Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)

I agree, it's disgusting the amount of sexualization in character designs.

I was reading the mod edit and I wonder why men being sexualized in video games is a false equivalency?

Is it because the intent behind the character design of many male characters is not about living up to a woman's sexualized view like female characters are for men but designing a character around what a male would want to be like? If so, that makes sense.

Just curious if you think there are as many ripped beyond non-steroid use male characters as there are skimpy bikini wearing female characters?

I mean the OP used FFXV as an example, not sure why Gladio doesn't fall into same bucket as Quiet and Cindy? He is shirtless in some character designs or has fishnet on. He has unrealistic muscles for most men with an 8 pack.



EDIT - Just so I'm clear, I think we should remove both from gaming.

In defense of the ARMS character, spikes and Tesla coils are kinda her costume schtick, and she's not just wearing spiked heels, her shoes straight up have spikes all over their bottoms. I wouldn't put this one in the same category as "Why is Samus wearing heels?"

rumyhy said:

Arms is a game where people can sprout extendable spring arms among many other crazy things, including hair with boxing gloves, a lizard man, and living DNA so I don't imagine why footwear would be your first question when it comes to a matter of whether or not it would be practical IRL.

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Could be that whilst we don't have those other things, we do have shoes in this real world of ours? Shrug. I think it's a point of empathy. If you've ever worn heels, they hurt like a buggermuffin, which is to say quite a lot.

The sight of giant machinery being held up by heels is enough to bother some people, even if the character is floating. Why? As I said, it's an empathy thing. Unless one lacks imagination, the pain one has experienced one could similarly imagine others experiencing.

Things like that can happen in the brain. It even happens with violent impulses, for example.

S'like this one study (I like science!) I read regarding shooty games. If a video game has very humanoid characters, it actually results in a period of heightened aggression and competitive behaviour with actual humans after the game session. Whereas if the enemy characters aren't human, the aggression isn't there after playing.

The human mind likes to cling to things and see patterns. And it's important to understand what sorts of things might cause another to remember physical/emotional pain. Or even discomfort. Just from a standpoint of worthwhile ethics and the greater good.

I don't think most people really want to hurt other people, a lot of it is incidental. So if we can learn how to not hurt one another, it's better. With society having an expectation of heels on women in the past, and to a lesser degree still presently in some places, that's something we should keep in mind.

You might be surprised how many women find heels painful. So the sight of heels on a video game character? Painful.

It doesn't have to be rational, forms of trauma (even as mild as this) rarely ever are. For someone who's been forced to wear heels, that kind of thing can cause physical discomfort just seeing it.

Empathy. You see it happening to another. You imagine it happening to yourself.

And that's not even considering the incredibly outdated view of women in heels.

Morrigan said:

Thank you for writing this. It does make it less discouraging to keep the discussion going when you know it actually has an effect, even if it's on a small scale. :)

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It's been a while since I feel this way, but the old forum and this one definitely affected the way I see this topic of sexualization in the video game industry.

I can see how annoying it gets to try to make a difference, as someone that posts in "anime sites" or sites mostly focused on Japanese games, I don't think I go a day without reading how the "SJW feminists are trying to take our videogames", and whenever I try to explain how they aren't trying to take your videogames away and how they might have a point, I just get shunned/unfollowed/blocked/banned basically immediately.

So I think it would be nice to show that some of us do care and notice the issue at hand.

CannonFodder52 said:

Yea, a few years back I would have unfortunately been very dismissive of this topic. Also man, I can't imagine reading through this whole thread now, you'd be running into the same arguments over and over.

At this point, I dunno what it is, but I find the discussion of representation far more interesting than most other stuff surrounding games. I miss the thread on broader representation issues, that OP put quite a bit of work in
https://www.resetera.com/threads/we...nd-representation-issues-update-read-op.8835/
I guess, I do worry that I'm just loitering in here because I like the topic.

