Scantily clad female characters

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Of what? That women are threatened with rape and violence both in and outside of gaming culture? Somehow I didn't think that needed to be specified as fact, especially to someone who claims they "fight misogyny".



No, I'm not part of the problem, because I don't attempt to justify rape threats. If you do, then that's on you, "bud".

It would also seem lots of females who are into gaming like to do cosplay....especially for those convention things where people dress up as different characters. It doesn't seem females in general are turned off by dressing up as these scantly clad characters, and for any females uncomfortable with showing that much cleavage even just for costume there are a number of female characters in various games to choose from who are much more clothed or you can alter the costume a little to not show as much. Or who says females have to dress up like female characters, or males have to dress up like male characters?

Thing is I hear a lot of how offensive it is that women are portrayed as having large boobs, being scantly glad and having a 'sexy' look to them....but is this really offending females who are actually into and play video games? I have yet to play a game where I think 'wow its so f***d up and sexist how they made this female character look'

I would say the portrayal of men in video games and popular culture to just be as unrealistic, how many heroes do you see that look like Larry The Cable Guy? How many male heroes do we see depicted that are 5'8" with a slight ponch and no discenable muscle tone? That's average but nobody wants to see that. Compare that to the vaguely human looking He-Man or Terminator and I honestly think it is way more unrealistic, I see shapely women walking around but I don't see too many roided out 7 foot tall in-competition bodybuilders too often. The difference is that most men when they look at such an idealized and unrealistic portrayals is the feeling that they want to be that as opposed the resentment and bitterness that some women might feel. Generalization of course, obviously not everybody feels that way.

This thread is strongly reminding me of a rather appropriate 'Daily Show' quote:

"Sexism: does it still exist? Many men say no."

The question is though do these people who want less jiggly, big-breasted video game women in skimpy clothing...actually play the games? Or are they just trying to censor something they personally take issue with, regardless of what the demographic into gaming thinks of it?

Also if it gets to be where the demand is for specifically video games with plain women...though to be fair they'd need to tone down the male characters, come on guys you're not really that muscular/ripped or can carry such heavy weapons with ease. But yes if there is a demand for plain video game characters over not so plain ones I am sure there are plenty of companies willing to deliver.....but is that what the gaming community wants?

Or is this like with the metal music back and the 80's and Tipper Gore and here cronies having it out for the metal community? finally courts settled for making some albums have an 'explicit content' sticker but not banning of what content could be in metal.

The gaming community as a whole was overwhelmingly in opposition to the events of Gamergate. It's not so much an opposition to the mere existence of jiggle, it's in opposition to those who believe that simply asking for a modicum of modest dress or non-stereotyped characterization for female characters in games or giving more prominence to female game developers is "feminist terrorism" worthy of violent reaction.



I'm not a console gamer, so I can't speak for the whole of the gaming community. I'm a PC adventure gamer, so I happen to be in a minority (a minority which, believe it or not, has very large female demographics). However, yes, why wouldn't the gaming community want that? What does sexuality have to do with a good game?

I mentioned 'Mad Max: Fury Road' a while back, an action film that featured a female co-protagonist and didn't sexualize its female characters and didn't denigrate their roles to stereotypes, and guess what? It was a massive success with critics and audiences (except for the Men's Rights groups who boycotted it as "feminist propaganda", though their numbers were very small). Sexuality is not intrinsically connected with quality. You can have a solid story, good characters, good visuals and - in the case of games - great gameplay without feeling the need to feature women characters who are paper-thin stereotypes who serve only to provide sexual interest for the in-game character and the player.

For what its worth, Anita Sarkeesian has been exposed on multiple occasions having never played most of the games she criticizes and lifts gameplay footage for other Youtubers. A lot of people think she's more a vehicle for her boyfriend self described radical and propagandist Jonathan McIntosh to spread his own ideology which would never be listened to as a straight white man. Being a professional victim can be very lucrative, Anita has made A LOT of money to fund her projects and I don't see it reflected at all in her Feminist Frequency videos. Zoe Quinn I feel sorry for, perhaps I don't pay attention enough but I don't think she has tried to capitalize on the controversy the same way others have and at least for me(as a casual follower of Gamergate) it never seemed about her own personal failings even tho that caught the bulk of the flak and more about the general shittiness of the industry. Brianna Wu? Lets not even get started with that person...

I wouldn't like that either....but I have yet to be threatened with rape or violence, nor have I been a victim of 'sexism' at the hands of fellow people who play video games. I have heard of this Gamergate thing, sounds like a cessepool of hate and sexism but I don't go there and no one I know who plays games pays any mind to it, seems most people don't even know what it is....the only reason I know is because it was brought up in another topic on this forum and I thought 'wow what a stupid site that sounds like'.

Anyways I do not think its fair to base ones entire perception of the gaming community on a terrible troll site that most the gaming community probably isn't even active on, or hold it responsible for bad behavior of specific people who happen to play video games. Also it could be argued the sexy female characters could make guys feel more intimidated of the woman.

But I think if a male looks at women in general with less respect than they have deeper issues than seeing bewbs on video games....if someone is so feeable seeing jiggly breasts on a game is going to make them disrespect women or convince them we are objects to be sexualized and nothing more then they should probably be kept away from all sorts of media. I think it is possible a male can enjoy the sexy female video game characters, whilst still having a perfectly normal level of respect for women.

