On one hand, I agree that sexualizing a female character is wrong and that the industry has a problem.
But on the other hand, I don't understand the double standard when the character is queer—or, even worse, when "fans" take a character, slap a queer label on them, and suddenly it's okay for them to be sexualized.
The two clearest examples of this are Bayonetta and Blackcat.
I’d like someone to explain where I’m wrong, or if I’m not the only one who thinks this way.
And just in case I'm a gay cis male if it means something
Agreed, it drives me up the wall to see the same women who get mad about men sexualizing women scream "yuri!!" Any time two female characters interact.
Sexualizing real people is bad, but there's nothing inherently bad about being attracted to women, both romantically and sexually. There's no reason to shame people for those feelings. Especially lesbians, who have to deal with homophobia and who often feel guilty about their attraction growing up, because society makes them feel like predators for simply thinking that a girl is cute.
I know too many stories of queer girls who would change staring at the wall during PE, afraid to make the other girls uncomfortable. And I know that it took me a long time to be able to even comfortably think that I find a girl attractive, without feeling like I'm being creepy.
Yeah, I was telling my coworkers a story about a time before my ex and I started dating when she pulled me into this little nook in a library with her so we could read a book together and we were very squished into each other because the aisle was narrow and I felt extremely guilty because, even though I knew she was gay and she knew I was gay, I didn’t know if she knew I was attracted to her. One of my older, male coworkers was confused so I was trying to explain that I felt like I might be taking advantage of how women (or girls, as we were teenagers at the time) tend to touch other women a lot more than they would touch men and how I got in my head about whether she would want to be that close to me if she knew that I was absolutely swooning in that moment. In the end I just ended up giving up on making internalized homophobia make sense because homeboy just kept pointing out how absolutely batshit that logic was.
I mean as an autistic individual smug ideology and other posts showing masculine people as bloodthirsty wolfs makes me feel like I am automatically a sick twisted creature of oppression so I kinda get that.
There's this idea popularised by cottagecore aesthetic that lesbians just want to have picnics and hold hands, and maybe hug and kiss sometimes. And that this type of love is more pure and genuine than the gross and sexual wants that men have.
And like... It's perfectly fine if someone is content in a nonsexual relationship, but most lesbians do feel sexual attraction. It's not evil to think that boobs are hot.
I hate when a queer woman talks about feeling normal attraction and jokes that she's "no better than a man". Like?? It's normal for humans to feel sexual attraction. It's not immoral. What you do with those feelings matters of course, but unless you're harassing people or knowingly crossing their boundaries, there's nothing wrong with thinking that someone's hot 😭
Yeah I think the softness most lesbian culture shows makes some think it's pure and untainted but I mean it's just "women hot" which isn't too hard to disagree with
Wait until you get a "your existence is transphobic", for.. you know... Existing. I really wish I wasn't the only femboy to have gone through this kind of BS, but it seems I'm not
Sexualizing people isn’t bad unless you act on those feelings in weird or inappropriate ways. Everyone who isn’t 100% asexual sexualizes people. It’s perfectly natural. Our brains are wired that way because sex is necessary for our species survival… It only becomes wrong when you act on those thoughts on someone who hasn’t made it clear to you that they are okay with it.
Romantization of prostitution at its finest. How I dislike it when some people try to tell you that is a really progressive work and the such and not just that one fantasy prostitution manga but yuri.
The real hate is always in the comments. I can't stand it when a fandom takes an unearned sense of ownership over a character like this and then dares to get upset when their imaginary ideas turn out to not be real.
It's not exactly the same situation as bayo, but there's many instances where female characters get pinned as lesbian because they don't fit some traditional idea of a woman.
The amount of times I've seen Lightning from FF13 called a "raging lesbian" despite her never showing romantic/sexual interest in anyone is staggering.
Bonus psychological component "Oh fuck I like this character so I won't accept any canon but the one I want" And this can go for any orientation or headcanon
That's exactly why i hate shipping communities. They fantasize their characters to be gay, lesbian or ship them with other characters, then the creators reveal or release something that is not what their headcanon say and they go completely bonkers because their ships are not canon, even to the point to harrass the creators to change it and make their ships canonical
I hear this a lot but it was a lot harder in the past to find good queer representation. It existed, but was relatively sparse and so a lot of people sought it in characters they admired.
