The "Male Power Fantasy": what do women generally and actually find sexy?

likalaruku

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I also swing both ways & I like my women aggressive & butch & my men docile & feminine. In RPGs, the woman gets short hair, pants, & a sword, & the man gets long hair & elaborate flowing mage robes. & if that's not available, there is at least one mod for it.

Zhang-He from Dynasty warriors is a good example, though he could stand to shed a few pounds of muscle. Asian guys are naturally more feminine looking, so they're my go-to.

Female power fantasy? I'd say Lina Inverse from Slayers, Demona from Gargoyles, Carmen SanDiego, Hexidecimal & Dot from ReBoot, Sally from SatAM Sonic, Bubblegum from Adventure Time, Integral from Hellsing,Inaho from Master of Mosquiton 99...Not really a lot outside of animation.

What do they have in common?
*Position of power & respect or a feared outlaw that makes people piss their pants.
*Attractive male subordinate &/or brother with less or no power.
*Most of them dress very conservatively, the other two are animals.
*Never give up no matter how often they lose.
*Can save themselves & rescue men too.
*Bossy or creepy personality, possibly both.
*Usually chaotic neutral with grey morals.
 

Voltano

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flying_whimsy said:
The root of my question, though, isn't what would a female power fantasy be like, but what would be equivalent in appeal and gratification in a fantasy for a woman? Would it still be a fantasy about beating enemies into submission, saving the day, and winning the heart of the love-interest/eye-candy or would it be something that has less violence and conquest? My mom took the 80s image of the power-lunch businesswoman to heart and spent most of the 90s modeling herself towards being the kind of woman that ran her own company and dominated in the board room. I have another friend where her power fantasy would probably involve being able to heal the injured as a doctor or maybe an EMT. I also know one woman that wants to be a stay at home wife more than anything in the world because she just wants to meet her soul-mate, get married, and be a mother; she's always worried about coming across as boring she'd want me to mention that her hobbies include skydiving and working behind the scenes at comic conventions.
"Power [https://www.google.com/search?q=power+definition&oq=power+definition&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2696j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=2&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8]", from my understanding, is the capability of doing something that causes change in an environment. For example in "The Hero's Journey" template, Heroes are meant to act as avatars that cause change in an environment: Luke Skywalker destroying the Death Star, Dorothy defeating the Wicked Witch of the West, And the PowerPuff Girls thwarting X villain of the day to return Townsville's status back to the peaceful norm.

You could say that those roles you stated are women that are causing changes in their environment, but not in the same way how "men" are meant to cause change in their environment from the perspective of comic books, movies, and video games.

Most male power fantasies rely on masculine traits on which is stronger, who is more violent, or who has the bigger muscles. In laymens' terms, "Male Power Fantasy" is equal to a "Dragon Ball Z" episode, to me. But there is examples of powerful males that don't emphasize male traits, which don't fit in the stereotypical male power fantasy: Donald Trump is a rich billionaire; Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg really changed software development with their business/technical skills; Even the Escapist's "Yahtzee" is somewhat glamorized as a powerful figure for his reviews, such as making "Painkiller" a massive success from a single review by introducing it to a new audience. None of these people fit in the stereotypical role of "male power fantasy", yet they cause massive change in their environment.

"Male power fantasy" seems like a one-note definition from Comic Books/Movies/Video Games that men can only cause change by using their muscles and how hard they punch something. I guess you could say that is where the "objectification" part on men is somewhat true as this doesn't celebrate men being smart or introducing an item to the market people didn't think they needed until now.
 

DementedSheep

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Lotet said:
DementedSheep said:
Those are not power fantasy, it's ?I can?t even imagine a life when I'm not a completely useless ***** so I?ll fantasies about a superior guy dragging me out of this?. Fuck them.
Oh? I thought it was more along the lines of the Glorious Queen kind of power. Influencing everyone by being so great at everything the author likes. So a Mary Sue.
Only if she is actually actively doing most of this shit herself not just being a "queen" and getting the men to do all for her or sort of helping but being completely outclassed.
 

Alcamonic

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likalaruku said:
I also swing both ways & I like my women aggressive & butch & my men docile & feminine. In RPGs, the woman gets short hair, pants, & a sword, & the man gets long hair & elaborate flowing mage robes. & if that's not available, there is at least one mod for it.

Zhang-He from Dynasty warriors is a good example, though he could stand to shed a few pounds of muscle. Asian guys are naturally more feminine looking, so they're my go-to.

Female power fantasy? I'd say Lina Inverse from Slayers, Demona from Gargoyles, Carmen SanDiego, Hexidecimal from ReBoot, Sally from SatAM Sonic...Not really a lot outside of animation.
Xena is a fairly decent female power fantasy outside of animation.
 

