Am I Sexist?

[wulf3n]

Is choosing a female avatar over a male with the sole reason being sexual appearance objectification? yes.

But it's an avatar, a collection of 1s and 0s, so what does it matter?

Despite what every non-gamer wants to believe we can distinguish between fantasy and reality.

 

[MintberryCrunch]

I've never understood the guy playing girl argument of 'I'd rather stare at a chick ass for 30 hours than a man ass', because I've played girl and guy characters and never even noticed the fact that their ass is wiggling in front of me. I've just been some camera following some dude/chick around.
That's probably just my own experience though, and form your point of view, no, I wouldn't say you were sexist.

 

[felbot]

no you're not sexist, but i do wonder why you don't role play in mmo's, theyre perfect for it.

i also wonder why you stare at your characters ass all game.

 

[Astoria]

Techinically I suppose, yes it's sexist but who isn't at least a little sexist. There's nothing wrong with playing a female because they're more attractive to you. Hell I know when I play RPGs I usually play with guys and make them attractive. As long as you don't objectify women IRL there's no problem at all.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

I think a lot of people are just arguing semantics for the sake of semantics. Essentially at its most basic, you're not sexist.

For long periods of RPG abnegation, you prefer to add a little titillation to your enjoyment in the mindlessly long activities. That's not sexist, that's having sexual preference.

For roleplaying, you are essentially playing out the story of any male or female character you have created regardless of gender, meaning that you value character over self-insertion (in this specific case, the more masculine side of your personality). That's not sexist at all.

For roleplaying romance, you take greater pleasure when the romantic encounter is more in line with your own romantic preferences. Not that you value a male character in more serious aspects of the roleplaying experience, but that your inherent nature identifies more with the romantic choices of your player avatar. That's not sexist, that's identifying with your character on a much more personal level.

Arguing otherwise would be similar to arguing that preferring to see heterosexual intimacy between another guy and a female character of your own design and control makes you somewhat narcissistic. It's just reading too much into something that isn't there.

You're not sexist. At least, not in this case and not to a harmful degree. Human nature dictates that we're all sexist, racist, and prejudice towards anything different from ourselves, even on a subconscious level. It's just the way things are.

 

[chrystallix]

Welp, I'm kind of chiming in with every single other person here but...no you are not sexist. At first I kind of thought you were, even if just a little bit, then you cleared things up. If you usually play females except when you expect romance is involved, then the points brought up by others become meaningless. You do play as female characters and RP as them, just not romantically with a male NPC. So, you're all good, nothing wrong here, just some straight guy staring at a non-existent chick's ass, nothing unusual.

 

[Daniel Ferguson]

I've played females before, for those reasons, though not online. Mostly that was in my younger years. I also created a male vampire/demon dude for an animation project (he had to melt) simply because I couldn't, at age 18, control myself if I created a female vampire. I played a Fem Shep in ME1... and went all the way with an npc romance. Was I sexist? Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't, I'm not sure. But I don't think you are.

PS: I knew a woman who this guy had used for sex - he was with a different woman every week - and in Final Fantasy 12, he only ever played the male characters. He considered the female characters inferior, I think was his reason. Or was too embarrassed to use the female characters. Not entirely sure. Thinking along the lines of "use women, don't be them"?

That's my 2 cents.

 

[lacktheknack]

I don't think so. To me, sexism has to include some form of discrimination.

Then you're changing the definition of the word, so there's no reason to ask anyone else what we think, since you're setting the rules of the game rather than asking if they apply to you.

Really?

Yes. "Sexism" is a word that has a definition. Refusing to use the definition of the word and then asking if the word applies to you is maybe not deliberately dishonest, but it's stacking the deck so far in your favor that it's impossible for there to be any answer other than the one you provide, so the only reason to ask us is to get some kind of validation; an amen from the choir.

I don't think that saying that sexism requires some actual discrimination is changing its definition at all.

The dictionary disagrees with you.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism

Actually, the dictionary agrees with both of you. Definition 1 for JimB, Definition 2 for Starbird.

OT: Whenever I play a game with customizable avatars, I always take a heavyset character (be it fat or muscular). Does this mean I'm biased against thin people?

If "yes", then yes, you are sexist.

 

[Overusedname]

Hm. Well, I'm a straight white male. So sometimes I enjoyed playing as the things I'm not.

I played as a Redgaurd (black male) in Skyrim, not for any class or talent reasons, but just because I think he happened to look cool.

I played a lesbian in Fallout 3, just to see the world from a different perspective. It's very difficult for me to play a straight women or gay male when romance comes up, as I have a hard time relating. During all other moments it's comfortable, but then romance happens. And it doesn't feel gross: it can even be emotionally charming. It's just far less relatable.

If you want to create a female character just for the sake of oggling her...that's a little objectifying, yes. It's sadly the very essence of it applied to fiction; creating a female object to ogle it.

Yeah, what you're essentially saying is, "If I have to care about the character, I'll make it a man, but if I just want eye candy, the it's a woman."

I don't mind so much the idea of wanting to have an attractive or even "sexy" character; what bothers me is the idea that a woman seems to be, in your mind, fit only for that role and not eligible for consideration as a character that you are invested in as a person.

^What they said. We could be wrong, but it sounds like you couldn't take a female character seriously, which brings some unfortunate implications with it regarding how you view real women. Fiction and Reality are not exactly detached. At all. Our media says something about us, and we are in turn influenced by it.

Being aroused by someone is NOT SEXIST. Seeing no other point to them probably is.

I don't think your sexist but...I dunno. Why can't you play as women when shit gets real? I didn't have any issues relating to Terra from FF6 or Marle from Chrono Trigger.

 

[Overusedname]

"The female body is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. It's for gettin' around. It's like a Jeep."

- Elaine Benes​

I don't think you're sexist. You just want an aesthetic appeal to your character(s). There's nothing wrong with that.

Interesting thing about that quote. It might be from a women, but it still implies that woman are something to be looked at, were as men are the go-getters.

Don't quote war me on how oversensitive I am. It's literally my job to read into subtext.

 

[Sooint]

I've never understood the guy playing girl argument of 'I'd rather stare at a chick ass for 30 hours than a man ass', because I've played girl and guy characters and never even noticed the fact that their ass is wiggling in front of me.

Ninja'd. I generally try to keep video games and sex separate, so it's always interesting when I see this line come up. While I may disagree with your reasoning for choosing to play female characters, I don't see it as a big deal.

EDIT:

Just like a single spouted utterance of "I don't like black culture" on a random internet forum doesn't make you homophobic.

I think you mean racist.

 

[deathstrikesquirrel]

"The female body is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. It's for gettin' around. It's like a Jeep."

- Elaine Benes​

I don't think you're sexist. You just want an aesthetic appeal to your character(s). There's nothing wrong with that.

Interesting thing about that quote. It might be from a women, but it still implies that woman are something to be looked at, were as men are the go-getters.

Don't quote war me on how oversensitive I am. It's literally my job to read into subtext.

I would say woman are more luxury cars, they go places and look nice, men are just kind of ugly and break down a lot.

 

[Snowbell]

If this is sexist then I am sexist too, I rarely/never play as a male character (I think the only times I have were in Fable 1 and Jade Empire to see the male romance options), and I choose not to play them because I prefer to play as my own sex. And I honestly don't mind if female characters in games are attractive, I would rather be a pretty girl in a game, just so long as my character's not obligatorily over-sexualised.

You may not see it yourself, but to me, that holds some amount of homophobic tendencies, as well as considerable gender bias.

You may not "play for the other team," but if you're THAT uncomfortable with 1) the idea of seeing YOURSELF as a masculine warrior, 2) seeing that masculine warrior for long periods of time, and 3) to assume that there aren't male characters that aren't "big and hairy", is pretty sexist, yes.

How does not wanting to play as a hulking mass of muscle make you homophobic? I played WoW for quite some time and the only male race that's anywhere remote from 'big and hairy' is the male Blood Elves. I see nothing wrong with a man who doesn't want to play as a ridiculously muscle bound man, it's not indicitive of your sexuality if you just don't want to be represented as a meaty bloke in an online game.

Again, I always play as attractive females, if that reflects that I must be a lesbian then my boyfriend's going to be in for a shock.

 

[Shadowkitty777]

I've heard so many guys say the same thing that you have. I just don't see a problem with it. I like playing with sexy male characters like Leon, Raiden, and Ryu Hayabusa over perhaps a not so attractive character.
I don't really think there has to be some deep meaning to all of it. As long as people know how to separate fantasy from reality, I don't think its that big of an issue.
I find the people that make a big deal about guys that play girl characters are a little more out of touch than the people that just like a little eye candy.

 

[karloss01]

It just sounds to me that a bunch of nerds were disappointed that the female character they were most likely going to send perverted messages to turned out to be played by a man, and are now trying to white knight themselves in the hopes that an actual female player will read there comments and be all like "wow you are so sensitive and stuff. wanna hang out?"

seriously pretend to be a female on WOW and find out who are really the sexists. I played a female Necromancer on Guild Wars as the character looks a lot better then the scrawny corpse look of the male ones. guys would ask me if I were female which I replied no and they would then leave me alone. however one time I decided to say yes and then was bombarded with all sorts of terrible pick-up lines, insults of why I'm not in the kitchen and outright sexual harassment (I.E "wanna cyber?", "how good do you suck D***?" so on and so forth).

heres a link to a website that show pretty much what female gamers go through for the majority of the time. and its not just Xbox, every platform has the same problem.

http://www.notinthekitchenanymore.com/

 

[Pandaman1911]

Are you sexist? Gee, well, let's see... do you believe that women should hold a lower rung in society just because they're women? If yes, then yes, you are a sexist. If not, then no, you are not. That was easy! What else you got?

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Whatever you say or think will always be profoundly offensive to someone on the internet. Doesn't make you a bad person, don't buy into their bullshit.

 

[Legion]

It comes across as objectifying, as you only mention the physical aspect of wanting to play as a female character.

But to be honest, who really cares? Does this translate into reality?

Would you only talk to a girl so you can look at her body? Would you only be friends with a girl to sleep with her? Do you think the only thing girls are good for is sex and looking at?

If no, then the reasons you choose to play a female character in a video game are hardly important, because it doesn't relate to your stance on actual real women.

Nobody accuses people of beings sadists for enjoying killing people in GTA, Fallout or Borderlands, and the same logic should apply.

Fantasy =/= Reality.

 

[SoulSalmon]

I usually play female characters.
And although I might say "Well if I gotta be staring at someones ass for a few hours..." I find don't really mean it sexually, I just prefer hearing/seeing women more then I do men for some unexplained reason (possibly because I'm male and therefore there's ALWAYS a male around)
I also know females who do the same (play male characters because they prefer, but not necessarily for sexual reasons).

Does this make me some homophobic sexist monster? more importantly, do I care if it does?
I'm already apparently a "racist fucktard" because I'm more on edge near Serbians then other races so why not expand my terribleness.

Spoiler: Long story short

(Long story short they were the main antagonists from high-school, all of them, collectively. Perhaps there were some nice ones but I never knew of them cos they weren't the ones running round the school going "I'm Serbian!! Fuck Australia! Fuck all of you!", smashing people with staplers and hurling oranges at the ceiling fans.)

Getting back to topic: this doesn't mean I ALWAYS play female characters, and it usually comes down to "which has the customization/voice that sounds better to me". To go through games I've played recently I'm a male on Dark Souls and mainly a male Asura Elementalist on Guild Wars 2, yet mainly a female Outlander on Torchlight 2 and mainly a female archer on Skyrim