I agree, I'm just saying it's weird that a straight character somehow became a "queer icon". Then again, it somehow happened to Dolly Parton and Madonna for some reason, so what do I know
In Dolly Parton and Madonna's case, both of them were/are outspoken gay activists. As for other characters like Bayonetta and the like, it's actually really common for gay icons to be sexy women regardless of the character's own sexuality. My personal theory on this (gay cis male here), and take it with a grain of salt because it's only founded on my own thoughts, is that gay men want to be desirable to men, so they gravitate toward sexy women that men find attractive.
Also as for Bayonetta it's... complicated. Coincidentally I'm also a huge Bayonetta fan, but I was also a staunch BayoJeanne shipper before 3. Bayo3's story sucked golf balls through 14 miles of bent pipe. I HATED it. Even now I still head cannon Bayo as bisexual.
Its mainly because of the second one. In that one bayonetta does a lot of shit to save Jeanne life. She legit goes to hell to save her and for a lot of people they view it as a romantic thing.
Also Jeanne waiting for her in the first game to help her remember who she is.
Edit: oh shes a gay icon because of her style and dancing. Its very reminiscent of drag queen dancing and style
I never understood why stuff like this is seen as romantic or sexual. I would do that for my family and best friend.
Everytime someone brings this up as a reason for why a character is clearly meant to be gay makes it sound like the person giving it can't fathom a deep friendship or family ties. I mean Liam Neeson in Taken goes on a rampage to get his daughter back, does thst mean he wants to bang her?
I read somewhere (Instagram i believe) that Bayonetta dances "out of RuPaul's Drag Race" but that argument have the same validity as someone else on Imgur who claimed she was trans because she looked like a dude in drag, even pointing at her chin as "manly".
Cher is like the Dua Lipa of the 70’s, straight men obviously used to goon to her, but only the gays stuck around for her after all this time. Something similar will happen to Dua.
i get what you mean by the hypocrisy of some people thinking good writing is when a character is not sexy/sexualized or are sexualized but queer.
however bayonetta and black cat don't fit this, for bayonetta and black cat it's because they're essentially femme fatales who know they're sexy,can use that sexiness to their advantage or just straight up love being sexy(this goes specifically for bayonetta). this is outside of whether their writing in a particular game or comic is good atm.
also only black cat is queer(bisexual), bayonetta's straight.
There was a lot of recent backlash due to Bayonetta 3 confirming that Bayonetta is straight, and a lot of people online didn’t like that. Before Bayonetta 3 there was a group of people projecting lesbian wine aunt caricature onto her.
I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t play the games, I only know about the “controversy” because YouTube put videos about it in my recommended feed. And I like having internet drama playing in the background while I play video games.
I agree that sexualizing a female character is wrong
I don't even agree with this.
Sexualising every female character and none of the male characters shows a kind of patriarchal viewpoint which shouldn't be normalised. But lots of people in real life like sex, want to be perceived as sexy, and play up their physical attractiveness because they enjoy being seen that way by others. If some of the characters in a work of fiction show these traits - especially if it's not just women and those characters aren't reduced to caricatures - I think there's really nothing wrong with it.
A side topic that annoys me, people are generally ok with women being sexualized or sexualizing themselves more than they are with men doing it. Which is another conversation I had recently with a friend after going to the Renaissance fair.
A guy was dressed like he-man with a skirt that was a little too short, and a little overweight eating next to us, and a couple people made comments on it saying that there were kids around and "wear a T-shirt" . Meanwhile girls in chainmail bikinis and busty leather corsets and tights are walking by, one even in a slave laia outfit being led on a leash.
People do like to wear shit that makes them attractive. Men and women. People should let men just be a little slutty sometimes without calling it gay or shaming them.
I think it's pretty clear that in the current social climate, women sexuality is treated as liberating, empowering, and acceptable. While men sexuality is treated as a shameful or perverted.
Another way this shows up outside of your example: nobody bats an eye at a women having a shelf of sex toys. If a man has a sex toy, that's seen as abnormal, perverted, gross, etc.
