Am I Sexist?

[Lt._nefarious]

Well if given the choice I ONLY play as female characters despite being a male, even if I can't see them, cause, well, I find I usually get more immersed when playing as a woman and find the conversations seem more interesting. I don't consider it sexist. But then again I'm a rather odd person...

 

[chadachada123]

I play as straight male characters in games that have deep roleplaying, because I'm a straight male and prefer to roleplay situations that can actually happen to myself when love is involved.

In games where deep roleplaying isn't a factor (Diablo, WoW, etc), I generally play as a female, not because they are more visually appealing or anything sleezy (not that I have a problem with guys that do), but just because it's a change of pace. I also consider it more "badass" to be a female warrior than a male warrior in many instances.

It's not sexism anymore than it is personal preference, in my opinion. I can't read a female love story and really understand what the character is feeling, and would prefer a male love story. However, I'd absolutely read an action story with a badass female lead because it's just slightly more awesome than a badass male lead.

TL;DR:

WoW/Diablo/Runescape: generally female characters
Skyrim/Star Wars KOTOR: male or female, no preference
Mass Effect: male characters

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

Playing a female character because she 'looks pretty' seems kind of sexist to me. I mean do you see her as a a warrior or whatever you are playing her as or just a pretty face/ ass.

I think that's the question that separates it from being sexist or not.

On the Project Eternity forums (Obsidian's kickstarter) there were a few people saying 'don't make the main character able to be a female, women can't really be adventurers.' That to me is sexist. If you see your female character in that light and just see her as something nice for you to look at then yeah it's sexist.

If you choose the character primarily because it's pretty and then take her seriously as a warrior or whatever then it's not sexist.

 

[Starbird]

snip

Playing a female character because she 'looks pretty' seems kind of sexist to me. I mean do you see her as a a warrior or whatever you are playing her as or just a pretty face/ ass.

I think that's the question that separates it from being sexist or not.

On the Project Eternity forums (Obsidian's kickstarter) there were a few people saying 'don't make the main character able to be a female, women can't really be adventurers.' That to me is sexist. If you see your female character in that light and just see her as something nice for you to look at then yeah it's sexist.

If you choose the character primarily because it's pretty and then take her seriously as a warrior or whatever then it's not sexist.

Well, I don't take any character 'seriously' as a warrior

I'd just rather be watching Xena than Hercules, y'know.

 

[Ultra Man30]

No you aren't and I really don't see any reason why you would be, other than people just over-analyzing what you say and twisting your words to make it seem like you are.

 

[Klagermeister]

I tend to do the same thing, though not for the same reasons.
I just play as female characters because it's just refreshing to be a different gender player.

My first Skyrim and Morrowind characters were females. I didn't even attempt to make them look attractive, just not hideous. It just seemed to make more sense for a female to be a wood elf archer than a male (Amazonian style or whatever).
My main character on Soul Calibur V is Natsu. She has a fun moveset.
I tend to play as the Trickster or Corsair on AC:Revelations multiplayer. I usually pick the female characters because their appearances lend themselves more to the title of "assassin" (honestly, do the Crusader and Bombardier look at all like they would kill stealthily?).
My favorite video game femme is Faith Connors (Mirror's Edge). Is she purely aesthetic? No, she kicks some serious ass and does parkour, and barely shows any femininity.

But if you're gonna pick video game characters purely because you like some decent eye candy while you're playing, by all means feel free.
It's only sexist if that translates into the real world (i.e. you only give attention to girls with hot bodies).

 

[JimB]

According to Oxford, the most widely regarded dictionary, again you are using the incorrect definition. Discrimination is not a mindset, it is how you treat people (an overt action) rather than how you think about people (not an overt action). I can think sexist thoughts all day, but if I do not act sexist towards anyone then I am not being sexist. If I think about murder all day but don't murder anyone, I am not a murderer.

Then we're down to arguing about whose dictionary has the right definition and whether we can apply adjectives and adverbs to thought processes. At that point, it becomes meaningless to create a thread like this one, since we're just hopping from expert to expert until we find one that gives us the answer we want; so I hope you'll forgive me if I say I am completely disinterested in this line of argumentation.

I'm only repeatedly quoting you because you assume your definition is the "right one," without validating or double-checking your definitions.