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I was rather dismissive of the topic in the past as well, I think what triggered the change for me is that I became an LGBT civil rights activist and I guess that made me more sensitive to other issues like this one. It's all about sitting down and actually hearing the other party, not just assuming they are trying to screw you over.

tabris

It's because those characters aren't created by women to suit the female gaze, so to speak. They're idealised men, they're what men want to look like. Whereas -- and here's the catch -- the women are idealised women to the man's gaze, and thus don't look like a woman's ideal but rather a man's ideal of a woman.

I imagine that a woman's ideal depiction of a man would be something more like, um... This is hard to say, I'm having trouble thinking of examples of men that lack the agency that objectified women do.

Huh.

Um...

I'm going to ask my partner!

She reckons we need to look at examples of male characters created by gay fellahs, maybe. It's just that you won't find that in the mainstream, as it would alienate too much of the heterosexual audience.

I doooon't want to say this, but the best example we're coming up with is submissive or objectified men in gay furry art.

I'm almost tempted to post some as a fair example, but I won't.

StonedCrows said:

tabris

It's because those characters aren't created by women to suit the female gaze, so to speak. They're idealised men, they're what men want to look like. Whereas -- and here's the catch -- the women are idealised women to the man's gaze, and thus don't look like a woman's ideal but rather a man's ideal of a woman.

I imagine that a woman's ideal depiction of a man would be something more like, um... This is hard to say, I'm having trouble thinking of examples of men that lack the agency that objectified women do.

Huh.

Um...

I'm going to ask my partner!

She reckons we need to look at examples of male characters created by gay fellahs, maybe. It's just that you won't find that in the mainstream, as it would alienate too much of the heterosexual audience.

I doooon't want to say this, but the best example we're coming up with is submissive or objectified men in gay furry art.

I'm almost tempted to post some as a fair example, but I won't.

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so to know what women want we have to ask gays and furries? dude what

also he-man is a power fantasy, kratos is a power fantasy. ff15? it's a j-pop idol group, totally not made to males to look at them and say "i want to be like that". it's the gackt face, if you want to call it like that.

as for what women generally like i'll let them post it, i have the vague assumption than it's more diversified than men
(i mean if you partner said that it's okay but it seems to me a very unique opinion)

I think that FF dude is pretty female-gazey, actually. It's not that sexualized/female-gaze examples don't exist; it's that they are actually pretty rare, as opposed to how women are constantly sexualized, and rarely depicted in demeaning ways.

tabris said:

I agree, it's disgusting the amount of sexualization in character designs.

I was reading the mod edit and I wonder why men being sexualized in video games is a false equivalency?

Is it because the intent behind the character design of many male characters is not about living up to a woman's sexualized view like female characters are for men but designing a character around what a male would want to be like? If so, that makes sense.

Just curious if you think there are as many ripped beyond non-steroid use male characters as there are skimpy bikini wearing female characters?

I mean the OP used FFXV as an example, not sure why Gladio doesn't fall into same bucket as Quiet and Cindy? He is shirtless in some character designs or has fishnet on. He has unrealistic muscles for most men with an 8 pack.

EDIT - Just so I'm clear, I think we should remove both from gaming.

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I'd say part of the distinction may be that although Gladio's default costume shoes off his chest (and he has shirtless DLC), he also has a fully clothed option right out the gate:


Cindy... doesn't have that option.

Morrigan

That's fair. It's just that I've seen much worse in regards to things being suited to the male gaze, so to speak, and I've honestly seen much worse in regards to being suited to the gay/female gaze.

It's just that the latter doesn't happen so much in the mainstream. I think that's the point I was trying to make, albeit in a roundabout way. The mainstream is littered with examples of one (suited to the male gaze), but with only a rare, scant few examples of the other.

You put it better than I did.

Alucard

Thaaaat is not what I said. At all. Not even slightly. Sorry. I'm going to think of that as an unintentional straw-man though based on my inability to communicate with neurotypicals.

Do note that I'm blaming myself for that one.

Lol you pinged the wrong alucard.

XD

It's a common username portion, I know a couple of them.