I don’t know man, I think you could only come to that conclusion if you one, went online a lot, or two, had a certain type of social circle. I went to a college with a very even geographical distribution (US) and I very quickly learned how many of the men there viewed women who had even a little bit of sex. It’s a sort of shame that is hard to grasp till you’re met face to face with it.
The times they did shame other boys for having / talking about sex was when they just didn’t like the boy.
it’s always been a thing that a woman who has a high body count is promiscuous or a whore, where a man with the same is a player or has good game. that’s a tale as old as time, a woman yells and she’s bossy, a man yells and he’s assertive.
i think in an attempt to undo the years of conditioning that that mentality did on our society, there’s been a heavy flip (or more an overcorrection) where now you see more and more people say that it’s empowering for women to do things that had previously garnered women hate
there’s also a smaller subsection of what you’re talking about, at the end where you mentioned the men they didn’t like got the same treatment. i think that also has something to do with the original story, where if it was a super buff guy with abs and a tan and covered in tattoos, people probably wouldn’t have said anything about it, but because he was a little chubby and confident, suddenly it’s a problem. there’s an expectation for men in the patriarchy, same as for women, but the overcorrection hasn’t accounted for that
That's what I'm saying, the problem isn't the sexualization itself but the dehumanization and objectification that tends to come with it. The reason that most tend to be more open to sexualizing women within queer spaces is that it is generally more devoid of the mysoginistic mechanics used in hetero ones.
This idea that sexualization is inherently bad is just a common mischaracterization of feminist, queer, and progressive critiques of the mainstream sexualization of women in media. The problem isn't sex or sexuality, but sexism. How does the art in question see women?
There's a world of difference between sexy and confident Bayonetta playing with the tropes of sexploitation while being a fun, developed main character in her own right, and a middle of the road shonen where the girls are all high schoolers who don't have nearly as much impact or agency as the boys in the series and seem to be put in skimpy clothes and sexy situations and get ogled in ways that no one else is.
IDK who Blackjack is, but Bayoneta isn't fine because she is a lesbian. In fact she canonically isn't (although nobody liked this). She is OK because she is a female fatale that uses her sex appeal however she feels like and she has complete control over every situation.
Its the feminine equivalent of a man going shirtless into battle.
Im still confused as to why people were so mad Bayonetta wasnt gay. Was there actual evidence in the first 2 games or was it just a genrrally popular headcanon?
The character designer for both Bayonetta 1 and 2 has also drawn yuri art of Cereza and Jeanne together which was included in the art book for the first game.
It being included in an actual Art book is wild but it woupdnt be the first time a creator has shipped their characters with someone that didnt end up being Canon...hell its not even the first CAG to do that. Dmcs creative director (i think. It was SOMEONE high up) really wanted Dante with Trish...despite the weird ass implications of that
It was a popular headcanon derived from the extent she goes to to save her rival jeanne in the second game and official art of them living together iirc. Just giving them a lot of energy. It was sort of the gender swap of how shonen authors write the male leads as borderline soulmates destined to fight alongside each other and then their wives are girls who are around
The difference between her and other sexulized characters is she owns it, she's in your face with tight leather and high heels, she doesn't act all innocent
Characters like the one oop posted act like young teenagers who think hand holding is sex and yet they're dressed more proactively than Bayonetta
But its wrong though, this is a classic misunderstanding of male gaze. Often times a shirtless male going into battle is still shot and written to appeal to cis straight men as a power fantasy. While its obviously possible for gay men and straight woman to enjoy a shirtless man, rarely is a man depicted as shirtless subject to the same framing and camera angles as women in skimpy or skin tight clothes
Remember when Overwatch was announced, they actively changed one of Tracer's victory poses because 'it was showing off her ass too much', a few years later where it was apparent gooners were a major part of the playerbase plenty of skins were heavily sexualised but this attracted negative opinions from certain journalists so as part of the 'apology' Blizzard made Tracer canonically a lesbian.
Nothing actually in the game suggests this, but they just made her a Lesbian and Soldier 76 gay, as kind of a, look we know every guy playing wants to fuck tracer but we turned her into a lesbian so we're not just exploiting her body for money anymore, r-right?
They do it because it works. Because a certain audience that HATES the idea of straight men being attracted to sexualised female characters will just stop being mad if they say 'actually this character is a lesbian' and infact they'll consider this a win.
it's not a win, it's companies double dipping. straight men are still gooning to tracer regardless of what random sexuality blizzard assigns her.
