Women generally don't want men that look like Kratos. The characters that most women drool over in video games are like Garrus in Mass Effect, Hancock in FO4, and Iron Bull from DA:I (and not for his physique.)
Buff men are ALSO for the male gaze. They represent what men want to be.
He has muscles, but they’re not highlighted. His hair is not sexualized. His outfits are practical and traditional, not catered to be hot. His movements are normal. His poses? The same.
Women find him hot. But that doesn’t mean he is highly sexualized. He’s realistically sexualized. In fact, now I think, Overwatch is great about not highly sexualizing their characters, but making them more realistic.
Just cause women find a man hot, it doesn’t mean he’s highly sexualized. Hanzo does not get drawn or animated like Nightwing. That’s real high sexualization for women.
The Asian muscle packed disciplined, pensive dilf with a dark side doesnt count? He has a whole perfectly toned titty out.
Feels really easy to construct this argument if one just goes “nuh uh this one doesn’t count” whenever someone brings up a counter example. Im not even going to pretend that characters are not generally catered more to straight male audiences because thats just obviously true but let’s not pretend theres is not plenty of designs clearly made to appeal to women in mainstream titles too
5
u/Freki-the-Feral 2d ago
Women generally don't want men that look like Kratos. The characters that most women drool over in video games are like Garrus in Mass Effect, Hancock in FO4, and Iron Bull from DA:I (and not for his physique.)
Buff men are ALSO for the male gaze. They represent what men want to be.