Well, a lot people in this very thread are arguing about how female presentation in videogames detriments social justice and ask why we get all these sexy design in videogames. The thing is, the devs behind DOA Volleyball probably give zero fuck about social justice. They just want to make a soft porn (they might as well enjoy the process of making soft porn, or even be proud of it, but that won't change the fact that DOA Volleyball is not art, it's just soft porn). Therefore the question becomes "why do we get these sexy ladies in porn?" And that's easy to answer.
Right. So again if you take this in a vacuum, these games are made for titillation, they titillate, that's fine. They do what they're made to do.
In this thread, we're trying not to see these in a vacuum. We're comparing them with all other games, we're lining them up with problems in society and culture and how these disparate broad aspects of humanity could be interacting.
Here are a few interesting points of consideration about how the world works:
- media you consume affects how you perceive people, the world, and yourself. It creates and impacts your assumptions about what's attractive, what's normal, what's right or wrong, what's "allowed" by society, etc
- there are countless games like DOA Volleyball that are full of scantily clad women. As you say, in a vacuum this is fine. They do their job, their audience has been cultivated over centuries, and that audience enjoys the output
- however, there are no games (at least outside of Japan I think) that are like DOA Volleyball but full of scantily clad men
- this means that the videogame industry is perpetuating a one-sided narrative, i.e. representation, where it's ok and attractive for women to be portrayed like this while it isn't (or isn't even considered) for men to be portrayed like this
- conversely, it's only okay for men to be represented as 'witholding', intelligent, politically powerful, responsible, etc
- this creates an imbalance in our culture. T
his is bad for men and women. it fucks with power structures, with how people see and treat each other, with how people think of each other, it creates or obliterates many potential anxieties or inhibitions, etc, etc
And this is only one point among many as to why it's problematic.
Did you read the OP? Persephone explains brilliantly why it's a problem.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like a mans sexuality is not centered around nudity. I was a dancer when I was younger and for me it always seemed like the nudity aspect with men more often then not attracted gay men rather then women. I can't remember one girl in my dance-class that found tights and crop top on a guy sexy, but give him a pair of worn out jeans, a white t-shirt, a ruffled haircut and they would eat him up in no time. I don't know but I feel like the never ending sex-appeal thing saturates everything in general for both sexes, maybe we just find different aspects of one-another attractive?
Not trying to offend, just curios if anyone else has thought about this?
It's definitely something worth considering, but it's also worth considering that we're living in a time where "how men and women
should look" - and "what
should be attractive for/in men and women" - has been defined for us and influenced for decades, if not centuries.
Like, consider that gay men were persecuted for decades/centuries and that, as such, the male body was always a lustful object that was denied for them. They'd be way more interested in seeing you naked because the culture historically said it's "not ok" thus making it taboo/whatever. (I'm simplifying.) Also why boobs are such a big focal point over the last couple of hundred years - historically they were never very sexualised or of much great interest because puritan belief hadn't 'hidden' the female body and deemed it inappropriate etc.