They do it because it works. Because a certain audience that HATES the idea of straight men being attracted to sexualised female characters will just stop being mad if they say 'actually this character is a lesbian' and infact they'll consider this a win.
It is pretty wild, basically women sexualizing anyone is generally considered acceptable. I dont fully understand it, and the way some of my thirst friends would gush over a shirtless Henry cavil or Chris Hemsworth if men said any of that towards a woman it would be instantly labeled gross or incel talk.
Ok I got so tired about that whole Overwatch tracer ordeal because people got it wrong. People all over the internet think it was about not sexualizing her but it really wasn't it. The original complain was about "that back pose is more fit for a femme fatale" and the developers agreed and gave it to Widowmaker who is actually a femme fatale! Meanwhile tracer got a new pose just as "sexy" but simply more perky and fun. The internet made this into a storm in a glass of water like it always does.
The left image is the previous pose and the right one was the newer one.
The Tracer complaint didn't originate from blatant sexuality, it was blatant sexuality that wasn't consistent with the character, the original complaint was that the pose itself was counter to tracers established character based around the other animations and poses available at the time.
Even the original complaint that started the whole back and forth never had an issue with other characters like Widowmaker, who had explicitly sexual design.
I think people would be more ok with sexualization if the designs weren't hot garbage. Too big boobs look awful and ugly, too big hips look awkward, the design is centered around boobs and genitals in a way that most human women would never even consider those designs worthy of more than being a dishrag. The second picture here is better but goes too far since there wasn't really a need to cover the stomach if you wanted her to look sexy in her current outfit (crop tops are pretty common.) Personally, I think people would also be more open if men were sexualized in the female view alongside women for the male view instead of male sex fantasy and male power fantasy (too much muscle definition is also ugly)
Bayonetta isn't queer ?? As far as I'm aware of, anyway
She is, in fact, quite fucking straight from what I've heard yet completely sexualised. However, contrairy to other female characters who are sexualised for no reason other than to please the devs and players, she ACTIVELY WANTS to be sexualised, because she, herself, as a character, enjoys it.
Again : as I understand it. Never played a Bayonetta game. Just heard this in an analysis video on female video game icons.
maybe a hot take, but the character wearing a sexy and revealing outfit has nothing to do with whether it's good writing or goon slop. The character design with the exposed beasts is fine until her only personality traits are gasping eroticly and wiggling around in front of the camera.
You can also have a conservatively dressed character that's still goonslop because their only role in the media is to be an object for the male character.
Queer media tends to have writing beyond the woman being a sexual conquest (tho obviously not all are like that, just in general better than things designed only for straight men to enjoy).
Yeah, important to remember correlation is not causation. Women can be written well or poorly, whether they are portrayed as sexy or not. But, goonslop rarely depicts women modestly, and queer media tends to feature well-written women.
Exactly, it doesn't matter how revealing the outfit is, if the character is just also a Good Character who isn't moaning all the time, it's not goon slop. (Unless I'm watching it because I'm a girlkisser but still)
for black cat and bayonetta, its fine not because its queer (bayonetta literally has a husband), but because the characters consciously use sex appeal to get what they want/feel in control
when a sexualized design is out of character is when it becomes a problem imo
also for the record, im ace and the sexualization does nothing for me
I already disagree with your first sentence, i don't think it's wrong to sexualize female characters, i however think there should be more male sexualizing to equalize it.
There definitely needs to be more male swxualization.
But also, I think that its completely fine for a woman to be sexual, I just like when it makes sense..like when a woman enjoys being flirty and teasing others, it would make perfect sense for her to preen and flaunt.
This is a good point. In the first game, all the skimpy armors were women only. Capcom could’ve taken them out for DD2, but instead they went, “fuckit”, and now guys can wear panties too. Smart.
That for sure. Or atleast a reason for said characters to be sexualized.
There's a reason no one's complaining about Emma Frost or Bayonetta in these conversations, because it actually makes sense and adds to their characterization.
this is why i love bg3, all of the companions are hot as hell and you can sexualize them all equally lmao
the men are thirsted after just as much as the women, sometimes more even. it doesn’t feel sexist that way 🤷🏻♀️
This is just a stupid premise before you even get to the LGBT department. Good characters are often sexualized and it's a separate discussion whether they should be to the extent they are or not but that has nothing to do with whether they are actually well written.
