Other Bayonetta is the most sexualized game.

[White Stag]

Another I forgot to mention was Bayonetta. There's a lot of fun gameplay in that. Anyways, gotta go! See you later!

Bayonetta is probably one of the most sexualized video games of our time. Also, it was explicitly designed for male audiences. There are even official versions of the game where the main character is 100% naked... Come on. You basically just recommended soft porn (at best - and literal porn at worst, depending on which game version you're talking about) to this person.

I don't think you understand what this person is looking for. I think they are looking for games that do not exploit women. The exploitation of women's bodies unfortunately plague our society, but it is not ethical or necessary of video games, movies, billboards, commercials and more.

 

[White Stag]

Also, this is relevant.

 

[Hall Kervean]

Also, this is relevant.

I have a weird feeling that my school administration wouldn't appreciate that popping up in my browser history...

 

[Khadame]

Bayonetta is probably one of the most sexualized video games of our time. Also, it was explicitly designed for male audiences. There are even official versions of the game where the main character is 100% naked... Come on. You basically just recommended soft porn (at best - and literal porn at worst, depending on which game version you're talking about) to this person.

I don't think you understand what this person is looking for. I think they are looking for games that do not exploit women. The exploitation of women's bodies unfortunately plague our society, but it is not ethical or necessary of video games, movies, billboards, commercials and more.

Bayonetta was designed by a woman.

 

[White Stag]

Bayonetta was designed by a woman.

No, it was created by Hideki Kamiya, a man. A woman did do the character design, but that doesn't mean anything. It wasn't her idea. She was being directed by the creator of the game to draw something.

Even if it was created by a woman, that doesn't change the fact that it's still hyper-sexualized and designed for male pleasure. Play Boy is composed of female models. Women create exploitive content for the male audiences all the time. There isn't much people won't do for money. Unfortunately, these decisions largely impact our health.

Watch the video I posted if you're curious about the "male gaze" in video games. It also addresses Bayonetta.

 

[Khadame]

No, it was created by Hideki Kamiya, a man. A woman did do the character design, but that doesn't mean anything. It wasn't her idea. She was being directed by the creator of the game to draw something.

Even if it was created by a woman, that doesn't change the fact that it's still hyper-sexualized and designed for male pleasure. Play Boy is composed of female models. Women create exploitive content for the male audiences all the time. There isn't much people won't do for money. Unfortunately, these decisions largely impact our health.

Watch the video I posted if you're curious about the "male gaze" in video games. It also addresses Bayonetta.

Unfortunately, that's most utter bullshit. It quite literally impacts no one health.

I'm actually insulted you're talking about Bayonetta in that way. Quite literally she's the very definition of a strong character lead, exactly what the author asked for. She kicks ass, she defeats literal gods, and isn't afraid of showing her sexuality. She's not even sexual in the usual sense, because she's shown to be quite commanding as well. What the fuck you even complaining about? I'm a woman and I like looking at Bayonetta. She's asthetically pleasing to the eye, and watching her fighting is mesmerizing. Coincidentally, I'm not a lesbian, or a guy.

You're overblowing this issue so hard. There are needlessly sexualized games, yes, for men and women alike. But I refuse to watch that video because it will be complete bullshit. Bayonetta is not an issue. There are other things you can bash game designers for. But of all the things, criticising Bayonetta? The game that quite literally stands for a strong, independant woman? Search elsewhere.

I recommend Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 wholeheartedly.

 

[Axiom Days]

This is also relevant.

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/EvpFFse

 

[White Stag]

Unfortunately, that's most utter bullshit. It quite literally impacts no one health.

I'm actually insulted you're talking about Bayonetta in that way. Quite literally she's the very definition of a strong character lead, exactly what the author asked for. She kicks ass, she defeats literal gods, and isn't afraid of showing her sexuality. She's not even sexual in the usual sense, because she's shown to be quite commanding as well. What the fuck you even complaining about? I'm a woman and I like looking at Bayonetta. She's asthetically pleasing to the eye, and watching her fighting is mesmerizing. Coincidentally, I'm not a lesbian, or a guy.

