Poll: Should Writer/Creators feel shame for Sexualization?

[Scars Unseen]

I'm not terribly concerned with the feelings of random strangers but just on general principles I guess I'd prefer someone to not be ashamed of their work.

That pretty much sums up my opinion. Honestly, I feel that if anyone should feel bad about anything, it's the quality of the content, not the content itself. I have no problem with sexuality done well. And when I say done well, I don't mean conforming to someone else's(or my own, really) beliefs on what should and should not be socially acceptable. I mean well written, clever, or otherwise created with some actual thought.

Grisaia no Kajitsu is a visual novel that contains a lot of sexual situations and humor. I usually don't care for that sort of thing too much, but I make and exception with GnK because it is just written so damn well(and it's getting an official localization; Kickstarter starting next month [http://prefundia.com/projects/view/lets-bring-the-grisaia-trilogy-to-the-west/2814/]). But had it been a boring by-the-numbers eroge with nothing to offer except a few badly narrated sex scenes, I wouldn't have been bothered by it; I just wouldn't have bothered with it.

Maybe I'm just difficult to offend, but I don't need everything to fall within my personal comfort zone. I don't think that we should be trying to make people stop making things we aren't interested in, but rather we should be asking for more things that we are. And what we should want(or at least what I hope we want) should require more effort than swapping out character models for a different gender. Less iterative, increasingly polished turds pressed into the same mold as their predecessors, and more worlds and interactive tales springing from the imagination rather than a demographic-targeted checklist.

Because if that were to happen, I believe that we'd see more diversity in our games occur naturally. And that would be something the industry could be proud of.

 

[NiPah]

Really? We're calling it fighting fuck toy? What the fuck is wrong with people who come up with trope names?
I'm going to come up with a trope name right here: animal torture murder porn, used in games where you abuse, torture, and kill animals for rewards and benifits such as Mario and Donkey Kong.
Using the sensational aspect definition for porn*
Seriously let's just call it sexualized images.

 

[Jux]

Have you ever heard of the franchises like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Free! or even Sengoku Basara.

I've heard of Jojo's in passing, but not the other two. Haven't read/seen any of them.

The latter has a surprising amount of homoerotic subtext despite being a series based on the sengoku period. It's suppose to be about warring in ancient japan, but there's a lot of heavy borderline homoerotic subtext laid extremely thick. Yes, most of the time, it's there for fan service entirely.

That brings up a good point which I failed to mention in my first post, fan service for gays and lesbians. Neither of which I can really comment on from a position of personal knowledge, because cheese/beefcake focused stuff from a homosexual perspective isn't something I feel particularly drawn towards.

Another point which I think is worth mentioning is how we take media from other cultures (I'm being US centric here, for purposes of discussion) and view that media through our own cultural lenses, sometimes in ways that's probably very different than it's intended meaning.

Free! is a more direct example, it's basically the poster child for the female gaze.

Makes me wonder how games we have now would look if cultural norms were turned on their head and games pandered (almost exclusively) to women when it came to fanservice.

So, if I'm right though. The line is drawn when it based on women due to prevalence. No matter how genuine the developer wants to make it, it can not escape the inherit pandering nature of it's existence. Wow, now that I think about it. I struggle with that issue.

As far as fanservice type stuff goes, I would agree. When it comes to sexuality being used in a game where the context isn't immersion breaking, and it's just being used as another layer to add to character depth, I think it's possible to do without pandering. I think though, as you mentioned the female gaze above, that scenes that play out need to be mindful of how they play out. Is it for the male gaze? The female gaze? Something gender neutral?

I draw porn because I want to, but I often worry that because porn is a popular I'm still falling into pandering when I'm not even trying. I can never take it as seriously or with the same effort as clean work as much as I want to because inheritedly it can't be taken seriously. Delemas are ten fold.

Making the effort to maintain awareness is always the first step in anything you do. I don't know what kind of porn you draw, or for who, so I'm in no position to give an opinion or judgement.

Thanks for this response, by the way. Literally sexy characters is the only area I have a issue with when it comes to sexism overall. Mostly because it can also kind of lead into "slut shaming", though the verdict is out on whether that is a thing when dealing with a fictional character designed by the opposite sex.