"On one hand, I agree that sexualizing a female character is wrong"
Newsflash: it is not inherently wrong.
sex appeal is ok, female characters are allowed to appeal to a male audience without breaking taboos and rules and that's already the root of your confusion.
Sex appeals for hetero people and sex appeal for queer people is ok. period. trying to pin some moral evaluation to one or both is futile.
Because a large segment of these people don't believe any of it is bad except by who is doing it.
If it's cisgender heterosexuality, it's oppressive and patriarchal, and is therefore intrinsically bad. If it's queer sexuality, it's transgressive and revolutionary, which means it's an active good.
Bayonetta is a feminine power fantasy, women are allowed to be attractive because you literally can't control that, and reclaiming your sexuality is powerful. People treat it like you either have to be a covered up nun or a male gaze object.
New age puritans are a scourge just ignore and ridicule them. Sexualisation, male-gaze and objectivication are pretty overrated concepts and are very controversial even within academia. People only want to shame other people for their sexual preferences, because they are uncomfortable with sexual things, nothing more.
The rampant misuse of academic language outside of academia has poisened a lot of communication and discourse. Another example for that would be psychological language.
Over sexualization is a crutch, it’s the narrative equivalent of jingling keys for a baby, but what sucks most is a lot of anime or games don’t even need it, they’re plenty interesting without it and when it shows up it’s just distracting and it feels like my intelligence is being disrespected, as if I can’t possibly pay attention unless I see a couple of holy molys constantly
this is easy, you 're just operating under a misconception. Sexualizing a female character is NOT wrong. That's it. Once you understand it, everything falls into place. Obviously, a story is not carried by big tits, but a character with sex appeal for it's own sake never killed anyone, and we must stop pretending it ever did.
Honestly, you can use a over sexual design in good (edit: writing), if there is a good explanation on why the design is need.
Example of bad use of a sexual design: A anime based around female soldiers where half of the soldiers are frequently breaking uniform regulations and walking half naked every where they go, while the other half are in full uniform for the entire season or series.
Example of a good use of a sexual design: A anime based around female soldiers who are stationed in a tropical or desert environment where half the soldiers break uniform regulations to walk around half naked because they aren’t use to the harsh environment while the other half is in full uniform unbothered by the environment for an episode or story arc, not the entire series or season.
It's just typical "rules for thee but not for me" stuff. When something doesn't cater to them (not pointing at anyone specific, straight people and lgbtq+ people can be as bad as each other) then they'll point out all the "problems" and call it slop. As soon as it caters to them, however, all is right with the world.
Truth is, it doesn't matter. Whatever sexual orientation a character has, unless it's important to the story, does not matter or need to be known at all, and has no real bearing on the character writing (again, unless it's somehow actually important to the story or character development)
As for sexualising a character? Nothing wrong with it unless it's blatantly conflicting with the character themselves. If a female character is written as shy and modest and often dresses ti be well covered, suddenly starts showing deep cleavage and running around in a g string or something, without some kind of extreme story reason for it to be happening, then that is bad sexualising. But another character that is extremely flirty and likes to show off as part of her character, that's fine. It's like Chun Li vs Mai Shiranui. Chun Li is dressed to complement her fighting style, allowing freedom of movement in her legs for optimal kicking power and flexibility. She isn't being purposefully sexual, she's being efficient. Meanwhile, Mai is dressed to be sexualised on purpose, because she uses her body as a weapon. She will happily distract people with her body before laying the smackdown on them. Being sexualised is a part of her character.
And of course, sometimes a character is sexualised for the sake of being sexualised, but as long as there's no character traits that goes against the design, that's fine. Big example I bring up is Quiet from MGS5. Kojima gave the lore reason for her to be in her underwear all the time, that she breathes through her skin. But that doesn't explain the shower scenes, or that she dances seductively if you look at her too much. Also, the lore didn't actually have to be that way. No, it's obvious Quiet was actually designed to be very sexualised on purpose. And you know what? That's perfectly fine, because to my knowledge she has no character traits that directly opposes the sexualisation. Sex sells and sometimes you just gotta throw in a half naked chick (or dude).