Archer666

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Every time I see that Shortpacked comic I feel the urge to post this:

 

Lotet

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DementedSheep said:
Only if she is actually actively doing most of this shit herself not just being a "queen" and getting the men to do all for her or sort of helping but being completely outclassed.
Ah, I forgot that all power fantasies involved you doing most of the heavy lifting yourself.

I guess the one where I'm the Commander of an army of Gundams and Halo Spartans isn't a Power Fantasy.

/sarcasm
 

Schadrach

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balladbird said:
or rather, he's appealing to ladies because that's yet another trait men aspire to possess,
So, female sex fantasies don't exist, or rather are not problematic because being a female sex fantasy is a male fantasy and thus doesn't count unless that is the sum total of the character?

deshara128 said:


I suspect they needed something to drum up hype, and used gender as the hotbutton of the moment. Because usually publishers respond to comments like that, and in this case they were suspiciously silent. Also, it was kind of a bad game. Amazing setting, interesting ideas, they just badly fell through on the execution. Pity, since I preordered it. Shockingly, the female main character wasn't even on my list of considerations when I preordered it, but my experience with it is why I didn't preorder Thief, Dark Souls II, or Watch_Dogs.

deshara128 said:
I find Dragon's Crown an interesting one to use as an example, because it's got 6 characters, three male three female, with only one of each gender normally proportioned. You've got normal girl, giant breasts girl, and giant legs girl. You've got normal guy, giant shoulders/upper torso guy, and giant arms guy. It just doesn't seem that unbalanced, for the amount of flak it gets. Rather like Castanics in TERA, where the entire race tends to dress stripperific, but the comparisons is always between a Castanic female in the skimpiest outfit available to a male of another race in the most concealing outfit available, unsurprisingly.
 

balladbird

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Schadrach said:
balladbird said:
or rather, he's appealing to ladies because that's yet another trait men aspire to possess,
So, female sex fantasies don't exist, or rather are not problematic because being a female sex fantasy is a male fantasy and thus doesn't count unless that is the sum total of the character?
That's not what I said. It all boils down to intent and execution. At the end of the day, there's quite a bit of difference between a male character created explicitly, or even primarily, to be a female sex fantasy, and one who is appealing to females primarily to serve as a fantasy for a male audience. The proverbial harlequin romance covers versus James Bond, for instance.

The line dividing the two is quite subjective, I concede, as is interpretation of intent, but the subjectivity is the reason the issue is so heavily debated.
 

michael87cn

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Eamar said:
I'm a woman who swings both ways and I can honestly, hand on heart say that I'm not overly fussy when it comes to physique for men or women so long as they're healthy.

Now that's out of the way... objectification. You have to realise it's about so much more than just body shape: it's about how they're posed/shot (the camera gratuitously lingering on Miranda's ass in Mass Effect 2 and 3), the character's motivations and reasons for existing (for example, female characters are often the token love interest - they only exist so the male lead can get some). The differences between how male and female superheroes are posed in comics is really striking. Honestly you'd have to be blind not to see it.

Ever heard of the Hawkeye Initiative? It's a project where people take artwork of female characters and then draw a male superhero (usually Hawkeye) in the same pose. It really highlights how blatant and ridiculous the whole situation it. Check it out.
I don't find those poses ridiculous. They're supposed to be fantasy-like. Those comics are designed for men. Women can read them if they want to but they are drawn to appeal to men, simply put. If they were drawn normally they would be boring. That's the whole point - comics exist like that because its fun -. It's not supposed to ridicule women or anything like that. It's just supposed to be something young boys read and enjoy for fun.

Women have their ridiculous things too. Like the books in the picture in the OP, with men that behave nothing like real people, but subservient pets. It's silly, but that's what human fantasies are like.

There's nothing really wrong with this stuff... in my opinion... it exists outside of reality and shouldn't be compared to reality.
 

Brian Tams

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The way that a female classmate once put it to me:

"Nathan Drake is 1 Million times sexier then Kratos can ever hope to be."
 

Angelowl

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michael87cn said:
Eamar said:
I'm a woman who swings both ways and I can honestly, hand on heart say that I'm not overly fussy when it comes to physique for men or women so long as they're healthy.

Now that's out of the way... objectification. You have to realise it's about so much more than just body shape: it's about how they're posed/shot (the camera gratuitously lingering on Miranda's ass in Mass Effect 2 and 3), the character's motivations and reasons for existing (for example, female characters are often the token love interest - they only exist so the male lead can get some). The differences between how male and female superheroes are posed in comics is really striking. Honestly you'd have to be blind not to see it.

