiggling in front of me.

Ninja'd. I generally try to keep video games and sex separate, so it's always interesting when I see this line come up. While I may disagree with your reasoning for choosing to play female characters, I don't see it as a big deal.

EDIT:

Just like a single spouted utterance of "I don't like black culture" on a random internet forum doesn't make you homophobic.

I think you mean racist.

 

[deathstrikesquirrel]

"The female body is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. It's for gettin' around. It's like a Jeep."

- Elaine Benes​

I don't think you're sexist. You just want an aesthetic appeal to your character(s). There's nothing wrong with that.

Interesting thing about that quote. It might be from a women, but it still implies that woman are something to be looked at, were as men are the go-getters.

Don't quote war me on how oversensitive I am. It's literally my job to read into subtext.

I would say woman are more luxury cars, they go places and look nice, men are just kind of ugly and break down a lot.

 

[Snowbell]

If this is sexist then I am sexist too, I rarely/never play as a male character (I think the only times I have were in Fable 1 and Jade Empire to see the male romance options), and I choose not to play them because I prefer to play as my own sex. And I honestly don't mind if female characters in games are attractive, I would rather be a pretty girl in a game, just so long as my character's not obligatorily over-sexualised.

You may not see it yourself, but to me, that holds some amount of homophobic tendencies, as well as considerable gender bias.

You may not "play for the other team," but if you're THAT uncomfortable with 1) the idea of seeing YOURSELF as a masculine warrior, 2) seeing that masculine warrior for long periods of time, and 3) to assume that there aren't male characters that aren't "big and hairy", is pretty sexist, yes.

How does not wanting to play as a hulking mass of muscle make you homophobic? I played WoW for quite some time and the only male race that's anywhere remote from 'big and hairy' is the male Blood Elves. I see nothing wrong with a man who doesn't want to play as a ridiculously muscle bound man, it's not indicitive of your sexuality if you just don't want to be represented as a meaty bloke in an online game.

Again, I always play as attractive females, if that reflects that I must be a lesbian then my boyfriend's going to be in for a shock.

 

[Shadowkitty777]

I've heard so many guys say the same thing that you have. I just don't see a problem with it. I like playing with sexy male characters like Leon, Raiden, and Ryu Hayabusa over perhaps a not so attractive character.
I don't really think there has to be some deep meaning to all of it. As long as people know how to separate fantasy from reality, I don't think its that big of an issue.
I find the people that make a big deal about guys that play girl characters are a little more out of touch than the people that just like a little eye candy.

 

[karloss01]

It just sounds to me that a bunch of nerds were disappointed that the female character they were most likely going to send perverted messages to turned out to be played by a man, and are now trying to white knight themselves in the hopes that an actual female player will read there comments and be all like "wow you are so sensitive and stuff. wanna hang out?"

seriously pretend to be a female on WOW and find out who are really the sexists. I played a female Necromancer on Guild Wars as the character looks a lot better then the scrawny corpse look of the male ones. guys would ask me if I were female which I replied no and they would then leave me alone. however one time I decided to say yes and then was bombarded with all sorts of terrible pick-up lines, insults of why I'm not in the kitchen and outright sexual harassment (I.E "wanna cyber?", "how good do you suck D***?" so on and so forth).

heres a link to a website that show pretty much what female gamers go through for the majority of the time. and its not just Xbox, every platform has the same problem.

http://www.notinthekitchenanymore.com/

 

[Pandaman1911]

Are you sexist? Gee, well, let's see... do you believe that women should hold a lower rung in society just because they're women? If yes, then yes, you are a sexist. If not, then no, you are not. That was easy! What else you got?

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Whatever you say or think will always be profoundly offensive to someone on the internet. Doesn't make you a bad person, don't buy into their bullshit.

 

[Legion]

It comes across as objectifying, as you only mention the physical aspect of wanting to play as a female character.

But to be honest, who really cares? Does this translate into reality?

Would you only talk to a girl so you can look at her body? Would you only be friends with a girl to sleep with her? Do you think the only thing girls are good for is sex and looking at?

If no, then the reasons you choose to play a female character in a video game are hardly important, because it doesn't relate to your stance on actual real women.