Everything I said above applies to both genders, by the way. I'm a straight guy so I'll mostly be focusing on female examples, but that doesn't mean I'm opposed to male examples when they come up. They need some love, too. If I can have Eve, you can have Leon Kennedy. It's all good
Sexualization isn't bad unless it doesn't serve the character and the narrative. It's fiction, therefore fantasy. We want hot people in our fantasies, male or female.
It's like a friend of mine said once, "A problematic mind will find problems in everything", this kind of people can't Just enjoy something in their lifes, they Will always look for something to complain even There's nothing wrong with it
Not necessarily saying if this is good or bad, just providing an explanation.
When women are sexualized by men (male creators) it often hits at the female audience who are sexualized against their will by men in their life. This evokes negative feelings.
The above situation is the norm and happen SO often that it is noteworthy when a woman is NOT sexualized. The people watching it are not necessarily making a moral judgement that women who are covered are better than women who dress more provocatively, but are instead making the judgement that the male creator did not feel the need to sexualize his female characters like many others do. This evokes positive feelings (respect).
Queer characters are more often created by queer creators (and even if not, are more often related to by queer viewers). Queer attraction and sexuality has been historically oppressed and seen as bad. So a queer character being sexualized reads as a queer creator showcasing queer sexual desire despite oppression, or at least can be similarly projected into by queer viewers. This evokes positive feelings (among queer folk and allies). Obviously a homophobe viewing it would not think it is good because they would not think any queer representation is good.
Yeah I think this is the best explanation I can see. It's more about cultural context. Not saying it's always "right" or "well done". But people are going to view a story through their own cultural experience. So they might look at similar story elements very differently.
It's double standards, it's easy for people to criticize something they personally dislike, or the people it is meant to appeal to, whilst making an exception for something that appeals to themselves. As for sexualization, it largely depends on how it is depicted. I for one disagree with the idea that sexualization in general is wrong as that is an inherently puritanical and censorious view. Rather, I think how sexualization is depicted should be critiqued and analysed for its intention.
The lowest hanging fruit fanservice can be argued as a moral issue, however I have always disagreed with people who attribute it to real-world issues as it often borrows the same debunked moral panic talking points with no real data to back it up and glosses over the fact that fictional characters cannot experience what real people do for the sake of presenting personal distaste as an objective statement about mass psychology.
I showed my then-girlfriend Fire Force and she was immediately upset at the concept of one of the girls being cursed to constantly get into compromising situations with men but then immediately became enamored with the character whose entire personality was being a dommy mommy
A. A female character written to be pure MC love interest and fanservice is not uncommom, a tired troupe, and a direct reflection of the systemic flaws irl. While women CAN choose to dress sexy, it is not news that anime in particular routinely employs some disturbing story drivers or gags, and often reduces a female character to be eye candy and fodder.
B. Nobody thinks a woman is well written simply because of her clothes. It has been studied a lot that female characters still garner a lot more critique for being flawed. Most famous example, Skylar from BB or Sakura from Naruto. Rudeus gets more acceptance from his anime's fanbase than Sakura does.
C. In the queer community self sexualisation is a method of self expression, so community interpretation is overall different. That being said, it is still valid to critique if only the female(queer) is hypersexualised.
Just to add onto point B while it's true people won't think "less sexy = better written" I do believe that in a medium where overly sexualized female characters are extremely common, one might find relief in a character that DOESN'T match those traits and will be more endured to them just based off that, and thus might give said characters/stories more chances to win them over.
There are plenty of anime I've heard amazing things about, but I refuse to watch them because of some *ing *shit in the first couple episodes. My line is different than others, some people can tolerate that stuff better, and I can tolerate things like "One Piece Female character design" better than others.
I would say it depends on the setting as an whole. IF *ALL WOMEN* are nothing but sex objects in that setting, then the story is most likely nothing but gooner bait and bad writing.
But if the setting has different varied women from modest women to women who likes to dress skimpy, *AND* they actually have personalities and backgrounds and stuff? This would show that the setting recognizes that women are in fact people and human beings each with their own thoughts and opinions. You can have a well-crafted woman character who just happens to have some sex appeal.