Np, happy to participate. And I would say it depends on how the character is framed by the creator. Characters that fall outside of sexual norms could be cool, but it's important to watch for any sort of judgement being passed on that character for their behavior in the narrative.

I'm a guy and I love drawing sexy guys. Is that sexist in relation to men?

No clue, probably need more information to go on.

 

[Cryselle]

I think that ultimately the problem that a lot of people have with sexualized characters is not that they exist, just that many of them are really really badly written. I think it's perfectly okay to have a very sexy, sexual character, so long as it makes sense in the context of the game. It's when it stands out like a sore thumb, in a place where it has no purpose, and kinda prompts a "Wait, what?" reaction that I get upset. If you put strippers in your gritty crime drama set in the seedy underbelly of a major city, I can accept that. If you put random strippers in a church in the middle of a story about the power of friendship, you can expect people to call you out on it.

(5 years, first post. Geez, I lurk too much!)

 

[totheendofsin]

I don't think sexualization is the problem people have, but objectification. People who are sexy for no other reason then to be sexy like in DoA.

 

[Batou667]

Absolutely not, I don't see the problem. As long as games with sexual content are rated accordingly and marketed responsibly, that's fine. Any medium will contain some sexual content - books, movies, music, games, whatever. Correspondingly it doesn't matter if it's fanservice, it doesn't matter if it's "pandering" (what does that even mean and why is it assumed to be a bad thing? We're talking about a product being aimed at its target demographic, of course it is "pandering", whether or not it has sexual content). As long a there's transparency, a diversity of games and a freedom of choice, that's all we need. We don't need to enact "corrective" measures.

Simply put: is sex bad? No? Then sexual content in games can't be inherently bad, or harmful, or shameful, either. If the worst we can say about a sexy depiction is that it's bad in the context of a real-life problem, then surely that's a more damning indictment of whatever real-life problem exists?

I don't buy that objectification and fetishization of characters is ok, even if it's done to both men and women, simply because when viewed with a broader lenses and put into cultural context, there is no parity. Games don't exist in a vaccuum, and while sexying up men with gratuitous crotch and ass shots (is that even what women want in fan service?) might be seen as breaking the mould, doing the same with women is just reinforcing cultural norms.

Case in point. Why the presupposition that challenging cultural norms is anywhere near the top of the list of considerations when a game is being made? They're entertainment media. They're commercial products. They're not usually vehicles of societal change.

And anyway, as you rightly point out, games don't exist in a vacuum. They're informed and influenced by existing conventions and norms; gaming is a microcosm, a reflection of wider reality. Therefore any criticism of sexist memes in games, or the unequal portrayal of men and women in games, is actually a criticism of the corresponding real-life issue - but projected onto possibly one of the worst imaginable arenas for actually making a meaningful difference. ("Hey, games devs, I want you to risk your profits in order to promote my pet political cause! Who's in?")

Violence against women in games isn't the problem, real-life domestic violence against real-life women is. The depiction of prostitutes and strip clubs in games isn't harmful, but exploitative people-trafficking in real life is. A socially-minded person wishing to start the revolution should surely address the root cause rather than simply its fictional depiction, no? Sanitising video games is about as meaningfully helpful as photoshopping the blood out of a photo of a gunshot victim, and declaring "job well done" while the actual victim rolls around crying out for a bandage.

 

[llubtoille]

I feel they should be shamed by society (much like fat people) as their actions and decisions have been deemed socially undesirable, but whether they themselves should feel shame is completely up to them.
It's quite possible they simply enjoy the content they create and believe there is no harm in it, and it's fine for them to feel that way.

 

[iTomes]

I feel they should be shamed by society (much like fat people) as their actions and decisions have been deemed socially undesirable, but whether they themselves should feel shame is completely up to them.
It's quite possible they simply enjoy the content they create and believe there is no harm in it, and it's fine for them to feel that way.

Has the majority of society decided that though? Because quite frankly, if I look at sales of games or movies or simply look at Television or even billboards then I can quite confidently say: No, society doesnt seem to have a problem with it. Instead, it seems to be a small group yelling really really loudly.

 

[Theodora]

This somewhat reminds me of a division in the cosplay community.