If we grant that discrimination is a term that can only apply to overt acts, it still stems from a belief system and thought process; therefore, discrimination takes place in the mind before it ever flows out to the hand typing up the annual performance analysis or the mouth talking about Those People or whatever.

It's not really about sex though, is it? Women tend towards certain personality traits, due to the culture they are raised in not inherent traits, and he does not feel that he can emulate those.

And if he was playing in his own culture instead of one where women are and always have been equal to men due to the equalizing force of magic, that might matter.

Could you provide their definition? Having problems finding it online.

I provided it earlier in this thread, but I'm too lazy to go looking for it, so: attitudes or behaviors based on stereotypes of sexual roles.

Only shallow men would compare video game women to real women, aesthetically.

Yet we live in a world where Steve Buscemi can get regular, high-profile work, but Camryn Manheim can't.

I would like to draw a comparison to the publicly available fantasized version of men by women, eg. Jacob, Edward, Bieber, Fifty Shades of Grey, etc. I personally don't know any men that feel that we are being judged in comparison to these men, nor do I think women expect us to be like them.

Yeah, that's my point. It wouldn't be sexism if men and women were being held to the same standard.

Only further point would be that the definition of girl can only change if we use it with a different meaning. That way both 'guy' and 'girl' will have a much more similar meaning. Or we can try and figure out another colloquial word for a woman, but that's a lot harder to do.

Why does the definition of "girl" need to change, and why is it a good idea to have two words that mean the same thing except for the genders of the people involved? Why is it necessary to make new language that continues to reinforce a basically useless gender divide?

 

[In Search of Username]

That's not sexist. I don't really understand your logic since I can't say I've ever found video game characters attractive anyway, but I can't see how doing so is at all sexist.

 

[Colin Bagley]

I take more issue with people who seem to think it's OK to vilify men for finding hot girls sexy, than the whole "unrealistic armour" thing.

Personally I like Hot girls. I also like armour. Pretty much all armour, on anybody, lights a fire in my interests. So when there is a hot girl wearing unrealistic armour, I'm disappointed from an "Armour-phile"s perspective, but... well I'm still a hetero guy. So the Hot girl factor balances that. (Hopefully that personal statement will make me slightly more flame-resistant).

ps. It's strange how the paragraph trying to lend legitimacy to my Statement, was twice the size of the Statement itself.

 

[RafaelNegrus]

Don't argue with JimB, he means well but he doesn't entirely know what he is talking about.

He's not "assigning a personality."

I know. He already said that back when he said he can't play women and he definitely can't play straight women because he can't fathom what it's like to have a vagina and he definitely can't fathom what it's like to enjoy the feeling of a penis inside a vagina, for which reason he cannot comprehend a woman's personality well enough to mimic one.

EDIT: This is my five hundredth post. I wonder how many of those posts have been about sexism. I may need to question how much good I'm actually accomplishing.

Isn't that the same reason that many female gamers are asking for more female protagonists in games? They are uncomfortable with the sexuality directed at their character that is intended for another audience?

Sexual attraction is not compatible with the notion of sexism, simply because the vast majority of the population does have a preference of gender that they area attracted to, and to argue that this is sexist is a waste of time.

However, you would argue that his choice of avatar is the sexist act, not the attraction per se. I think that his actions are more motivated by his ideas surrounding what an avatar is, rather than any sort of sexism. And of course the difference he brings up is choice. When he has no choice in the game he makes a girl, because the avatar is in that setting only something to look at. When he is given choices then he prefers to roleplay as himself, and therefore makes a male character. I think that says much more about his attitudes towards games that have little choice, (that the protagonist is just another thing to look at) than all that much else.

 

[hickwarrior]

Well, I think it's not sexist. It's what you do, your personal thing. Unless you act on it and other people are effected by it, I don't think it's harmful in any way.

Or in other words: personal fantasy. Keeping it to yourself is the best thing you can do it, unless you thik it's affecting how you behave in the wrong way.

PS: While this is going, I might add that I tend to play females, but usually groan at some of the armor on it. The best example is FireFall, for any of you who played that. Men engineers don't have anything on a piece of their arm, but females get that plus they expose leg and an ass cheek. Also, they have a hole in their back. Why is it done like that other than eye candy? I really want a reason in-game for why females have said armor, otherwise I'm going to pull the toughest skin card. That's not a card in any game's favor in my book.