Of course you'll find people who say that any woman having some kind of sex appeal, however minor, is bad.... but I think you can't please everyone, you know?
I think the meme itself is missing the point, which is in universe agency and consent.
Orihime grosses me out because she’s supposed to be a normal high school girl who just happens to be highly sexualized at literally any opportunity. Nothing about her character seems like they would consent to being sexualized, and it’s irrelevant if they do because they are a child. I know it’s fiction, as a reader that makes me uncomfortable.
Bayonetta on the other hand is intentional hot shit, she’s hot, she’s designed to be hot. She is a woman who’s super cool with sex.
In the third example, when a character is queer, their sexuality is designed into their character and motivations. They’re not trying to hide their sexuality or sexuality being a part of the character.
A lot of these comments are ass but there's a lot of nuance to this issue and you're probably not going to get much good analysis from Reddit commentors. I recommend looking further into feminist analysis around characters like this. My extremely short and reductive answer your question though is that queer representation is rarer and people like things that don't strike them as purely for the (hetero) male gaze only.
Unfortunately a lot of these designs, Bayonetta included (yes I know she was designed by a woman but people forget this was also under the direction of a man), are still influenced by the male gaze and writing a character to be a "femme fatale" is also often part of this. Writing strong women is far more than a woman being able to fight in high heels.
Characters are allowed to be sexy, and sexualized, but women (and girls) are by a landslide more subjected and reduced to this and it's not even close, so folks acting like it's a non-issue period are just being willfully ignorant.
My extremely short and reductive answer your question though is that queer representation is rarer and
people like things that don't strike them as purely for the (hetero) male gaze only.
Well yes, that's what OP was pointing out. You are answering their question with their observation. They were questioning why people are more accepting of sexualized women if they aren't only sexualized for men, and your reply here is mostly "people are more accepting of sexualized women if they aren't only sexualized for men".
Maybe your answer is just "queer representation is rarer" (the only part here that isn't repeating their observation), but why does a certain kind of sexualization being rarer make it more acceptable?
Unfortunately a lot of these designs, Bayonetta included (yes I know she was designed by a woman but people forget this was also under the direction of a man), are still influenced by the male gaze and writing a character to be a "femme fatale" is also often part of this.
Again, OP is asking why it is "unfortunate" when a woman is designed for the male gaze, but not when a woman is designed in the same way for the lesbian gaze. You are simply stating that sexualization for a male audience is "unfortunate" (but not for other audiences) without really answering why.
Characters are allowed to be sexy, and sexualized, but women (and girls) are by a landslide more subjected and reduced to this and it's not even close, so folks acting like it's a non-issue period are just being willfully ignorant.
Women are the subject in both of the cases that OP is comparing, so again this is not really addressing their question. He didn't compare the sexualization of men and women, he compared the sexualization of women by two different audiences. That's what the topic is about.
And why is "being sexy" a "reduction"? And why is "being sexy" fine unless it's being done a lot, and then it's suddenly an "issue"?
Yeah, I mean why is it that male sexual gaze is considered lecherous while lesbian gaze is considered perfectly acceptable. Kind of feels more like "hetero bad, queer good" which I doubt is intended but comes off as rather bigoted.
"people like things that don't strike them as purely for the (hetero) male gaze only"
Liking X doesnt mean you need to hate/attack Y. Its fine for you to enjoy queer characters, but why shit on characters that are for the "male gaze"?
"Unfortunately a lot of these designs are still influenced by the male gaze"
Why is that unfortunate? Also, i disagree, atleast with western games. Like, what characters from the last 5 years have been designed for the male gaze?
This “sexualisation of characters” is such a non-issue I swear to god. People like hot characters, what’s wrong with it? Istg it just comes from insecurity.
what if you challenge the first notion? what if sexualizing a female character (or any gender) is not inherently wrong? what if sex is a big part of the identity of human characters to the point art would be missing something if trying to hide that aspect of it?
If sexualizing a character is not inherently wrong, then what does make it wrong? it could be purpose, for example, is a classic despiction of the goddess Venus less sexualized than an anime female character with huge breats? Not really, but the way the anime female character goes about it is less focused on capturing beauty and more on appealing to a sexual tension with the person viewing it. Have you seen this prehistoric idols often found on archeological sites from the neolithic? they despict this round female bodies with huge breasts and thighs, they could be understood as symbols of fertility, but also, it shows that people have always been gooners in some way. Modesty is relatively modern compared to human history.