Nobody accuses people of beings sadists for enjoying killing people in GTA, Fallout or Borderlands, and the same logic should apply.

Fantasy =/= Reality.

 

[SoulSalmon]

I usually play female characters.
And although I might say "Well if I gotta be staring at someones ass for a few hours..." I find don't really mean it sexually, I just prefer hearing/seeing women more then I do men for some unexplained reason (possibly because I'm male and therefore there's ALWAYS a male around)
I also know females who do the same (play male characters because they prefer, but not necessarily for sexual reasons).

Does this make me some homophobic sexist monster? more importantly, do I care if it does?
I'm already apparently a "racist fucktard" because I'm more on edge near Serbians then other races so why not expand my terribleness.

Spoiler: Long story short

(Long story short they were the main antagonists from high-school, all of them, collectively. Perhaps there were some nice ones but I never knew of them cos they weren't the ones running round the school going "I'm Serbian!! Fuck Australia! Fuck all of you!", smashing people with staplers and hurling oranges at the ceiling fans.)

Getting back to topic: this doesn't mean I ALWAYS play female characters, and it usually comes down to "which has the customization/voice that sounds better to me". To go through games I've played recently I'm a male on Dark Souls and mainly a male Asura Elementalist on Guild Wars 2, yet mainly a female Outlander on Torchlight 2 and mainly a female archer on Skyrim

 

[Treblaine]

There is nothing sexist, sexual nor homosexual about wanting to roleplay as a female character. Any more than either gender choosing to play as a male character.

Why are people obsessed with finding ulterior motives in considering females as relatable protagonists?!?!

I think this is just a hangup from the media of how so much of the media depicts male as "the norm" and males as the protagonists. Female protagonists are just so much less common, in action they are definitely exceptional.

 

[JimB]

I know that sex and sexuality are at least somewhat hardwired. I'm also aware that characters in a video game are characters in a videogame. Meaning that, unlike in real life, people have a lot of choice about what their character does.

Maybe it's that I just woke up, but I'm honestly not sure what your point here is. Mind breaking it down for me?

But if you narrow it down to purely the dictionary definition you miss out on a lot of semantic context and as I said, the meaning differs from dictionary to dictionary.

This is a problem that can be solved with the application of more words. Rephrase your original question so it becomes...hm. Actually, I'm not sure what your real question is. I'm going to guess it's, "Do I actively and maliciously engage in behaviors intended to oppress and minimalize women?"

I have a lot of problems with your definition, since I think sexism as a discriminatory practice needs to be viewed as separate from what could be called "natural discrimination" (males finding it easier to understand/identify with other males simply due to common experiential traits).

If we're arguing about the labels to apply to degrees of sexism, then I think we still need to be able to identify the baseline from which those degrees spring.

I had another dictionary definition which was based more on action than thought. And I have now lost the link.

Eh, it happens.

Is using the word 'guy' or 'boy' sexist?

I'm unaware of any situation in which "guy" means anything derogatory. "Boy" can be sexist, depending on its use (also racist, but never mind).

Because I find them both neutral, pleasantly casual when discussing gender. "Woman" just sounds too...cold.

Regardless, a girl is a child. A woman is an adult. I dislike the word "woman" on etymological grounds myself, but the fact remains, an adult who is referred to as a child is one who is not wrong to feel upset by it, because it's disrespectful.

You know, I think that this perspective is what annoys me most of all regarding militant feminists. I have tons of friends. I have female friends. I have male friends. I have male gay friends. I even had a bisexual girlfriend for a time. *All* of them liked to ogle nice examples of what they were attracted to.

And I'd argue that if you're talking about real people being ogled, there's no issue (or at least, not inherently). What you're talking about is a fake person deliberately crafted to be sexualized and to sell that sexuality to men. The game is making the statement that women aren't to be sold to as customers, they're to be used as selling points; and when enough games and movies and TV shows do this, we create a culture where a woman is judged more harshly and more exclusively for her appearance than a man is because we've been trained to view them as objects first and people second.

Unless you are saying that women shouldn't be allowed to ogle/objectify good looking guys either?

Sexism applies equally to both sexes.