You're overblowing this issue so hard. There are needlessly sexualized games, yes, for men and women alike. But I refuse to watch that video because it will be complete bullshit. Bayonetta is not an issue. There are other things you can bash game designers for. But of all the things, criticising Bayonetta? The game that quite literally stands for a strong, independant woman? Search elsewhere.

I recommend Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 wholeheartedly.

Please take a breather. Do you see me cursing or acting erratic here? We can have a discussion without that, I promise.

The video brings up great points about Bayonetta and whether or not she's an empowered female character:

Numerous pieces have been written on how Bayonetta is a feminist character and the games generally have a progressive message. I kind of agree. The characters' powers are implied to be literally powered by feminine sexuality in a way that presents it as something to be truly reckoned with. A force that transgresses garbage patriarchal religious figures and heralds major systemic change. It's cool a nice twist on the rather more traditional types of female characters who dress like this for no reason. (Please leave a comment explaining how it's actually very empowering to be a titninja.) All I'm saying is, Hideki Kamiya's character doesn't feel like a fulfillment of his fantasizes of who he wants to be like. It feels like a fantasy of someone he wants to watch. I think he's trying to have his cake and eat it by making a game about an empowered woman being heroic, but making sure you get a nice and long look at all of her as she does it... Bayonetta may be an empowered female character, but she's empowered strictly within the confines of a straight-male fantasy.

Sure, she is an empowered female character if you take into account her strength. However, the game was visually designed by a man with male audiences in mind. As hbomberguy states, she is empowered within a straight-male fantasy. She is confined to a straight-male fantasy where she strip-teases, pole-dances and spreads her legs while fighting evil. To top it off, the player dresses her up in fetish gear.

Don't get me wrong. You aren't the only woman playing Bayonetta. Yet, I'm curious to know what an action game created by women for a predominantly female audience with an empowered female lead would look like. Something tells me it wouldn't be remotely comparable to this. Women can put their minds to test in some of the pre-existing games that allow it.

Even when I'm given the choice to play a female character in a video game such as a Skyrim, the exploitation of her body never comes to mind in the story I'm creating for her while playing the game. As I'm determining her fate, the thought to remove her armor and have her run around in her bra and panties for my viewing pleasure never crosses my mind. Nor do I feel compelled to hop on the Internet and download breast-physics mods or anything else inherently exploitative. Instead, I'm leading her through the Thieves Guild questline, becoming a masterful archer along the way and making a name for myself in the world that is Skyrim.

Hbomber guy brings up another point:

Games as a whole are sadly lacking explorations of other people's fantasies. We're at the point where women actually liking your character is unexpected to their creators themselves. The developers of the Prince of Persia were genuinely surprised to discover that they somehow accrued quite a large female demographic. (On the screen, a post from the POP creators reads: 90% of the fans that wanted to talk about it were women in their 20-somethings... We somehow, seemingly made a game for girls.) In surprising contrast to God of War, Prince of Persia is about a young man who acts vaguely like a human, learns he can't do everything alone, and grows to respect another person (a woman) enough to risk his life with them on an adventure together, where they function as two halves of a team.

His point with this one is that it would be nice to have more diversity in video games, instead of male power fantasies that relate only to one demographic over and over again. I wholeheartedly agree.

As far as health is concerned, the unrealistic portrayals of women have caused damage. Eating disorders, guilt, poor self-image, self-objectification, suicide, and more have been directly linked to the standards being held for women in video games, magazines, on television and billboards. Over-exposure to these depictions cause mental health issues in women. Children today are growing up in an age where it's more rampant than ever. It does get in their heads.