Ever heard of the Hawkeye Initiative? It's a project where people take artwork of female characters and then draw a male superhero (usually Hawkeye) in the same pose. It really highlights how blatant and ridiculous the whole situation it. Check it out.
I don't find those poses ridiculous. They're supposed to be fantasy-like. Those comics are designed for men. Women can read them if they want to but they are drawn to appeal to men, simply put. If they were drawn normally they would be boring. That's the whole point - comics exist like that because its fun -. It's not supposed to ridicule women or anything like that. It's just supposed to be something young boys read and enjoy for fun.

Women have their ridiculous things too. Like the books in the picture in the OP, with men that behave nothing like real people, but subservient pets. It's silly, but that's what human fantasies are like.

There's nothing really wrong with this stuff... in my opinion... it exists outside of reality and shouldn't be compared to reality.
I think you hit all the relevant points. Difference in intention and difference in result, objectification happens both ways really. I believe that the discussion is that people can not seem to grasp the difference in target audiences (although a lot of the time it can overlap).

Dante from Devil May Cry (the real one) is usually a good example of a sexualised male character, Marcus Fenix from Gears of War is not (contrary to some people's believes). The only reason to why this is still seriously discussed is that the main demographic for video games is still guys and some guys can not comprehend that the guys they want to be is not neccesarly the same as the guys that the girls want.

As you said, this whole thing is fine overall. People can have their fantasies, the ones complaining on the feminine end of the spectrum are the ones that can not get theirs.

(not very relevant and mostly ramblings, but I hope you will excuse that).
 

Smeatza

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I hate all of this "male power fantasy" and "female sexual fantasy" bullshit.
It requires that I make great generalisations of the tastes and motivations of entire genders.

And I'm not comfortable doing that, especially when I myself know people who are exceptions to both these "rules."
 

RedRockRun

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On the whole, people respect strength and confidence. Why else do you think schools are so slow to help kids being bullied? Simple. They subconsciously hate the victim.
 

Something Amyss

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Andrew Siribohdi said:
The mainstream generalizes that men are attracted to women with large breasts, skinny waists, and large butts (note that this is a generalization and does not apply to every man, especially those with different sexual orientation). What are physical attributes women generally find attractive in a man?
The foundational flaw is that we're talking about types, which, you know, means that we're already in generalised territory (as you say). A singular "type" doesn't work for men or for women. You even see this in the "power fantasy" argument. Nathan Drake and Marcus Fenix are both male power fantasy. Spider-Man and The Hulk are bother Male Power Fantasy. A big part of the power fantasy is, well...Power. Batman has been portrayed pretty much from a walking slab of meat to a slender ninja type and he still gets the admiration of men.

People point to the ripped man in a speedo as male power fantasy, but that's not the only type of body designed to appeal to men.

James Bond is also a form of power fantasy. And he can be sexy as Hell (partially depending on the actor and the direction of the script). He doesn't run around in a speedo and he's not necessarily ripped. Hell, sometimes he's not even particularly fit.

Now, apply this to women. Or to men's interest in women. Or women's interest in men.

Also, this whole thing implies men and women approach sex and sexuality in the same or very similar fashions, a statement that should be treated as debatable at best. Isn't that where a lot of the misunderstandings and stereotypes come from?

Eamar said:
Now that's out of the way... objectification. You have to realise it's about so much more than just body shape: it's about how they're posed/shot (the camera gratuitously lingering on Miranda's ass in Mass Effect 2 and 3), the character's motivations and reasons for existing (for example, female characters are often the token love interest - they only exist so the male lead can get some). The differences between how male and female superheroes are posed in comics is really striking. Honestly you'd have to be blind not to see it.
It would actually be funny if the camera did that to some of the men. Funny to see the reactions, that is. I mean, there's the trite joke that you spend all your time looking at the backside of a dude in a game, but it'd be interesting to see how people reacted if the camera....Hovered, almost longingly on a dude's parts.

viscomica said:
Well, yes men can be objectified too. I think once I heard a joke about teenage girls making instagram albums (or something of the sort) called "eyecandy" or "omg chris hemsworth shirtless" and that if teenage boys dared to do something like that about girls it would suddenly stop being ok.
Are you aware of the internet? I'm just saying, what you described as the hypothetical alternative example is pretty much the boilerpate standard for the internet as a whole.

Vault101 said:
The difference is a "make power fantasy" is not seen as an object of desire, Kratos is not there for our viewing pleasure
Nor do women likely ever come up in the thought process.

Not that a marketing guy or designer thinking "I bet chicks will love this!" would mean anything.

mecegirl said:
Plenty of women find Dwayne Johnson attractive and he's huge.
To further the point, Dwayne got a damn good response from women back when he was a much smaller Rocky Maivia in the then WWF. I mean, he was still big, but now he's kinda...Comic book big. Which I think would further demonstrate it's probably not the physique per se. At least, not just the physique.