And to turn the tides just a little bit...isn't the idea that women should be 'covered up' a little sexist too if you look at it the right way?

I mean why do many people have a problem with the scantly clad clothes....well because female+appealing/sexy build+clothes that don't cover it all up=slut. Guys can brag about many sexual encounters and get kudos, girls can try the same and be shamed as a slut, if a girl isn't wearing enough clothes according to someone else they're a 'slut'. So I am not convinced all the people complaining about video game sexism are in it because 'this is unfair to women'...I think some of those people complaining could be just as sexist as guys who objectify women and see them as objects. Why is a scantly clad female body 'slu*ty' who decided that? and why is it not 'slu*ty' if a guys walking around with his shirt off and a pair of cutt off shorts don't go all the way down to their knees?

And that justifies people within the gaming community sending her rape and death threats how...?

Actually, believe it or not, I have seen high amounts of female-populations being attracted to playing games where they have plenty of customisation-options to be able to have a wide variety of different looks for their female-avatars, not to say that a number of female-characters are not actually G.I.R.L.-characters, but there are factually many females (and I should know the differences between a G.I.R.L. & a genuine female-gamer due to my amount of experience with the ladies so I can pretty much always tell at this point in 90% of cases whether it's a genuine female-gamer or not).

You certainly don't have to take my word for this of course. Just go & visit the multi-player games for yourself where there are options to make yourself a female-character with plenty of different virtual-clothes to wear & looks that can be given to the female-avatar (wide variety of hair-styles & perhaps even wigs such as in the Mabinogi MMORPG).

It doesn't but I don't think it is reflective of anything other than being a divisive public figure. I imagine if you looked at Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh's inbox you'd find a ton of abuse as well, its just the nature of people when they can say anything and not be accountable for it face to face. I don't take threats like that seriously however because they never are serious, people like to show off by making emotional displays of disapproval and it becomes a game of one-upmanship but it's not like the real harassment and danger you'd get for criticizing Islam for example. 4channers aren't going to Charlie Hebdo Anita Sarkeesian, lets be real.

This isn't about Anita specifically, this is about women in general and the way they're treated within the gaming community. Women of no public note felt harassed in the gaming community long before Sarkeesian's video series aired. The entire purpose of GAMERgate was pointing out the sexualization, stereotyping and objectification of women in the video game industry and gaming community - a reflection of the larger issue of societal sexism - and this resulted in dozens of people doxing various feminist critics and sending threats to their homes, hundreds if you include online harassment (and I suggest you take a count of suicides attributed to cyberbullying before you say that it's somehow less effective).

Am I seriously having to explain to someone why sending threats of death and rape to someone's house to the point where at least one woman required police protection is morally reprehensible?!?

You claim there isn't a problem here, but when there are people like yourself actively justifying and defending rape threats, yes, there is a problem.

Truth ! The game's play was good, inter-active, and had a legend-worthy story-line to boot, too !

Final Fantasy VI (otherwise Final Fantasy III in the U.S. for the English-version) actually would make a really good re-make if they re-created it with some of the more modern-day technologies that are now available.

How am I claiming there is no problem with making rape threats? I'm not using some weird circular reasoning where I lend credence to Anita Sarkeesian's argument(using her as example) because she gets harassed for it no, it's pretty much a self fulfilling prophecy at that point.

I'll make this easy; Anita Sarkeesian dumb, rape threats bad. One doesn't excuse the other.

I see no issue with people wanting to see more modest dress and non stereotypical portrayals of females...that is something that could really catch on as well. But who is stopping it? The only way to make it happen is for people to make games like that and try and put them out there and any game can be a hit or miss so its always a risk for people in that industry. But then again there already are games that allow for this for instance I recently completed this one:

And while Alice the main character is very skinny she doesn't really have jiggly boobs and doesn't show much skin, there is one outfit in the game where she's barefoot and shows a little cleavage, here are most of her dresses including that one:
http://www.spacetimestudios.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=92667&stc=1&d=1403163108, then of course there are the Sims games though you can dress characters in lesser clothes. Just as two examples. Also I think prominence should be given to game developers based on if they develop a good game not what gender they are... though extreme violent reactions are not justified.

But for instance there are not a lot of all female metal bands or even metal bands with females so at first glance one could say its unfair, and there should be more and this and that but if there aren't more females who want to play metal or do metal vocals it can't be forced. And from what I have seen the idea is not discouraged, and there are female metal musicians, it would just seem not as many(at this current point in time) thus less bands formed solely of them.

Woah, it feels like this discussion went into the topic that women are asking for it, that there really is not a problem, and that people against scantily clad characters are slut shaming.

Just because a large amount of fanbases don't have half of it boycotting games, does not mean that a number of them could do with some changes that would actually expand and bring in audiences.

There in a huge amount of records of women receiving a notable level of sexism in games over men, from trash talk in something like a shooter, harassment in MMOs, and some truly disgusting comments on things like Youtube.

And how is problems with how some women clothes in games look slut shaming? It is more like problems like this: