Video Games Are Afraid Of The Female Body

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
While the author of this article does complain about the way women in video games are portrayed, I think we can all agree with her opinion that "healthier displays of female nakedness in videogames are refreshing." ;)

Though more positive and unapologetic portrayals of female nakedness would be ideal, the Mass Effect franchise handles female nakedness in a surprisingly mature and respectful manner. The characters in the well-known space opera are fully fleshed out and not at all disposable. They like sex and they’re comfortable enough to get naked with Shepard, the game’s central character. The importance lies in the fact that it’s their choice and not anyone else’s. These healthier displays of female nakedness in videogames are a refreshing change in a medium that contains overly sexualized women intended for the male gaze.
 
He tells her that she needs to smile more, that she’s dancing poorly, and so on. It’s reflective of the idea that Nerissa’s body isn’t her own and requires some form of policing.
Click to expand...
Yes because in real life if you are in a position where your looks bring in the dollars no one will ever tell you when you're doing a sub par performance... yes with YOUR body.

I stopped after this, first few paragraphs are talking about Game of Thrones and using that as a point of comparison for video games... oi vey!
 
I think its is pretty hilarious that "games" get universally maligned for their depicting of female sexuality.

I - for one - can't remember the last game I played where female (or male for that matter) sexuality was even a thing!

Granted I tend to play more mature games, but not a single game in my Steam inventory contains women running around in bra-like armor, or any nudity at all, and I'm OK with that. I have never even once played a game for the nudity.

I guess my point is, they never say "some games" or "many games" or "this particular subsection of the games industry". It's always "Games degrade women, period".

Now as to the question, do game developers fear female nudity? Probably, yes. Can you blame them? It's one where if they don't censor anything they get accused of objectifying women as entertainment, and if they DO censor anything they get accused of, what the author of this article says, "a form of censorship, which reinforces the idea that a woman’s upper body is a highly sexualized area and therefore needs policing." If I were a game developer, I certainly wouldn't want to go anywhere near that landmine.

Also, why are we talking about a fear of "female nudity"? When was the last time you saw a schlong in a video game? Maybe they just fear nudity in general? :p
 
Too much and you're objectifying women. Too little and you're censoring and not empowering the woman. The NPC strippers are just background objects....

Damn. This article is just looking for stuff to bitch about. No matter what you do, someone will be offended and write an article about it.
 
Wow, it wasn't Kotaku or Polygon... surprising... but based on what people are saying here, it sounds like the same BS...
 
Steve said:
They like sex and they’re comfortable enough to get naked with Shepard, the game’s central character. The importance lies in the fact that it’s their choice and not anyone else’s.
Click to expand...

It is a VIDEO GAME with FICTIONAL characters!!! :mad:
 
you guys are missing the point. the article is saying that women are just plot devices to further the male story, they have no independence or autonomy. Going further, they are often shown as victims of horrific sex crimes, and then it is men that need to "fix" the problem. Further, many monsters are depictions of either vaginas or have huge breasts. It is a strange gender bias in games. People do not want to talk about this, instead they attack the person doing the reporting. In many games do you see the female body as being "natural" vs "sexual". Like female armor... there is no real female armor, just armor. The breast plates would make it easy to catch a sword. anyway how many women that you interact with on a daily basis, do you do it in a sexual context? Now play a game and see how the women are being represented. Probably the witcher has the most realistic depictions.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041807791 said:
I think its is pretty hilarious that "games" get universally maligned for their depicting of female sexuality.

I - for one - can't remember the last game I played where female (or male for that matter) sexuality was even a thing!

Granted I tend to play more mature games, but not a single game in my Steam inventory contains women running around in bra-like armor, or any nudity at all, and I'm OK with that.
Click to expand...

Weird, because I would say the vast majority of RPGs are like that, and MANY games sexual female characters.

Zarathustra[H];1041807791 said:
Also, why are we talking about a fear of "female nudity"? When was the last time you saw a schlong in a video game? Maybe they just fear nudity in general? :p
Click to expand...

Seems like the point of the article is that if they're going to have female nudity, it's better that it happens as part of the story or gameplay and not just having boobs for the sake of boobs. But yeah, if you want to talk about sexualizing females in games, the fact that they will show boobs all day long but no dicks is telling.
 