Is that Gladio you're talking about, tabris? He could probably count as a dude who is sexualized to appear to females, but then the question is: was that deliberate, or accidental? Because the overabundance of sexualized female characters is pretty well established as being from the creators liking girls, so to speak. As commented in various dev interviews over the decades.

psychowave said:

That said, it's too bad that a sizeable amount of the men who post here do so to whine about losing their anime titties :^)

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Seems only natural that people would defend/attack what they're interested in or what they on the regular. If the forum had more women and lgbt I'm sure we'd be seeing more of a focus on sexualized and objectified men.

Hat22 said:

Seems only natural that people would defend what they're interested in or what they on the regular. If the forum had more women and lgbt I'm sure we'd be seeing more of a focus on sexualized and objectified men.

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Let's rephrase, then:

It's too bad that a sizeable amount of the men who post here do so to whine about losing something that actively harms a significant group of people.

tabris said:

I agree, it's disgusting the amount of sexualization in character designs.

I was reading the mod edit and I wonder why men being sexualized in video games is a false equivalency?

Is it because the intent behind the character design of many male characters is not about living up to a woman's sexualized view like female characters are for men but designing a character around what a male would want to be like? If so, that makes sense.

Just curious if you think there are as many ripped beyond non-steroid use male characters as there are skimpy bikini wearing female characters?

I mean the OP used FFXV as an example, not sure why Gladio doesn't fall into same bucket as Quiet and Cindy? He is shirtless in some character designs or has fishnet on. He has unrealistic muscles for most men with an 8 pack.

EDIT - Just so I'm clear, I think we should remove both from gaming.

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Gladio is sexualied. There's nothing wrong with sexy characters and I for one appreciate Gladio's design. But it's just not possible to compare sexualized male characters with female characters. The culture they are embedded in aren't the same. The historic and current treatment of men and women aren't the same. The ways men and women are sexualized aren't the same. What that means to people isn't the same. The sheer ubiquity of it isn't the same. Simply put, if you see a male character who's design bothers you, talk about it. That's what we're doing here with female characters. But if there's a problem with a character, it's not an excuse to dismiss the problem with another character. Do you feel Gladio's design is problematic? Yes? No? Why or why not? I see guys walk shirtless down the street and nobody bats an eye. Could a woman do that without issue?

Hat22 said:

Seems only natural that people would defend/attack what they're interested in or what they on the regular. If the forum had more women and lgbt I'm sure we'd be seeing more of a focus on sexualized and objectified men.

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People keep going back to the objectified men thing like the few tenuous examples of sexualised, yet still powerfully portrayed men are in any way comparable to the treatment of female characters.

Edit. Post snap.

All the final fantasy 15 Bois are actually made to suit the taste of Japanese female fans.

The problem with 15 is more that in that process
they forgot to actually make good female characters

Hat22 said:

Seems only natural that people would defend/attack what they're interested in or what they on the regular. If the forum had more women and lgbt I'm sure we'd be seeing more of a focus on sexualized and objectified men.

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Seems to me people getting defensive aren't really listening to the reasons the things they like are criticized and tend to overreact and go on the offensive rather than listen, think abut it, and realize nobody is going to take anything away from them.

BossAttack said:

How is a violent enviornment not the time for romance? In fact, it would seem more important given the heightened emotional state someone would be in. Further, I'd argue there are few places where romance and sex would be out of place. Violence and sex is the bedrock of human civilization.

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Here's an outsider perspective, if you want.

Mom did not think there was time for getting romantically involved with any of the characters [of Dragon Age Inquisition]. There had been a world to save, after all.

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https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/mom-final-fantasy-and-the-language-of-gaming-w514193

tabris said:

I was reading the mod edit and I wonder why men being sexualized in video games is a false equivalency?

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- Because most dudes think that Kratos or Zangief are sexualized men (your example at least is more sensible).
- Because even then you would be hard pressed to find 20 examples like the one you posted in all of gaming, while you can't throw a rock without hitting three different sexualized barbies before it touches the ground.
- Because even those sexualized men are treated as characters, rather than window dressing to be ogled.
- Because the camera doesn't treat them like it does women, otherwise you'd get bulge and ass shots all the time.

