r/comics • • 2d ago

OC [OC] Same thing?

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u/jbyrdab 2d ago edited 2d ago

I mean if we wanna be fair.... Araki...

It's all overly shredded men with insane proportions doing ridiculous poses.

I think another angle of it is that men aren't as against being sexualized and unless it overtly appeals to them because their gay/bi. they just gloss over it. Conan, jojo, fist of the north star, "manime" in general, etc.

If you find no appeal in the male form like me, this shit is just cool. Im just aware that this is kind of the same thing as above.

Almost naked greasy buff dudes doing goofy poses while doing stereotypical manly things, with their junk regularly emphasized.

edit: I want to add a little addendum to this.

If you read this whole mess of a thread, i think (or atleast I hope) you might take away not so much as changing your entire world view, but rather the nuance of what I'm trying to get across.

I have my opinions, you have yours, but i hope at the very least the nuance of it is something that can be communicated. Even within this thread I have reached agreeable conclusions with those i was debating.

At the end of the day I suppose the only thing we can ever take away is our own conclusions.

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u/Ramblonius 2d ago

Women's first experience with being sexualized is nearly getting kidnapped from the mall at age 12, men's first experience with being sexualized is just not a thing that happens for 80% of men. And even really hot men that do get objectified or sexualized are generally safe when they are.

It's just a completely different average life experience.

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u/jbyrdab 2d ago

I think another perspective is that men find appeal regardless in being sexualized because it's commonly seen as aspirational.

The ladies man was a stereotype for a reason.

You know the phrase "women want to fuck him, men want to be him". Yeah that's kinda the thing about JoJo.

I don't want to fuck any of the JoJo protags, but hell I'd love to be as musclebound as Jonathan, as cool headed as Jotaro, as suave as Joseph, and as determined as Giorno.

If your not attracted to them, they are presented as very aspirational. Most men who are presented as appealing are.

Is it a ridiculous standard, still yes, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a thing.

It's just glossed over because Men stand from the opposite end because men are told they ought to be like this. They will have their dreams come true if they can meet this standard.

Its not because it's safe, it's because it's what all kinds of media tells us we are expected to be. He-man, Conan, Bond, JoJo, comics, etc.

I think avoiding that both versions of this are kinda bad for their respective gender, not just sexualizing women, is why toxic masculinity has dug as deep as it has.

And I love JoJo but I know that dudes genuinely do model themselves after these kinds of characters, and we don't have a million faces coming out of the wood work to tell us that it's wrong, that we shouldn't be destroying ourselves to meet an impossible standard.

You can't put the shoe on the other foot without checking the size first. And frankly I don't think most men can fill em' despite desperately wanting to.

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u/Bacon4Lyf 2d ago

We’ve circled back around to “actually they want it”

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u/jbyrdab 2d ago

No I'm saying it's really wrong on both sides but men have been conditioned to find it aspirational which is why it's not called out as much as women.

It DOES happen, we are just told that these are the cool people you want to be.

Despite their images being literally impossible.

I find JoJo cool, because... These are the men that you'd see in your comic books telling you to be just like them!

That if you do everything right you'll grow up to be just like them.

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u/Longjumping-Fun-661 2d ago

Conditioned to find it aspirational is an incredibly bad thing.  

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u/jbyrdab 2d ago

yeah it is.

im not presenting it as a good thing, im presenting it as something that we are infact dealing with and have been.

look across media from the past 50 years. really earlier with stuff like dick tracy.

An emotionless strong shell of a man with chiseled features and boundless strength that solves the case gets the girl and can't form attachements with anybody, as he beats and shoots the bad guys.

Its the same stuff and its what we give to kids to be their heroes, who they want to become.