The Sexualization of Men in Gaming

[Kahunaburger]

Bottom line? It looks to me that a sexy, awesome character is a sexy, awesome character by anyone's standards, be it a woman looking at a man, a woman looking at a woman, man looking at a man, or a man looking at a fish.

I refer you back to Kratos and Fenris on page 1.

Yeah, women have it rough being one dimensional sex objects but trust me when I say that we men have just as many problems being one dimesional killing machines. It sucks for everone.

QFT

 

[cgentero]

Unless the character is explicitly designed to be ugly, most every videogame character, male or female, are designed to be attractive. I think the problem lies more in the writing, most writers are males, they can write males with personality pretty easy and woman not so much. So males get characterized by their personality and woman by their sexual appeal, despite both being designed as attractive.

 

[Rayne870]

Men and women are different in terms of sexualization, in most cases men prefer scantily clad women of ideal figures, women however have much more variance in tastes of men, though most of those fit into the athletic but not muscle man build and with certain facial characteristics.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Men and women are different in terms of sexualization, in most cases men prefer scantily clad women of ideal figures, women however have much more variance in tastes of men, though most of those fit into the athletic but not muscle man build and with certain facial characteristics.

Men actually have pretty variable taste in women, too. For some reason media of any kind often fails to recognize this. More to the point, though, it annoys me that a design question people have for almost any female character is how attractive I'll find her, because I'd rather they devoted their resources to actual characterization.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

Kratos wasn't designed from the ground up to look like a gay porn star, making the sex appeal once again incidental. Incidental sex appeal =/= sexualization.

I guess all those sex minigames were incidental as well huh?

Sounds like you're viewing the character through blinders. He's a big, tough manly man who kills things and goes 'RAAAAAGH!" He can't be sexualized! If he did he'd look like a a character in a JRPG because "sexualized" equals "feminized!"

And you can't really know the developers intent.

Kind of off-topic but for a series based on Greek and Roman mythology, the games are entirely too straight.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Kratos wasn't designed from the ground up to look like a gay porn star, making the sex appeal once again incidental. Incidental sex appeal =/= sexualization.

I guess all those sex minigames were incidental as well huh?

Sounds like you're viewing the character through blinders. He's a big, tough manly man who kills things and goes 'RAAAAAGH!" He can't be sexualized! If he did he'd look like a a character in a JRPG because "sexualized" equals "feminized!"

And you can't really know the developers intent.

Kind of off-topic but for a series based on Greek and Roman mythology, the games are entirely too straight.

Well, considering that "Kratos" in Greek mythology is the god of strength and power, it's not too far off the mark to say that the muscles have more to do with displaying strength than they do with displaying attractiveness. And lol @ a character having sex = a character being sexualized. I'm not going to link a youtube for fear of swift retribution by the moderators, but I encourage you to go look up a sex scene from God of War and see if you can tell me with a straight face that Kratos is being sexualized vs. presented as cookie cutter straight male power fantasy.

 

[Snowy Rainbow]

Women = beautiful, sexy, pretty.

Men = hot, masculine, cute.

I see no problem with this.

 

[TehCookie]

It isn't that they are non-body builders, it is just the fact that THEY ARE GOD DAMNED CHILDREN SAVING THE FUCKING WORLD. STOP THAT SHIT RIGHT NOW!

Honestly - I would love it if a game pretends to have a child protagonist as the main hero for the first hour or so of gameplay and then BOOM. Dead - coming with an actual likable hero. THAT would be fun.

While the anorexic chick with triple G's is more realistic? Yeah it's possible but so is kids saving the world with magic (you don't need muscles to use magic). I'm not going to complain that it should be changed, but now know how I feel when I see that.

And I actually prefer beefy guys (albeit more blue-collar than bodybuilder) to bishies.

I just couldn't think of any popular beefy but sexy examples, and a lot of games tend to be one extreme or the other. However if it's just my opinion, we need more protagonist like Leon form RE4.

 

[ExileNZ]

The square-jawed muscleman is just as much a time-honoured cliché as the Jane-Fonda look-alike in games, as are the scant outfits that go with both architypes. Both are sexualised to some extent but I think it's more apparent with women. At least for me, but then I'm a guy, so I'm hardly going to look at Muscled Hero #36 and think "Damn, I'd like to wrap my legs around that".

Maybe the ladies notice this more?

 

[ZtH]

I kinda remember thinking it was funny that the Prince of Persia Sands of Time was a little bit sexualized. I recall joking that you could tell how far someone was in the game by how much of his shirt was left. Aside from that I don't think I've really seen any overt sexualization of males. There is a lot more variety in male body types and looks in gaming then females, who all seem to fit the same formula. Even if it's just for pandering would it kill them to put a little variety in the female cast?

 

[Thespian]

I tend to dislike over sexualized characterized. Pretty much why I hated Miranda in Mass Effect after that one dialog scene where it focused right on her butt.

You hated every dialogue scene involving miranda ever?
Hyuk Hyuk.