I could go on and on. And by the way, I disagree that the solution is to "remove both"; such an initiative would be most likely to just remove the few sexualized men that even remotely even the odds a bit (and also hopefully make some men think about the issue) before even making a dent on the female examples.

eightg4 said:

Come on ! 2 Female for 8 men.

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I know it's not your intention, but it's not cool to disregard those two women's contribution like that (you also said that all ten were men before, which is simply not true). You're also assuming the gender of two other people to be male by default, which is something that's even been argued against in this very thread. :/

Remember the "is this male character sexualized?" test. 1) Google "hot guys". 2) Does the character you have in mind fit here? And that's the thing, this test doesn't work with female characters because they universally fit the mold (conventionally attractive faces and bodies, very skimpy clothing, camera magnets on their breasts and butts). When arguing that guys are totally just as sexualized, it's not uncommon for people to use examples like Voldo or Kratos (or Gill, recently), when this mullet FF dude is indeed a better example.

CannonFodder52 said:

At this point, I dunno what it is, but I find the discussion of representation far more interesting than most other stuff surrounding games. I miss the thread on broader representation issues, that OP put quite a bit of work in
https://www.resetera.com/threads/we...nd-representation-issues-update-read-op.8835/
I guess, I do worry that I'm just loitering in here because I like the topic.

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I kind of wish there was an index of these topics because I don't frequent gaming side anymore so I've been missing some noteworthy threads like this one and the linked.

I get the feeling the logic behind the idea of Zangief/Voldo/Urien/Kratos being seen as sexualized is "Well, I think women in their underwear are hot, so women must think guys in just thongs must be hot."

RM8 said:

when this mullet FF dude is indeed a better example.

Spoiler

Though the mullet is a deal breaker for me :P

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What about Snake? :D

I was hanging with the fam this past week so lost track of this thread, but I'm back now!

Slightly off topic but have y'all seen the video clip for Boys by Charli... X or something? It's an interesting look at the female gaze and flips the whole sexy babes in video clips trope. Thought it was an interesting example for a straight male gamer to get some idea what it's like seeing sexy girls in every jrpg.

EDIT: The video in question

Morrigan said:

What about Snake? :D

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No exceptions :P

NeoChaos said:

I get the feeling the logic behind the idea of Zangief/Voldo/Urien/Kratos being seen as sexualized is "Well, I think women in their underwear are hot, so women must think guys in just thongs must be hot."

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It often is, I think. I'm still not sure I have a good grasp on what women look for in men, physically, aside from the obvious athletic build.

Now that I think of it, I don't know what lesbian women find attractive in women! I wonder if there are any differences.

BuddyDharma said:

It often is, I think. I'm still not sure I have a good grasp on what women look for in men, physically, aside from the obvious athletic build.

Now that I think of it, I don't know what lesbian women find attractive in women! I wonder if there are any differences.

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There are women that find scantily clad men hot. The issue the women in this thread take is that those listed characters were not intended to pander to women. Any pandering is indirect.

NeoChaos said:

I get the feeling the logic behind the idea of Zangief/Voldo/Urien/Kratos being seen as sexualized is "Well, I think women in their underwear are hot, so women must think guys in just thongs must be hot."

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Those characters are all ugly freaks. I'm legit surprised it's not obvious, lol.

You can make a case for Urien but IMHO he's firmly in butterface territory.

Dmax3901 said:

I was hanging with the fam this past week so lost track of this thread, but I'm back now!

Slightly off topic but have y'all seen the video clip for Boys by Charli... X or something? It's an interesting look at the female gaze and flips the whole sexy babes in video clips trope. Thought it was an interesting example for a straight male gamer to get some idea what it's like seeing sexy girls in every jrpg.

EDIT: The video in question

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Infinitely more diverse than the flip. Also, it really visualizes that whole thing about what "gaze" means in the context of media. Camera and pose, as well as where the actor is looking and with what facial expression. All matters a lot.

Mephala said:

Sexualising men happens too but it isn't as rampant and over done as the way it is for a lot of female characters.