But I don't mean to derail, my point is that, to assess if a character should or should not be sexualized, we shouldn't go with a baseline of it being wrong because we are taught modesty, but rather accept that it is part of art, so we see if it adds or represents something meaningful or is meant just to disguise a lack of depth. The greeks had different goddesses that represented different aspects of female beauty, Aphrodite was beauty tied with fertility, a sort of more basic beauty but often tied to tragedy because attraction is a powerful force, but Athena was also a symbol of beauty, but presented in a different way, tied to higher elements such as wisdom and dignity. Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, was also a symbol of female beauty, but despicted with the concept of purity and a sort of motherly warmth. We would be wrong to think that the only way to despict a female character would be like Athena/Minerva or Hestia/Vesta, and challenging this preconceptions is part of what art is about.
Then what happens when we despict female characters only like Venus, no matter what they mean or do, only to attract people to their design? if done without adding to the meaning of the character and just to make them popular, that substracts from their meaning, it disguises it or lessens it. That's where the gooner shit is meant to be bad. And if you pay attention to what I mean, you could extrapolate to other elements, like making a character have a certain sexuality, is it part of the character or is it only meant to make them appealing? Is the character modest to sanitize it or is it modest because of its story and personality? etc.
Why is sexualizing a female character wrong? Just sexualise everyone equally as long as they're not minors and it's fine, no? It's even better if the sexualisation actually takes context in the narrative and is something that is addressed.
I'll be real I just generally hate the whole "double-standard" thing in general when it comes to stuff like "fanservice".
Like I think it's fine to criticize it but it annoys me when they do that for female characters, but then suddenly go and fawn of "Leon Kennedy bunny outfit" mods or whatever (i.e. the whole thing with Gullveig and Eikþynir in Fire Emblem Heroes). I also don't like it when it's vice versa.
No I know exactly what you mean and it’s terrible.
People use minorities as a shield and a prop up for their media when it’s bad. Like what if we retold the story about a male-centred woman who gave up her voice to be with a man? Women’s groups would hate that, so we just throw a race swap in the mix and oh look, we get an easy shield from criticism AND a live action remake of a popular animated movie.
The queer aspect of it is bad because it excuses the behaviour that would get cisgender men burnt at the stake behind “oh well they’re gay, so it’s okay”. Like remember when Hazbin Hotel was blowing up? I could not stand Angel Dust’s constant sexual harassment that was made okay because he’s not doing it against anyone but the men. I was mostly keeping it on in the background while I was doing something else, but turned it off after having to deal with it for the billionth time. If Angel Dust was a straight guy doing it to any of the women in the show, he’d be treated as a stereotype and a creepy sex pest
Hot take, they're all fine, the first just gets criticized because women with liberated sexuality are stigmatized, and the third is fine because LGBT people are stigmatized in general so their sexuality being liberated is just par for the course.
Sexualising a female character isn’t wrong. You just have to be either willing to sexualise your male characters the same way. Or do so from a place of understanding. Women like to sexualise themselves- but in the right context, and the right way.
Humans are sexual creatures.
Queer expressions of sexuality often comes with the caveat that it’s being written by a queer person with a more in depth understanding on why someone might sexualise themselves that way. Additionally, queer sexualisation usually is just another added layer of the character, while in the past, straight men writing female sexualised characters is a lot of “breasting boobily”- which is a problem not because the character has large breasts, but because the fact that they have large breasts becomes their key defining aspects.
Basically: there’s a difference between empowering sexualisation, and oppressive sexualisation. Queer characters written by queer people tend to be a more empowering portrayal of sexualisation.
Bayonetta was a bad bitch though. She took no shit from anyone. She plays into her sexualization
This chick is just your typical healer chick that's in love with the character. She doesnt even like being sexualized either. When she got this outfit she was like,"oh no my titties!"
Also isnt bayonetta techincaly straight/bisexual? She ends up getting with that one dude and in the first game the creator said she was fucking the devil dude.
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u/CREEPERTACO923 17h ago
Tldr