I've observed two reactions to sexy female (or male) cosplayers.

One group will absolutely revile them as fake/slut or go about creating a rationalization for why they are terrible. Whatever the reason ultimately the real reason for hate is usually that the cosplayer attacking the other simply is jealous that THEY don't get that much attention. They see a cosplayer like Mariedoll and are up in arms at the sexualization!

Another group will see Mariedoll and now has a body goal in mind and will start exercising and trying emulate that and reveal in the fact that she does do AWESOME cosplay.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

This is hilarious.
I just don't know why people always target Writers or Creators. Why are we even targeting them when we should be targeting those who encourage those people with money?(By buying their product.)

Edit: I expected fighting d***os. A wasted opportunity.

 

[Jux]

Correspondingly it doesn't matter if it's fanservice, it doesn't matter if it's "pandering" (what does that even mean and why is it assumed to be a bad thing? We're talking about a product being aimed at its target demographic, of course it is "pandering", whether or not it has sexual content).

Doesn't matter to who? It certainly matters to some of us.

As long a there's transparency, a diversity of games and a freedom of choice, that's all we need. We don't need to enact "corrective" measures.

You say that so ominously. I'm not sure if anyone here has suggested these nefarious "corrective" measures (unless these "corrective" measures ammount to promoting a diversity of viewpoints in gaming, in which case I stand guilty as charged, and we can move on to the sentencing phase).

Simply put: is sex bad? No? Then sexual content in games can't be inherently bad, or harmful, or shameful, either. If the worst we can say about a sexy depiction is that it's bad in the context of a real-life problem, then surely that's a more damning indictment of whatever real-life problem exists?

Again, I don't think anyone is arguing that sexuality in games is inherently bad (least of all me, considering the first line of my post is saying that sexuality in characters doesn't inherently bother me). However, I think the way it is sometimes protrayed (that is, contextually) is bad.

Case in point. Why the presupposition that challenging cultural norms is anywhere near the top of the list of considerations when a game is being made? They're entertainment media. They're commercial products. They're not usually vehicles of societal change.

I'm pretty sure that no where did I presuppose that challenging cultural norms is at the top of the list of considerations when making a game, only that perhaps it should be a little higher on the list. Handwaving away criticism because 'it's just a game' is a disservice to the medium in my opinion. You may not care one lick, but don't presume to tell me what my priorities should be when looking at games in a critical way.

And anyway, as you rightly point out, games don't exist in a vacuum. They're informed and influenced by existing conventions and norms; gaming is a microcosm, a reflection of wider reality. Therefore any criticism of sexist memes in games, or the unequal portrayal of men and women in games, is actually a criticism of the corresponding real-life issue - but projected onto possibly one of the worst imaginable arenas for actually making a meaningful difference. ("Hey, games devs, I want you to risk your profits in order to promote my pet political cause! Who's in?")

All bow before the Almighty Dollar!

Violence against women in games isn't the problem, real-life domestic violence against real-life women is. The depiction of prostitutes and strip clubs in games isn't harmful, but exploitative people-trafficking in real life is. A socially-minded person wishing to start the revolution should surely address the root cause rather than simply its fictional depiction, no? Sanitising video games is about as meaningfully helpful as photoshopping the blood out of a photo of a gunshot victim, and declaring "job well done" while the actual victim rolls around crying out for a bandage.

We're in a gaming forum. Bemoaning people talking about culture criticism of games in a gaming forum is senseless. Yes, I'm relatively sure most of us know that human trafficking is the bigger problem compared to depictions of human trafficking, but again, that doesn't mean that the way a game depicts such a heinous act should be free from a critical eye.

 

[mad825]

Well, no, they shouldn't feel ashamed of sexualizing characters... so long as it actually makes sense.

As an example, for a sexualized character who makes sense, we'll look at Isabela from Dragon Age II Dragon Age Origins

Fix it for ya

Sex is a part of her life

No it isn't. She is a sailor and more importantly the captain of her ship. Her personally is promiscuous on the side of things but her purpose was about stealing the Qunari the relic.