I know how this goes. This information will probably offend you again, but that isn't my problem because this isn't an opinion piece. Body image development has been closely studied, and here's what psychology experts are saying on the matter:


The first two paragraphs of this psychological analysis says it all:

Objectification theory was originally advanced to provide a framework for examining women’s lived experiences in sociocultural contexts that sexually objectify the female body, through both interpersonal interactions (e.g., street harassment) and through media representations of women (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Specifically, the theory proposes that both women and girls are acculturated to internalize a third-person view of their bodies as the main way to think about themselves (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). This internalization leads to habitual body monitoring, wherein individuals monitor their bodies as they believe outside observers do, placing greater emphasis on how they look than on how they feel (Calogero, 2009). This process, termed self-objectification, has implications for women’s psychological and experiential consequences, namely, increased feelings of anxiety and shame, reduced mindfulness of internal bodily cues, and decreased “flow,” which is defined as being entirely immersed in a mental or physical pursuit (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). In their (1997) development of objectification theory, Fredrickson and Roberts suggested that these psychological consequences may result in various adverse health outcomes, such as sexual dysfunction and disordered eating.

Indeed, since the development of objectification theory, research has revealed that self-objectification relates to a host of physical and mental health risks in women, including disordered eating, issues regarding physical and sexual activity, and internalizing outcomes, including negative feelings about the body, and depression (e.g., Moradi & Huang, 2008; Tiggeman, 2011). Given the fact that some of these outcomes disproportionately impact women (e.g., depression; Cauffman, Lexcen, Goldweber, Schulman, & Grisso, 2007), a deeper understanding of self-objectification may enhance our knowledge of and approach to women’s health (Fredrickson, Noll, Roberts, Quinn, & Twenge, 1998). As such, this review of the literature seeks to explore the ways in which self-objectification relates to adult women’s physical and mental health risks.

Johnson goes on to outline the health risks, which include: disordered and restrained eating, anxiety, depression. Depression often times leads to self-harm, suicidal thoughts and more.

This pamphlet by Park Nicolett Melrose Center contains a graphic on the media's impact, as well as medical statics.

The Teen Futures Media Network, College of Education, University of Washington has a fact sheet on their website which states:

Media's Effect on Body Image

The popular media (television, movies, magazines, etc.) have, since World War II, increasingly held up a thinner and thinner body image as the ideal for women.

• In a survey of girls 9 and 10 years old, 40% have tried to lose weight, according to an ongoing study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
• In a study on fifth graders, 10 year old girls and boys told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show "Friends".
• A 1996 study found that the amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies and music videos is associated with their degree of body dissatisfaction and desire to be thin.
• One study reports that at age thirteen, 53% of American girls are "unhappy with their bodies." This grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen.

Source: National Institute on Media and the Family

This analysis of pre-existing studies by the University of Wisconsin-Madison starts off with:

Research suggests that exposure to mass media depicting the thin-ideal body may be linked to body
image disturbance in women. This meta-analysis examined experimental and correlational studies testing
the links between media exposure to women’s body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin ideal, and
eating behaviors and beliefs with a sample of 77 studies that yielded 141 effect sizes. The mean effect
sizes were small to moderate (ds = –.28, –.39, and –.30, respectively). Effects for some outcome
variables were moderated by publication year and study design. The findings support the notion that
exposure to media images depicting the thin-ideal body is related to body image concerns for women.

There are millions of studies, research summaries, pages by official health organizations and news articles out there. I can't cover them all here, but these links will keep you busy:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792687/
http://www.sirc.org/publik/mirror.html
https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2014/PSY221P121/um/Perloff2014.SocialMediaEffectsBodyImage.BID.pdf
http://www.waldencenter.org/popular-searches/media-and-body-image/

Dove even made a series of videos such as this one after discovering some concerning statistics in their own research. I don't support Dove because they test on animals, but I was surprised they got involved with an issue they are partly responsible for.

If you're still unconvinced, you'll have an easy time conducting your own research. These studies are everywhere, and I didn't have to dig around to find them. If you're going to argue with these findings, hit up the organizations, researchers and medical centers yourself. I've spread the knowledge of this subject enough here, I think. I'm not devoting any more time to discussing it.