Which is why I say, in the context of this argument, you cannot only focus on mental processes, since for the most part they are entirely involuntary and even natural.

It's also entirely natural for human beings with impacted bowels to jam their fingers up their butts and start rooting around until the problem is solved, because that is an animal behavior. However, we've elevated ourselves above the level of mere animals through technology and, more importantly to this discussion, though society, which means we're beholden to the standards of our neighbors.

I'm trying to home in on why I have a problem with people using words like "discrimination" (which is a pretty nasty word) in connection with mental processes that we have little to no control over, it just seems silly to me.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm using the word without condemnation, since your sexism seems to be mild, passive, and ingrained rather than deliberate.

Trust me, I grew up in Southern Africa. If you want to see *real* discrimination, give that a try. First world problems and all that.

That's true, but at the same time, comparative standards are a dodge. You don't get to pick the worst possible example of a phenomenon and then tell people they can't judge you unless you're as bad as or worse than that.

Judgements involve the making of a decision. Making a decision, requiring at least some cognition and conscious choice.

And you decided to buy drinks for pretty girls.

Yes, but should we? This is *really* something you think needs changing? We should try to somehow teach men to be equally attracted to all people?

I...really don't think what I said can be interpreted that way, but maybe I was unclear, so let me be more explicit.

Attraction is a physiological process, and acting upon it is normal. However, once you allow that instinct to become self-justifying, you've absconded your responsibility to use your reason and you're treating people differently based on appearance. The problem here isn't liking pretty people, but rather the decision to put appearance first--which if literally what's happening, since you're choosing whom to talk to at this party based on appearance--and personality second.

Perhaps I should have been clearer in my OP. I will choose male characters in RPGs that I know will involve some sort of romance. If there was no romance, I'd probably play a female character.

Uh, what RPG has mandatory romance? Because I can't think of a situation in which it's not your choice to make fucking happen.

You've made a judgement call that doing the above is somehow sexist.

You asked if it's sexist. You didn't ask if I care enough to try to get you to change your behavior. I don't, because you don't believe me or agree with my stances, so what's the point? Until and unless you come to this on your own, you won't care enough to change, and I have better things to do than rage against what I can't change. Your views on sex are not perfect, but they're tolerable, and I'll take what I can get.

You're a straight, human male.

Wow, that might have actually just summed it all up. You're a dude, you don't want to be staring at a dude's ass for the many hours of a game you'll play, you'd much rather it be a girl's ass.

That really isn't helping his case. You're still objectifying people by viewing them according to their fuckability; and worse, you aren't even doing it to a real person. You're doing it to an image on a computer screen. Something you have absolutely no chance of ever interacting with sexually is something you need to judge on sexual criteria?

Really, phrased the way you put it, I can see the point of that person who said it's homophobic. There is no need to be staring at the male character's ass and fixating on trying to fuck it.

It also doesn't help that, once again, the female character is a girl and not a woman.

 

[BENZOOKA]

No.

It's not discriminating nor fostering negative stereotypes.

Next.

 

[Soundwave]

I've never understood the guy playing girl argument of 'I'd rather stare at a chick ass for 30 hours than a man ass', because I've played girl and guy characters and never even noticed the fact that their ass is wiggling in front of me. I've just been some camera following some dude/chick around.
That's probably just my own experience though, and form your point of view, no, I wouldn't say you were sexist.

You haven't played a Female Orc from WoW, have you?

 

[DugMachine]

I'd say no. Play whatever you want. It's a fucking game in a fucking FANTASY world.

 

[Phasmal]

I'm gonna go with `YESNOMAYBEIDONTKNOWWHOCARES`.

I feel it covers all my bases.
I do find the `nicer ass to stare at` argument hella silly, because if you cannot help but stare at the ass of your character in an MMO all the time... you're doing it wrong.
But to each his own.
Plus so many guys playing girls on MMO has allowed real girls to hide amongst their numbers and get creeped on less.

Though I don't get how roleplaying a straight woman would be hard or weird at all.
I have roleplayed pretty much all combinations of sexuality and gender.

 

[Playful Pony]

No sensible women would call you sexist for that... Those that do are (you guessed it!) not sensible!