Lieju said:
It tells you nothing about the story (which is not surprising since the pictures probably weren't taken specifically for a book), or the character of the hunky guy.
Well, that's a problem with the industry as a whole. I can't remember the last time I saw a cover that aptly said anything about the book I was about to read. 90% of the time, characters don't even look like their description.

However, the intent of romance novels is to titillate. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I sort of expect it from them in the same way I expect porn to attempt to do the same. When it comes to other books, you see the same thing--often with women--where the book itself not about sex. I used to feel dirty because I'd be reading a fantasy novel and the cover would prominently show a leather-clad ass that had nothing to do with the book at all. I mean, if I was reading smut it'd be one thing. But the covers were often smuttier than smut.

I think that might be a bigger issue. Romance novels are largely what it says on the tin. Novels, comics, video games are ostensibly more than something to fap to.

Again, don't take this as endorsement of objectification, but....

balladbird said:
No one can claim with a straight face that characters like Nathan Drake have no female fans who lust after them. Well, they can, I guess, but all it would take is a cursory fanfiction search to prove them incontestably wrong. However, he wasn't created to be so, or rather, he's appealing to ladies because that's yet another trait men aspire to possess, and he's pretty much a creation designed to help males live out their fantasies of being a badass, suave, quick-witted rebel without a cause.
Interestingly enough, the definition of objectification of men in most media is "something women happen to enjoy as well."

michael87cn said:
Those comics are designed for men. Women can read them if they want to but they are drawn to appeal to men, simply put.
The problem being that this is the mentality behind most media in general. So women get romance novels and the occasional big teen book that all the men lose their heads over?

Women have their ridiculous things too. Like the books in the picture in the OP, with men that behave nothing like real people, but subservient pets. It's silly, but that's what human fantasies are like.
The difference, again, being scope. Women have their niche genres, and men have...Well, basically everything else.
 

Lieju

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Zachary Amaranth said:
However, the intent of romance novels is to titillate. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I sort of expect it from them in the same way I expect porn to attempt to do the same. When it comes to other books, you see the same thing--often with women--where the book itself not about sex. I used to feel dirty because I'd be reading a fantasy novel and the cover would prominently show a leather-clad ass that had nothing to do with the book at all. I mean, if I was reading smut it'd be one thing. But the covers were often smuttier than smut.

I think that might be a bigger issue. Romance novels are largely what it says on the tin. Novels, comics, video games are ostensibly more than something to fap to.
Yes, but surely a hunky guy who also has personality is more appealing to women than a hunky guy who is just standing there aimlessly?

Like, this guy is signaling with his pose he is sort of shy, but his shirt just sort of happened to open when he was doing science?
 

Eamar

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michael87cn said:
They're supposed to be fantasy-like. Those comics are designed for men.
Umm... you kinda made my point for me there. Those are the reasons women in comics tend to be objectified rather than female power fantasies (that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing in and of itself). The OP seemed to be seeking a clarification of what objectification is as opposed to a power fantasy, I explained it.

Smeatza said:
I hate all of this "male power fantasy" and "female sexual fantasy" bullshit.
It requires that I make great generalisations of the tastes and motivations of entire genders.

And I'm not comfortable doing that, especially when I myself know people who are exceptions to both these "rules."
While I see where you're coming from, it's important to realise that you can talk about a male power fantasy (for example) without implying that it's the male power fantasy or that no non-males share it or anything like that. If we never made any generalisations we'd never be able to discuss anything, after all.
 

Eamar

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Eamar said:
Now that's out of the way... objectification. You have to realise it's about so much more than just body shape: it's about how they're posed/shot (the camera gratuitously lingering on Miranda's ass in Mass Effect 2 and 3), the character's motivations and reasons for existing (for example, female characters are often the token love interest - they only exist so the male lead can get some). The differences between how male and female superheroes are posed in comics is really striking. Honestly you'd have to be blind not to see it.
It would actually be funny if the camera did that to some of the men. Funny to see the reactions, that is. I mean, there's the trite joke that you spend all your time looking at the backside of a dude in a game, but it'd be interesting to see how people reacted if the camera....Hovered, almost longingly on a dude's parts.
I said it at the time, but I'd have paid serious money to see a gender-swapped version of that Hitman vs BDSM nuns trailer from a couple of years ago. The reaction would have been delicious (and the trailer itself would have been hilarious, obviously) :p
 

Zeles

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flying_whimsy said:
Eamar said:
So I guess my question isn't actually the same as the OP's, mine is more along the lines of what would be the sort of fantasy that appeals to a woman the same way as male power fantasy appeals to a man?
For me, it would be being a bad ass lady who can kick ass. She doesn't have to be conventionally attractive, but has to have a likable, well rounded personality- someone who I can cheer for. But she can't just be there for eye candy or fetish fuel or whatever- she's there because she's gunna kick ass and no one can tell her what to do.