 

[Elephantom]

Please take a breather. Do you see me cursing or acting erratic here? We can have a discussion without that, I promise.

The video brings up great points about Bayonetta and whether or not she's an empowered female character:



Sure, she is an empowered female character if you take into account her strength. However, the game was visually designed by a man with male audiences in mind. As hbomberguy states, she is empowered within a straight-male fantasy. She is confined to a straight-male fantasy where she strip-teases, pole-dances and spreads her legs while fighting evil. To top it off, the player dresses her up in fetish gear.

Don't get me wrong. You aren't the only woman playing Bayonetta. Yet, I'm curious to know what an action game created by women for a predominantly female audience with an empowered female lead would look like. Something tells me it wouldn't be remotely comparable to this. Women can put their minds to test in some of the pre-existing games that allow it.

Even when I'm given the choice to play a female character in a video game such as a Skyrim, the exploitation of her body never comes to mind in the story I'm creating for her while playing the game. As I'm determining her fate, the thought to remove her armor and have her run around in her bra and panties for my viewing pleasure never crosses my mind. Nor do I feel compelled to hop on the Internet and download breast-physics mods or anything else inherently exploitative. Instead, I'm leading her through the Thieves Guild questline, becoming a masterful archer along the way and making a name for myself in the world that is Skyrim.

Hbomber guy brings up another point:


His point with this one is that it would be nice to have more diversity in video games, instead of male power fantasies that relate only to one demographic over and over again. I wholeheartedly agree.

As far as health is concerned, the unrealistic portrayals of women have caused damage. Eating disorders, guilt, poor self-image, self-objectification, suicide, and more have been directly linked to the standards being held for women in video games, magazines, on television and billboards. Over-exposure to these depictions cause mental health issues in women. Children today are growing up in an age where it's more rampant than ever. It does get in their heads.

I know how this goes. This information will probably offend you again, but that isn't my problem because this isn't an opinion piece. Body image development has been closely studied, and here's what psychology experts are saying on the matter:


The first two paragraphs of this psychological analysis says it all:


Johnson goes on to outline the health risks, which include: disordered and restrained eating, anxiety, depression. Depression often times leads to self-harm, suicidal thoughts and more.

This pamphlet by Park Nicolett Melrose Center contains a graphic on the media's impact, as well as medical statics.

The Teen Futures Media Network, College of Education, University of Washington has a fact sheet on their website which states:



This analysis of pre-existing studies by the University of Wisconsin-Madison starts off with:


There are millions of studies, research summaries, pages by official health organizations and news articles out there. I can't cover them all here, but these links will keep you busy:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792687/
http://www.sirc.org/publik/mirror.html
https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2014/PSY221P121/um/Perloff2014.SocialMediaEffectsBodyImage.BID.pdf
http://www.waldencenter.org/popular-searches/media-and-body-image/

Dove even made a series of videos such as this one after discovering some concerning statistics in their own research. I don't support Dove because they test on animals, but I was surprised they got involved with an issue they are partly responsible for.

If you're still unconvinced, you'll have an easy time conducting your own research. These studies are everywhere, and I didn't have to dig around to find them. If you're going to argue with these findings, hit up the organizations, researchers and medical centers yourself. I've spread the knowledge of this subject enough here, I think. I'm not devoting any more time to discussing it.

Heyyy, I'm a guy, not even gay, and I make my characters amble around naked. Admittedly, just for a few empty laughs, but still, naked's naked all right.

 

[White Stag]

Heyyy, I'm a guy, not even gay, and I make my characters amble around naked. Admittedly, just for a few empty laughs, but still, naked's naked all right.

The first 22 seconds of this video covers that, friend.

 

[Elephantom]

The first 22 seconds of this video covers that, friend.

Wot iz veedo? I no see it.

 

[Maki]

Uhhhhhhhhhhh dead or alive volleyball?????

 

[Windsock]

Maki It's pretty bad to necro dead shitpost threads

Great taste in waifus btw