I am suddenly reminded of a thread at the old place titled "Buff dudes, shirtless or in suits, getting it on with each others". We need a remake! I'm not sure if we're supposed to post links or not so I'll just throw a pic in. Plenty more of buff dudes getting it on over there if you want some inspiration for more discussion.

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Again, one big difference is how they're posed. Yeah, these guys are half-naked, but they're mostly showing off their tattoos and their hyper-masculinity. This kind of art is designed to appeal to men.

4Tran said:

Again, one big difference is how they're posed. Yeah, these guys are half-naked, but they're mostly showing off their tattoos and their hyper-masculinity. This kind of art is designed to appeal to men.

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Though one thing I find interesting is that Danika Harrod, who is a social media manager at waypoint, notes how yakuza does pose men in a way that is appealing to her as a queer women and also for other women as well.

They are super appealing to gay men too, though that's not really a surprise. :P

BuddyDharma said:

Now that I think of it, I don't know what lesbian women find attractive in women! I wonder if there are any differences.

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Anecdotally i think theres a lot of overlap but not entirely the same. Like lesbians may appreciate womens bodies but i feel like more lesbians willing to be into muscular women which it seems like lots of men (not all ofc) find intimidating). Also i think women are able to appreciate the styles and such of other women better considering we have a point of reference for womens clothing, makeup etc. Also for women in general i believe that ive read that circumstances matter more than for men for attraction like not personality per se but like the air someone has about them and like the resulting interactions, idk the idea is kinda abstract. This is mostly speculation though based off of my own interests and what ive seen from others. There have been multiple occasions where a bunch of women who like women have said "wow that's really gay" but we've had trouble voicing exactly why that was.
I definitely feel like lesbians tend to not enjoy more cartoonish women characters as much as men, probably due to it making us feel uncomfortable but again anecdotal.

That may not exactly be satisfying but ive been curious about this as well haha. I've looked up actual studies on the topic of "lesbian gaze" before out of curiosity and didnt find anything unfortunately. I'm impressively bad at google tho so its possible its somewhere out there

DragonKeeper said:

realize nobody is going to take anything away from them.

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I have my doubts, considering the top post and others.

Mephala said:

Sexualising men happens too but it isn't as rampant and over done as the way it is for a lot of female characters.

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Do you think this comes down to preferences? That seems like the case. The most popular het-female erotica don't seem to feature insane proportions and the sex icons aimed at het-women don't seem to have crazy proportions either. Preferences like bodybuilder seem very niche.

BuddyDharma said:

It often is, I think. I'm still not sure I have a good grasp on what women look for in men, physically, aside from the obvious athletic build.

Now that I think of it, I don't know what lesbian women find attractive in women! I wonder if there are any differences.

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As a woman who is attracted to other women, I often find myself attracted to fanservicey designs (well, the ones that look like women and not like a 12 year old boy's concept of one), but that's dampened when I remember that 1. those designs are made with men in mind, and not me, 2. they're fucking EVERYWHERE.

Basically, my thirst for women is often at odds with my desire to be treated as a human being lol

I don't usually see large female fanbases for male characters who are basically muscle mountains. More often then not I'll see them described as too intimidating, or scary, or gross. A lot of the time their faces are not designed to be particularly handsome or conventionally attractive, as well. There ARE women who like huge, muscular guys, but it's more common for the limits to be more like... most of the male leads for, say, Marvel movies. Chris Hemsworth gets a lot of attention, and I have to admit he is really nice to look at.

StonedCrows said:

tabris

It's because those characters aren't created by women to suit the female gaze, so to speak. They're idealised men, they're what men want to look like. Whereas -- and here's the catch -- the women are idealised women to the man's gaze, and thus don't look like a woman's ideal but rather a man's ideal of a woman.

I imagine that a woman's ideal depiction of a man would be something more like, um... This is hard to say, I'm having trouble thinking of examples of men that lack the agency that objectified women do.

Huh.

Um...

I'm going to ask my partner!