So.... instead of bras, women should just use tape to flatten their breasts? Really, i always found the female armour not existing argument dumb. Sure, they don't. But I never thought of them as sexualized (unless you're talking about skin revealing, bikini armour, for which I'd agree) because the a lot of armour and clothing, men and women is made to show off their bodies. It's why you see armours that also have a lot of fabric instead of metal.

Is it skewed more towards women having less protective looking clothes? Yes. But it isn't at all only one way or another. And men and women prefer seeing women in such outfits. I wish I can remember the source for that claim, but I can't.

And finally, women are used as plot devices, like men are used in plot devices. But they aren't plot devices to further the male story, they are plot devices to further the protagonists' story.
 
So what's the reason why Sheppard, who apparently is a bad-ass (I've never played Mass Effect) wants to have sex with these average women? Is he just a (male) slut? Shouldn't he be holding out for women more on his level?
 
jiminator said:
you guys are missing the point. the article is saying that women are just plot devices to further the male story, they have no independence or autonomy. Going further, they are often shown as victims of horrific sex crimes, and then it is men that need to "fix" the problem. Further, many monsters are depictions of either vaginas or have huge breasts. It is a strange gender bias in games. People do not want to talk about this, instead they attack the person doing the reporting. In many games do you see the female body as being "natural" vs "sexual". Like female armor... there is no real female armor, just armor. The breast plates would make it easy to catch a sword. anyway how many women that you interact with on a daily basis, do you do it in a sexual context? Now play a game and see how the women are being represented. Probably the witcher has the most realistic depictions.
Click to expand...
So what? Games are for entertainment and what is entertaining for men is different than what is entertaining for men. Games are for escaping from reality; games are about fantasy. She is trying to invalidate the male perspective and force a feminist perspective on everybody. Feminists are all about trying to change men instead of taking responsibility for themselves and making themselves more likeable.
 
I play Dead or Alive series. I guess I'm sexist then. I do love bouncing boobies.
 
a female soldier will be looking to kill you, not titillate you with her breasts. most females that play online do so silently, with gender neutral names to avoid "attention", which tends to be either distracting or very negative. Many developers believe in the concept of stereotypical roles, therefore all their characters will fall into some role. Men will be heroes, women will be victims or conquests. Female heroes are just men with female skins and female voice actors. Your challenge will be in finding a game that does not play upon the stereotypical roles. To be sure, they make it "easy" or "lazy" to make a game that many men can "relate to" but the games also present a vision of things very far detached from the way men and women actually interact. Given people that don't actually interact with anyone aside from their mother, you are presenting a "normal" to them, and when actual real women do not react in an expected fashion, well, they get doxed, or death threats or swatted.
 
XViper said:
I play Dead or Alive series. I guess I'm sexist then. I do love bouncing boobies.
Click to expand...

As do I.... :) I'm sexist. I love the female body. Nice breasts, great ass... Sure, I like a smart girl, too. But, can't look at that unless you're Buffalo Bill.

Thor, Fabio, Romance novel covers, Firefighter calendars. Yea, girls don't look at men and aren't sexist. Welcome to the human race. We enjoy looking at the opposite sex. I see nothing wrong with it.
 
You can put it like that, stereotypes... or you can look at them as close to what they know of history.
 
Just wanted to see if the author was Female. Yep. I guess our "hero" should be skinny and nerdy.....actually that would be cool. Majority of the video game players, not us of course :D, can relate and achieve the hotness of big boobed, skinny wasted women....unless the skinny nerdy hero likes more full figured chicks.

Anyway, like another said, the hero always has a hot chick by his side. I've never seen Arnold, Tom, even Jackie Chan have an ugly chick by their side throughout the movie.

Maybe producers in this aspect should start making games/movies w/ opposite side of the spectrum figures....lets see how much money and how many people continue to follow them.

(just skimmed through the article btw. stopped when i read the bold "TOO OFTEN ITS FEMALE CHARACTERS ARE VICTIMS OR CONTROLLED IN SOME WAY" text.
 
jiminator said:
Probably the witcher has the most realistic depictions.
Click to expand...

Yet people still see that as a sexist game. We got it, what people are complaining about is how writers nowadays take anything that has to do with women and video games and make it into a issue that only exists there, and as further proof that women are not welcome there. Even Kotaku and Polygon who were the biggest offenders of this have started to step back because some people are claiming that their opinion on the subject is sexist. If you aren't towing the current party line you are misogynist.
 
jiminator said:
you guys are missing the point. the article is saying that women are just plot devices to further the male story, they have no independence or autonomy. Going further, they are often shown as victims of horrific sex crimes, and then it is men that need to "fix" the problem. Further, many monsters are depictions of either vaginas or have huge breasts. It is a strange gender bias in games. People do not want to talk about this, instead they attack the person doing the reporting. In many games do you see the female body as being "natural" vs "sexual". Like female armor... there is no real female armor, just armor. The breast plates would make it easy to catch a sword. anyway how many women that you interact with on a daily basis, do you do it in a sexual context? Now play a game and see how the women are being represented. Probably the witcher has the most realistic depictions.
Click to expand...

The problem with SJWs like yourself is that you only focus only on the depiction of female characters in games, and ignore that male characters in games are very rarely representative of real men. They're always muscular tough guys who slaughter people in droves without remorse or regret. Why aren't you complaining about the men's physique's in games? Why aren't you campaigning for more skinny nerds or fat guys? Why aren't you moaning that men are always depicted as psychopathic mass murderers?

The problem with Social Justice Warriors is that they actually have no interest in social justice. They pick their favourite 'victim' group and campaign irrationally about how they're being misrepresented in games while ignoring that men are equally misrepresented. If you're interested in social justice you should be complaining that both men and women game characters are not representative of reality. If you only complain about the representation of women, it just makes you a hypocrite and a moron.

The fact is, games a fictional form of escapism. When people play games they don't want to play a fat ugly guy; they want to play the muscular hard man. Likewise when people play games they don't want some fat ugly woman, they want a perfect women. This is why both men and women in games are completely unrealistic. A game where men and women were represented realistically would be a very boring one.
 
Ryokurin said:
Yet people still see that as a sexist game. We got it, what people are complaining about is how writers nowadays take anything that has to do with women and video games and make it into a issue that only exists there, and as further proof that women are not welcome there. Even Kotaku and Polygon who were the biggest offenders of this have started to step back because some people are claiming that their opinion on the subject is sexist. If you aren't towing the current party line you are misogynist.
Click to expand...

This a thousand times over.

The fact of the matter is, these feminist SJW types won't be happy until all men on the planet are enslaved and written out of society.
 
So basically, it's okay to be a slut as long as the female initiates and condones it. Seriously, there is no other way to interpret this article.
 
jiminator said:
you guys are missing the point. the article is saying that women are just plot devices to further the male story, they have no independence or autonomy. Going further, they are often shown as victims of horrific sex crimes, and then it is men that need to "fix" the problem. Further, many monsters are depictions of either vaginas or have huge breasts. It is a strange gender bias in games. People do not want to talk about this, instead they attack the person doing the reporting. In many games do you see the female body as being "natural" vs "sexual". Like female armor... there is no real female armor, just armor. The breast plates would make it easy to catch a sword. anyway how many women that you interact with on a daily basis, do you do it in a sexual context? Now play a game and see how the women are being represented. Probably the witcher has the most realistic depictions.
Click to expand...

I think the critics that attack video games for those points you mentioned are just picking examples that are actually just one of many variations that actually exist.

If you were to select a few games where the female characters are just supporting characters, while the main protagonist whom the story revolve around is a male, of course you would come to that conclusion. However, there are games out there where the main protagonist are female and the plot revolve around them.

Here's an analogy of what I meant. If a person only consider games where male are A, and female are B, then it looks like females are always B. But in reality, there are also examples where female are A and male are B. Taking both into account, you'll see that both A and B can both be either females or males.

The problem with SJW is that, they would take situations where male are A and female are B, and they say this is wrong because female are B. It is as if female cannot be B. But what about the scenarios where females are A? The reality is, females can be either A or B, and we cannot ignore one just because it's negative for the female character.

While there are many games where female are the victims, there are also many games where the hero that saves the day is a female. It is unrealistic to expect all games to not present a female character as the helpless victim.
 
Mr Milquetoast said:
The problem with SJWs like yourself is that you only focus only on the depiction of female characters in games, and ignore that male characters in games are very rarely representative of real men. They're always muscular tough guys who slaughter people in droves without remorse or regret. Why aren't you complaining about the men's physique's in games? Why aren't you campaigning for more skinny nerds or fat guys? Why aren't you moaning that men are always depicted as psychopathic mass murderers?
Click to expand...

There are plenty of average or even fat/ugly male characters in video games. I imagine what most people refer to are the heroes when they say things like "well, male characters are all buff and unrealistic". But the villains, or random side characters often do not conform to that stereotype. One example would be Joker from the Mass Effect series.
 
Megalith said:
So basically, it's okay to be a slut as long as the female initiates and condones it. Seriously, there is no other way to interpret this article.
Click to expand...

No, there's no such thing as a slut. That's a term males used to stereotype women where is they do not use anything similar for themselves. no, is no such thing eva slept. At the term mails used to stereotype women where is the tonight using someone for themselves. Of georgia receipt dollars cool cool facebook
 
I play games where I can fight off a demon invasion, solve interesting puzzles, or just escape reality for a while. I don't play video games to engage in virtual human breeding simulations. That's disgusting to me. I don't want to see real humans unclothed, so I don't want to see virtual depictions of humans of either gender unclothed.
 
MavericK96 said:
Weird, because I would say the vast majority of RPGs are like that, and MANY games sexual female characters
Click to expand...

OK, and what percentage of games are RPG's? 10? 20?

I don't own a single RPG, and I don't know anyone who plays RPG's.

The games I play fall into one or more of the below categories: (in order of preference)

  1. High realism / Tactical / Historical War, Team FPS games (Red Orchestra 2, Verdun, Rising Storm, Red Orchestra, Darkest Hour, Mare Nostrum etc.)
  2. History Based Turn Based Strategy games (Civilization series, Total War series)
  3. Competitive FPS games (Red Orchestra 2 and formerly Counter-Strike, etc.)
  4. Large Open World FPS games with RPG elements (S.T.A.L.K.E.R Series, Fallout series, etc.)
  5. Story driven FPS games, often post-apocalyptic (Deus Ex series, Metro series, Half Life 2, etc.)

While some of these titles may have had representations of women that would draw some ire from more extremist feminists (woman as a reward in Metro 2033, or was it Last Light, cant remember, damsel in distress in Fallout 3, etc. etc.) they generally avoid sexuality all together, and that's perfectly fine with me. In fact, that's the way I prefer it.

After all, realism is what makes games more interesting and believable. If too much suspense of disbelief is required, they don't appeal to me in the slightest, which is probably why I tend to find the "fantasy" genre most RPG's are in, a waste of my time. In the real world nudity isn't more than an occasional occurrence, so why should it be in games?

It reminds me of those stupid cop movies of the 80's which always had to ahve an annoying strip club scene that had nothing to do with the story line. Just fucking annoying.

Anyway, I digress. I guess point simply is, why is it "games" have a problem with female sexuality and not "RPG games"...
 
Really? I can't believe the article made it on the front page of this website. Clickbait and more gamer hating.
 
MavericK96 said:
The problem with "SJW" is that people just use the term "SJW" to mean "someone whose opinion I don't agree with". It's lost all meaning at this point.
Click to expand...

It's the same thing as misogyny, patriarchy or for that matter liberal. No one is interested in gray it's "I'm right and you are an idiot who's opinion doesn't deserve to be heard"
 
MavericK96 said:
The problem with "SJW" is that people just use the term "SJW" to mean "someone whose opinion I don't agree with". It's lost all meaning at this point.
Click to expand...

same with the term "feminist"...

also, there are more man "sluts" than women... think about it, males are designed to go around spreading their seeds while women remain more or stationary, like a vase to in-bloom flowers. Fighting nature is sure to bring about lots of frustration. It may never end for us as a species, not until we do...
 
jiminator said:
no, is no such thing eva slept. At the term mails used to stereotype women where is the tonight using someone for themselves. Of georgia receipt dollars cool cool facebook
Click to expand...

I'm just about that action, boss. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top