This is not a solution to the issue. This doesn't acknowledge or remedy the issue in any capacity whatsoever.
Most major visual industries (gaming, television, and cinema) are male-dominated industries. This pertains to both who is creating the media (where men are writing, directing, and designing the content), and who the media is created for, which often caters specifically to male consumption and point of view. Most media is written by men, for men, and media meant for women has historically been regarded as its own genre (the "chick flick", so to speak). This means that the male point of view is the dominant, neutral, point of reference. In this sense, women must learn to appreciate art on men's terms or create their own art. When they do create their own art, it is often underappreciated or relegated to genre because a woman's point of view is often not taken seriously.
What this means in reference to your statement above is that most media produced is going to be produced by men, for men, and because of the sexism most men have internalized, their art is going to either exclude women entirely or make them sex objects. At best, male creators won't even think to include women in their stories because male critics and audiences will laud them anyway (just look at Martin Scorsese). Because their media is consumed principally by male audiences they will not be challenged on the fact their media contains virtually no women at all. This is because - again - a female perspective is niche and not important. What you get instead is an extremely narrow male perspective on what women are or should be.
Comfortable people don't complain and men are not usually the ones made uncomfortable. If they are, they have other options, because media has prioritized them for thousands upon thousands of years. Women do not have these same options. Men are depicted differently across every genre and medium and never are men at a shortage of ways to see themselves depicted. Women do not have this luxury and never have.
In most media, women are either victimized (murdered as an inciting incident, or kidnapped if you want to be generous) or idealized (sexy eye candy who pine for the main character or tease the male viewer with sex appeal). Rarely have women been portrayed with any depth, realism, or meaning other than how in danger or how hot they are. This means women do not have other options to choose when they find a sexualized depiction distasteful.
Sexualizing men does not improve the status quo of how women are depicted in media. It ignores the problem completely. This flawed sense of pragmatism doesn't do anything to improve media inclusivity. You are proposing a solution that nobody asked for to a problem you are not acknowledging.
Because the truth is: if women had as many options to choose from as men did, this thread would not exist.
Depiction of women in general has improved over the last decade and picked up steam in Gaming in the wake of eye-opening hate movements like GamerGate. This is a situation that is getting better, but it is not fixed, and it did not get better automatically. It improved because a lot of women complained. It improved because some men listened. It improved because people realized broader and healthier depictions of all types of people is a moral compulsion that should be satisfied and, if nothing else, is good for business. Ten years ago, if women's complaints for how they were represented in media was answered with "increasing male sexualization" literally none of their concerns would have been addressed and we would not be where we are today.
Furthermore, the cop-out that sexualizing men somehow makes sexualizing women better doesn't do anything to make media more appealing to women. Most women, and most men for that matter, do not pick and choose the games they like to play based on how hot the main character is and how often their ass is on-screen. Sexualized female characters in male-dominated stories are a symptom of unaccommodating male authorship that doesn't care if it makes women uncomfortable. Introducing more hot men doesn't challenge men to write more compelling female characters and doesn't do anything to address how the content they've created has made women feel unwelcome.
If this was an industry full of female writers, designers, and directors, we wouldn't need to have this conversation at all. But this is a slow status quo to change and happens from the ground up. Asking for better representation in the meantime is change from the top down because men already in positions of control have the opportunity to take some responsibility and produce content people other than heteronormative white men are asking for.
In all of human creation, there is no more powerful or influential tool than man-made media. Media is the foundation for every human religion, over which wars are waged and millions of people murdered. Media is the basis for all of advertising, the cornerstone of commerce through which entire corporate empires are built. Media is the vehicle for propaganda, for every day social correspondence between humans, for bringing news and information and ideas. Media is a uniquely human creation through which all of humanity is influenced and defined. Human existence as you know it would not exist without media. This is precisely because humans have mastered media as a means of conveying messages, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, and other humans have listened.
How things are portrayed in media affects the way you recognize that same stimulus elsewhere. Seeing a commercial can make you want to buy something. Seeing a recruitment poster can make you want to join the army. A single movie can change the way an entire country of people perceive themselves. This is called
The Godfather Effect. There is a reason the US Military and the Pentagon spend millions of dollars and lend equipment and expertise to Hollywood movies that depict the American Armed Forces in a flattering light. Media matters. Media makes a difference. Media shapes people and how they see the world - including other people.
People like to think they are smarter than their media. They like to think they decide what does and doesn't affect them. Certain people consume media more consciously than others by recognizing its faults and its dangers. They mitigate some of the conditioning by simply staying aware of the media they're viewing. But most people don't. Most people plug media directly in to their brain holes and don't think about it. They know they enjoy it and that's all that matters.
Seeing women only depicted as idealistic or endangered sex objects both reflects societal prejudices against women and also reinforces them. It fortifies the point of reference through which people relate to other people because the way your brain reacts to things is automatic. If you've been conditioned to see women as toys or dolls or objects through the media you consume you will continue to do so in the real world.
The comparison to violence is pointless. In your long life, it is highly unlikely you will ever pick up a gun and go on a killing spree. Humans are not born with guns and don't possess the natural impulse to go on a spree killing. This is not a biological function. It's not a basic human experience that happens automatically. But for most humans, sex is, and in your long life you will definitely
see and speak to women. How you perceive women, and what you've been conditioned to think women are like and want, is going to affect how you interact with them and how you treat them.
Example: You have been influenced to think the answer to women's media problems are more hot men because your own media experience has taught you that it's a good thing that you like, so women must too. You assume women have as many options that you do and suggest they just play something else if they don't like it. But the point of this thread is to help you understand how people outside your personal experience might feel and what they might want out of their media. Instead, you are trying to give them what you think
you would want.
As men, you and I already have everything we could want out of media. We have nothing to gain by denying others that same opportunity. I hope you realize that giving people more of what they like doesn't mean less of what you like. What you like does not need to be defended or preserved. It's not going anywhere. A lesson I wish more men would learn before they approach this thread is that it isn't about you.