 

[Something Amyss]

Are we distinguishing between "calling out" and "shaming" in this? Because the latter seems tobe included in the former quite a bit. Simply mentioning this sort of thing is supposedly tantamount to shaming in the gaming community.

 

[Itdoesthatsometimes]

I feel the target on fighting games, is very off track from original post on onward. Can you change the title and the poll options to.-a you can forgive that I posted this as a poll, b-you can not forgive the poll, c-my target on fighting games is unfair, d-it is perfectly valid I target fighting games.

Not only off base but it muddles up the rest of the title. Did you really just want Fuck Toy to bring in views?

I forgive you.

I find the go stop forced sexual servitude, before you address sexism in games, to be also flawed. For instance, there are governmental agencies doing there best to prevent, rescue, and help long term, in regards to forced sexual servitude. There is very minimal I could do for this short becoming an agent. I can criticize games. This ignore this part of culture until this part of culture is eradicated, is not only, inefficient it is harmful. In before next dodge, no I am not equating forced sexual servitude to jiggly DOA boobs. This does not mean that sexism in video games is a non issue. I have only planned that far ahead.

Yes-in some instances creators (in general) should feel shame
No-Fighting Fuck Toy should writer should shame for sexualization (the poll-unless I just agreed to a time share in Florida)
I do not care-for this being a poll
If both male and female characters this wouldn't be a problem-I disagree, but possibly?

A designer wants to make a sexual, sexualized, or sexy character, fine. Should he/she show that to the world?
Is there room for that in gaming, yes. Should it be in a certain game?

 

[Spartan448]

Honestly... why does anyone care? The one logical fallacy all of these people seem to make is that all male game characters are somehow supposed to represent males in general, and that all female characters are supposed to represent females in general. No, no they're not. One person is one person and is going to be radically different from the next person. If a dev decides to make a character design sexualized, okay, go right ahead and do that - it is the storywriter creating the character and the character is going to have whatever traits the storywriter decides to put in. And of one of those traits is that the character doesn't mind showing a little (or a lot) of skin, you can't criticize the developer for that - people are like that, and just because it offends you personally doesn't mean it's an abomination that needs to be destroyed. Honestly, the only time it's unacceptable is when the character's personality is just so counter to that kind of appearance that the only conceivable reason for the character dressing like that is because fanservice. On the other hand, if you are in a situation where you want to dress a character like a fanservice character even though their personality is counter to that, there are a few things you can do to make that work. For example, the character may be being forced to by another character (in which case bonus points if you make this a source of tension between two characters). Or you could go the psychology route and have it be a conscious/subconscious type of thing, where outwardly the character is very uncomfortable with what they're wearing, but internally they rather like dressing like that.

Honestly, the only reason this is a problem is because of the way religion has influenced and developed the West's sense of morality. You don't hear controversies like this over in Japan because they just don't care, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that A) They realize that banning something or making it taboo will only make people want it more, and B) The fact that most Japanese people grow up around a mixture of religions rather than one central one like in the West means that some things from each part are lost or changed. Sexuality is simply another part of the self in Japanese culture, wheras in the West, showing your ankles condemns you to an eternity engulfed in fire and brimstone. As a result, we Westerners tend to fear sexuality much more than anywhere else, especially in the US (again, primarily because of the religion issue).

Having a sexualized character doesn't make you a sexist. It just means you have a sexualized character.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I feel the target on fighting games, is very off track from original post on onward. Can you change the title and the poll options to.-a you can forgive that I posted this as a poll, b-you can not forgive the poll, c-my target on fighting games is unfair, d-it is perfectly valid I target fighting games.

There is actually a particular consideration for fighting games, which is that the diversity of female characters is lacking.

Men in fighting games can be young, old, thin, fat, pretty, or ugly. Women will invariably be young and attractive, and the only real "variety" is cup size and some of them are pedo-bait. Even if they're not particularly sexualised, they'll all be attractive.

Fighting games aren't alone in it of course. MOBAs tend to have a very similar design ethic (LoL has been criticised for it specifically), male characters can be of all sorts, pretty to monstrous, young to old, etc. Female MOBA characters, even if they're not specifically sexualised are usually drawn to please.

Which is actually really the answer. If female characters were more varied then there wouldn't be any problem when some of them were blatantly sexualised.