Also, I tend to not pick the female character in pokémon games. Anyone know why that is?

 

[Candidus]

What is it about standing upright that seems to rob most human beings of all perspective, and fills them to the eyeballs with pretention?

It's *sexist* to look at a female form - on purpose, instead of a male form - and to be pleased by the sight of it?

I wish I could say I'd never heard the same sexually repressed self-ashamed imbecilic bullshit before, but unfortunately I have. I've heard it plenty. The only thing sadder than the arrested maturity of the people who come out with it is the way that they sling the same accusation at perfectly ordinary men - and women - behaving as they ought.

You aren't sexist OP, and neither are you homophobic. Many of the responses to your feelings and thoughts that you quoted are only 'interesting' in how unbelievably twisted they are.

"I'm SOOOO adult for never looking at someone whose appearance tittilates me- not on purpose anyway, that's just WEIRD and DISTURBED. I'm SOOOO adult. You're NOT adult because you think she's got a nice ass, OMG u sexist."

People like this can't be helped. Just let it go.

 

[Something Amyss]

If you have to ask (and especially if you have to post for reassurance), you probably are. For better or worse, it's a good rule of thumb.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Congratulations, you?re human. You?re a male that likes staring at a girl?s ass; you're doing what your monkey brain has rigged you to do to carry on the species.

I'm in the same boat; if I have the choice to play as a gender I'll go female. Mass Effect, Saints Row, etc. It's people getting too 'sensitive' that's stopping developers from creating more female characters because they don't want to risk any backlash, "The character has a D CUP, I imagine they just chain women up in their basements like sexist pigs, BLAARRRRGH!"

In the next couple of generations of gaming when more women are in the industry orchestrating their own gaming experiences, we'll have buff dudes (basically the cast of 'Magic Mike') and then ladies will have the equality they've been asking for when dudes are complaining about sexualised males.

Captcha: which one is a number? George Washington. Yeah.

 

[JimB]

Don't argue with JimB; he means well but he doesn't entirely know what he is talking about.

Sooner or later, I'm going to figure out how to take this.

Isn't that the same reason that many female gamers are asking for more female protagonists in games? They are uncomfortable with the sexuality directed at their character that is intended for another audience?

I'm sure some gamers feel that way, but I think the larger issue is the lack of choice women have in these representations.

 

[LordLucan375]

Well, having different standards for both genders is sexism. Some would argue that you are ""objectivising" women by playing them solely to ogle them, but I personally wouldn't go that far. I mean you stated that you don't view women as inferior and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with men being attracted to women (for obvious reasons).

 

[The Lunatic]

I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with it.

I mean, yes, playing a female for some "Ogle" factor is a bit... Erm... To put it rather crassly, sad.

But, if that's your thing, whatever.

None of your opinions seem to hurt anyone nor are outwardly offensive towards women or men.

 

[Azkar Almsivi]

Personally I usually play as females because I love taking the role of something new and fresh. Allowing me a chance to jump into a role and have some fun which has some distance from my IRL. Saying this, in Mass Effect I am also a hardcore male default Shepard only person.

When it comes to you however OP, it sounds like you just love the aesthetics. Which is objectifying no matter how you try and spin it. I wouldn't whack a sexist label on you, I'd just say you're a pervert.

Also "I just stare at their ass to keep me from getting bored." is almost always an excuse. Personally my little female avatar spree started during my teen years when I secretly wished I was female and I used it as an outlet. What's your real reason OP? Or are you just in it for the eye candy?

 

[Arakasi]

I think that I am with the OP in that I am sick of this stupid existentialist notion of objectification.

Why is there something wrong with enjoying playing a female character if it harms no one else?
Not that I partake of it, but I don't see any harm in objectification.

 

[jackinmydaniels]

It's just a bunch of people being giant pretentious jerks, when I play games I tend to play with a male character just because I can connect with them better, but on occasion I like to play female just because I want something more appealing to look at. There's nothing wrong or sexist about that, it's just what you happen to be attracted to, if a girl played as a big muscular man to have something to ogle than I guarantee nobody would say its sexist.