LookAtYouHacker said:Lately I have been briefly paying attention to female characters in NEW video games (excluding the female Barbarian in Diablo 3) and nearly if not all are portrayed as physically weak.
Call me paranoid, but I think this is to somehow appeal to the modernistic ideal of beauty (skinny equals perfection); the idea that even menial/healthy amounts of fat define morbid obesity. It's not that I have some prejudice towards slender women (beauty is subjective and comes in many forms), it's the fact they're in my paranoid mind conforming to such attitudes.
Additionally, I think this is an attempt to degrade sexualisation of women.
Why do people ALWAYS equate athletic/voluptuous female figures in media with deliberate, unrealistic sexualisation? It is infuriating and ironically an unconscious form of male privilege/sexism in itself.
Some quotes from the site below which I can't respond to and make me sick.
Seneth Somed: "Being 5f9 and 100 lbs. with DDD tits is not physically perfect for anyone but a porn star. For people whose job is fighting bad guys, it is completely ludicrous."
Insomniac: "Perfect for fucking, not perfect for being. In the same way that male superheroes and action stars do not have fighting styles that consist entirely of sexual positions."
So women who are born with naturally large breasts or strive to achieve athletic figures are prostitutes just because their bodies happen to be conventionally attractive? It isn't always artificial.
Bodily structures of any kind have never correlated with sexualisation; it is HUMANS themselves who are responsible for perverting their primal image (for example breasts are biologically and were primarily mammary glands, now they are mostly portrayed as sexual objects).
Additionally have they ever considered such choices may simply be an unassuming, realistic decision pertaining to the characters environmental adaptation/physical ability within the story etc? Yeah, some may find such figures sexually attractive, but then such a reaction was not necessarily intended by the creator.
Let's take Catwoman and Poison Ivy from Batman: Arkham City. People complain about sexualisation, but fail to realise part of their original power (ESPECIALLY Poison Ivy) is utilizing their sexual appeal to dominate/deceive their attackers. Additionally, Catwoman is extremely athletic, therefore her figure is athletic (even if the proportions border on a little over-exaggerated.)
On an interesting note, despite that some people think bestowing a woman with a voluptuous body or large breasts is sexualisation, what people consider as sexually attractive is SUBJECTIVE! I have met men who find a woman with small breasts innocently attractive etc.
That is why for me the term "sexualisation" is a considerably nonsensical term when it comes to BODILY structures, as a natural sexual attraction will always be there regardless of physique.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/05-the-death-of-snkrs/falseequivalence/
This clichéd, strawman based comic strip utilizing the image of "the unassuming geek girl" is a perfect example of what I mean. She claims his idea of what constitutes male attraction is "Jack", but she is contradicting her own claim of objectification by assuming that all men are attracted to women with voluptuous figures etc. I'm not the only one who's specified this either. Oh, and some women do find muscle-men attractive.
Ironically I have been banned from this website by simply persisting in a debate with the author David Willis.
Unfortunately, he/she dismissed all of my arguments as "a list of dumb red herrings" (without addressing any), then malformed and extended one in particular (presumably because he/she couldn't respond to the others.) He/she also indirectly insinuated that I was "another sexist".
After I attempted to correct his/her misinterpretation of my message with a formal apology in the second thread (because he/she had deactivated the other due to a ?convenient? rule), I was periodically banned.
Oh well, life goes on I guess.
EDIT:
Probably the most irritating thing about such ideas, is that they?re usually purported by men.
This is something they probably think is ?favoured? by the female majority and or feminists.
First problem, they?re wrong if they believe they speak for all women; that they act as their ?unheard voice?, that all women feel oppressed regarding their claims of sexism. Idiots. Women are capable of arguing for themselves, and what they believe as "self-righteous" and "gratifying" is ironically an unconscious form of male privilege and sexism in itself.
Second problem, I?ve encountered plenty of women who are infuriated by such articles, as they indirectly insinuate that all women are asexual and shouldn?t be allowed to express sexual liberty. Women enjoy sex just as much as men (because like men, they?re human beings to.) Even though male-appeal can be blatant at times in media, the women who are complaining are not always asexual.
EDIT:
This is a comment taken from the thread, that details my original "issue" in a more relatable, alternative way.
"There is a difference between voluptuous (large breasts and hips, with or without a powerful build aside from that) and a pole with two watermelons tied to it with a few strips of electrical tape. There is tasteful and there is blatant "pandering." Where people draw the line is where you see most disagreement, but for the most part people aren't arguing about the existence of the line. Generally there's a problem when the female character looks like a supermodel or a porn star but has no redeeming qualities aside from that, especially when it comes to the story line or character arch. Then you have simply a token woman who also serves the purpose of being masturbation material. TL,DR: When the beauty is only skin deep, we have a right to complain."
Posted by user "conflictofinterests". Some very pertinent and appropriate points here.
P.S If my piece of writing provoked you, then I want you to know that in my mind you're completely entitled to your opinion and your comments are still welcome. Even If I come across comments that contain personal insults, I will still try to remain polite.
Thanks for your time.
Okay, I'm having a little trouble understanding this. Sorry, but you're very passionate about this and it kind of messes up the message in my mind.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but your view is that it is okay to have athletic, voluptuous figures in media but not at the cost of people having a prejudice saying that body types like that are, well, sexist. What you are trying to say, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that their needs to be a balance. Women with such builds should not be any different than women with other builds, is that correct? A woman with a build like Pamela Anderson should not be judged on her appearance, and the same goes for a woman like Aria from the anime Hidan no Aria (I thought the fights were cool).
If what you are getting that is that people have changed the image of a voluptuous woman from the female sexual ideal to the female ideal of shallowness, and that a balance between both must be achieved, ideally in such a way that both views cease to apply and a woman is just a woman, no matter what she looks like, then I wholeheartedly agree.
Women should not be judged on their appearance. Period. No one else should either. And judging anyone on their appearance in any way, shape, or form should be considered wrong.
I think this is what you are getting at, but please reply to this. I'd like to know if I understood what you are saying.