She reckons we need to look at examples of male characters created by gay fellahs, maybe. It's just that you won't find that in the mainstream, as it would alienate too much of the heterosexual audience.

I doooon't want to say this, but the best example we're coming up with is submissive or objectified men in gay furry art.

I'm almost tempted to post some as a fair example, but I won't.

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Men want to look that way because they want to be sexually desirable lol

Valhalla_Nights said:

Men want to look that way because they want to be sexually desirable lol

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A running theme recently in the thread is people saying "I have no idea what character design that is sexually appealing to women looks like," I'm running on the thought that designs made by (mostly) men are made going by what they think is sexually desirable to women rather than what women actually want.

That said focusing on what gay men and furries want isn't really the right way to go about it, even if there's overlap. Women are capable of answering surveys, and there are lots of female artists who draw beefcake stuff that can be studied.

4Tran said:

Again, one big difference is how they're posed. Yeah, these guys are half-naked, but they're mostly showing off their tattoos and their hyper-masculinity. This kind of art is designed to appeal to men.

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Yeah, it's particularly telling since they're never looking at the camera, which is often a big tell for pandering stuff.

Yakuza is actually one of the cases I'm thinking about how you can't equate male fanservice to female fanservice. Both gazes are fundamentally different in a couple of ways.

Thing that a gif like that didn't show is that while Yakuza ooze masculinity, is not really the same type of western masculinity, that kind of macho attitude. It's a kind of masculinity that is often about showing the main characters as vulnerable, gentle and even sensitive in a way. I've often that is the appeal to female fans. And the way they do cinematics is also part of it.

psychowave said:

As a woman who is attracted to other women, I often find myself attracted to fanservicey designs (well, the ones that look like women and not like a 12 year old boy's concept of one), but that's dampened when I remember that 1. those designs are made with men in mind, and not me, 2. they're fucking EVERYWHERE.

Basically, my thirst for women is often at odds with my desire to be treated as a human being lol

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This is super interesting and something I've wondered as well. Feel free to expand on your thoughts, perhaps it would give some food for thought for guys that think along the lines of "well guys are sexualized too, you just dislike sexualized female characters because you aren't attracted to women".

One thing I will say, that conflict between "attraction" and "this is blatantly sexist" seems to have resolved itself for me as games stray more and more from what I find attractive and into straight up gross territory. :/

I think the reason guys can't tell which characters are made for women, is that they are often made to be attractive to women, not necessarily sexualised. As in they don't usually show off their six pack right away and aren't wearing skimpy clothes. That kinda blatent sexualisation comes off as cringey and I suspect actually reminds women of how women are often sexualised which is just off puting. You want male characters designed for women? Look at BioWare, specifically Dragon Age. The thing is they are well done characters that guys playing the game aren't going to notice. And I don't really see why the same can't be achieved for female characters in all games. It is possible to make a character attractive to men, without making it off putting to women.

Mephala said:

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I'm not really seeing this as being overly sexualised, more like it's going "Check out these manly men punch each other!".

It feels like the only thing a lotta people think is a sexualized depiction of a guy is just shirtless and buff.

rras1994 said:

You want male characters designed for women? Look at BioWare, specifically Dragon Age. The thing is they are well done characters that guys playing the game aren't going to notice. And I don't really see why the same can't be achieved for female characters in all games. It is possible to make a character attractive to men, without making it off putting to women.

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Except a lot of people are overdosed on pandering and will howl censorship. "She's very attractive, but I wouldn't call her sexy."

BuddyDharma said:

Now that I think of it, I don't know what lesbian women find attractive in women! I wonder if there are any differences.

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For me it comes down to a combination of style and personality. The most attractive woman in a game that I've played is Chloe from Life is Strange. A non gaming example would be Regina from Once Upon a Time.

PtM said:

Except a lot of people are overdosed on pandering and will howl censorship. "She's very attractive, but I wouldn't call her sexy."