Anywho, speaking as a gay male gamer who was conveniently left out of your equation - humph - It doesn't really bother me. Nothing wrong with escapism. But if they create a generically handsome character with no interesting personality, like, say, Nathan Drake, it does nothing for me.
Someone like, say, Shepard, who is clearly muscular, seems to own nothing but tight clothing and with a handsome but not typical face is preferable because he looks noticeably unique and, of course Shepard (paragon or renegade) has more charisma than a plank of wood.

It doesn't annoy me. Nor does it enthrall me. Poor characterization annoys me.

 

[ExileNZ]

Men and women are different in terms of sexualization, in most cases men prefer scantily clad women of ideal figures, women however have much more variance in tastes of men, though most of those fit into the athletic but not muscle man build and with certain facial characteristics.

Men actually have pretty variable taste in women, too. For some reason media of any kind often fails to recognize this. More to the point, though, it annoys me that a design question people have for almost any female character is how attractive I'll find her, because I'd rather they devoted their resources to actual characterization.

Personally I'd like to see more fat chicks given a role other than "stocky matron" or "comic relief".
What about "love interest"?

Come on Mass Effect, I can see lesbian action with a giant alien smurf but I can't get me a girl with some fucking meat on her bones? Come on!

 

[Rayne870]

Men and women are different in terms of sexualization, in most cases men prefer scantily clad women of ideal figures, women however have much more variance in tastes of men, though most of those fit into the athletic but not muscle man build and with certain facial characteristics.

Men actually have pretty variable taste in women, too. For some reason media of any kind often fails to recognize this. More to the point, though, it annoys me that a design question people have for almost any female character is how attractive I'll find her, because I'd rather they devoted their resources to actual characterization.

throw a 36,24,36 in front of a room full of men and 90% of them will ogle endlessly

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

However if it's just my opinion, we need more protagonist like Leon form RE4.

A prettyboy, but athletic and competent-looking. No argument.

However, I'm sure someone is going to argue that the test market would think he was a wimp.

Personally I'd like to see more fat chicks given a role other than "stocky matron" or "comic relief".
What about "love interest"?

Considering the mainstream media's apparent need to keep all of us neurotic about our bodies, that would be subversive. I like.

Or better yet: heroine.

throw a 36,24,36 in front of a room full of men and 90% of them will ogle endlessly

Those measurements are by no means a universal ideal. Put just about any healthy woman of childbearing age with a proportionately narrow waist and wide hips in front of a room full of straight men, and the majority will gawk.

But give them a slideshow, and different guys will pick different favorites...because exact preferences vary.

 

[ExileNZ]

However if it's just my opinion, we need more protagonist like Leon form RE4.

A prettyboy, but athletic and competent-looking. No argument.

However, I'm sure someone is going to argue that the test market would think he was a wimp.

Personally I'd like to see more fat chicks given a role other than "stocky matron" or "comic relief".
What about "love interest"?

Considering the mainstream media's apparent need to keep all of us neurotic about our bodies, that would be subversive. I like.

Or better yet: heroine.

throw a 36,24,36 in front of a room full of men and 90% of them will ogle endlessly

Those measurements are by no means a universal ideal. Put just about any healthy woman of childbearing age with a proportionately narrow waist and wide hips in front of a room full of straight men, and the majority will gawk.

But give them a slideshow, and different guys will pick different favorites...because exact preferences vary.

Being attracted to thin chicks doesn't exclude attraction to fat chicks - what if you suddenly only ever got to date blondes? Or girls with pink t-shirts? Or who wore sunglasses all the fucking time. It's about variety.

Also, I've seen a lot more fat chicks as heroines than as objects of desire, so I'll have to stick with my guns here.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I don't think men are sexualized in games at all. They're often idealized, and that's not the same thing.

I like a lot of male video game characters a lot more than female ones. Even among idealized character designs, there's still a lot more variety among men than women overall.

 

[Jesse Saari]

i would love to go back to 80's where men were muscle and women were meat!

 

[Alucard788]

This:

Spoiler

isn't really sexualization of a male character. It's a physically strong character depicted in a way that shows that. Any sex appeal the character may have is incidental.

This:

Spoiler

is more what a sexualized male character looks like. If Fenris annoys you as a male, can you see why his counterparts might annoy you if you were female?

Good point! You can't have boobies boobies everywhere, and yet complain about men with their shirts off.

Despite what our conservative past might tell you some women actually do like to look at idealized and sexualized men (and us gay fellas as well).

So why not have both but in a respectful and fair manner?

No harm no foul.

 

[Abedecain]

Men in video games have almost always been the same way though. So this question goes out primarily to female gamers. Does the sexualization of males in gaming bother or annoy you? Would you prefer to play as a typical male in society or is this all part of the escape that is gaming?

Males will never really be sexualised, because as far as the gaming industry is concerned, women and LGBTQISTV etc people don't exist, so there is not reason to do it if it doesn't bring them more cash.