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Yeah, I remember someone earliar in the thread mentioned that someone in the top sexy female characters 2017 thread had mentioned how Aloy was very attractive but cus of her face couldn't be sexy. It's very weird. Like if the characters are still attractive to you, what's the problem? I think in all honesty people like the idea that somethings been designed just for them and don't like the idea that they might not be the main target audience anymore. I think you see the same kind of language in the casual vs hardcore player debate, or even multiplayer vs single player. Gamers don't just want to have enough games to be designed for them in mind, they want to be the main ones.

Squidi said:

I said they were LESS reserved, not that they were butt fucking rodeo clowns on top of children. In many ways, they are more uptight than Americans. However, when it comes to breasts, especially in their media, they are not.
.

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I read an old travel guide (Lonely Planet, Japan, 2003) that says that Japan is one of the safest destinations, if you are a man. Almost all women travellers report incidents of harassment, like unwanted touching, vulgar teasings,rape attempts and rape. Women should use common sense and avoid travelling alone at night or distance themselves from crowded areas. Also they should avoid boarding empty or overcrowded buses. They shouldnt visit a bar alone and avoid having eye contact. They shouldnt also encourage discussions with others, no matter how kind they behave.Organizations claim that a lot of women hesitate to report those incidents, because hospitals and police arent helpful at all. They even blame them saying it was their fault. Guide even advices in case of emergency to get in contact with Japanese Human Rights Center. Also Japanese police have much greater authority and power than their western colleagues. They can detain you up to three days and it is up to them if they let you have contact with a lawyer or the embassy. They dont speak English, so one should ask for a translator first before doing anything.

Reading that guide I wonder if things are that bleak for women travellers

petran79 said:

I read an old travel guide (Lonely Planet, Japan, 2003) that says that Japan is one of the safest destinations, if you are a man. Almost all women travellers report incidents of harassment, like unwanted touching, vulgar teasings,rape attempts and rape. Women should use common sense and avoid travelling alone at night or distance themselves from crowded areas. Also they should avoid boarding empty or overcrowded buses. They shouldnt visit a bar alone and avoid having eye contact. They shouldnt also encourage discussions with others, no matter how kind they behave.Organizations claim that a lot of women hesitate to report those incidents, because hospitals and police arent helpful at all. They even blame them saying it was their fault. Guide even advices in case of emergency to get in contact with Japanese Human Rights Center. Also Japanese police have much greater authority and power than their western colleagues. They can detain you up to three days and it is up to them if they let you have contact with a lawyer or the embassy. They dont speak English, so one should ask for a translator first before doing anything.

Reading that guide I wonder if things are that bleak for women travellers

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The advice on that guide is stuff that women do pretty much daily, even in our own home countries, but of course we're even more careful if we're in a foreign country.

Weltall Zero said:

This is super interesting and something I've wondered as well. Feel free to expand on your thoughts, perhaps it would give some food for thought for guys that think along the lines of "well guys are sexualized too, you just dislike sexualized female characters because you aren't attracted to women".

One thing I will say, that conflict between "attraction" and "this is blatantly sexist" seems to have resolved itself for me as games stray more and more from what I find attractive and into straight up gross territory. :/

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Whenever I see a sexualized female character (again, excluding ridiculous stuff like Xenoblade snow lady) it's like my brain immediately starts fighting with itself lmao. I immediately get assaulted with thoughts of "oh no she's hot" and "goddamn it, not again". It's quite the experience, really. Though I imagine it's a similar thought process to that of straight men who care about female representation.

I wish I could just relax and enjoy sexualized female characters like most straight men do, but there's always that nagging feeling of "why do women get sexualized so much? why can't women characters just not be sexy sometimes? why do so many men see us as just walking holes instead of equal human beings?".

I will also say that, unlike many men, I hate sexualized violence and never find it sexy. It just makes me upset and sad tbh

psychowave said:

I will also say that, unlike many men, I hate sexualized violence and never find it sexy. It just makes me upset and sad tbh

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Sexualized violence like Bayonetta, more typical BDSM type stuff (some female anime teacher whipping her students), or both or something else? Curious about where the line is for this (mostly, I see sexual violence as just a worse form violence).