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(Note: I don't expect many to agree with me on this, and that's fine, but I've had it up to here this week with people arguing with me about how I'm out to destroy other women over a fucking video game. Yes, it's happened. Yes, I got told I was dishonoring Andrea Dworkin's spirit, which is a badge of fucking honor for me. So whatever.)
This week there's been a shitton of controversy about an upcoming beat-em-up game by Vanillaware called Dragon's Crown. It was the last game I expected to cause a journalistic shitstorm because I'm a stupid optimist, but here we are. What's got everyone in a tizzy?
Tits. Boobs. Women.
The game contains two characters called Amazon and Sorceress. As you can see by clicking their names, they're rather blatant and exaggerated characters with strong features. Cue the internet collectively shitting itself because apparently they've never seen some boobs in a video game or in real life before. We're acting like this is some new phenomenon when it's existed for centuries before video games and it's like are you fucking kidding me? Why pretend to be outraged now? I bet you're just scared the Amazon could crush you and your masculinity to bits. Asshole.
I have a lot of problems with how people, especially men, are deciding to go on about this.
We, as a culture, have decided that women's bodies, especially boobs, are some amazing holy ground. And the bigger the better. What, you don't like boobs? What are you, some kind of faggot? Oh, but don't admit you enjoy them either, broseph, because that's a crime greater than murder.
It's a hypocritical dichotomy and everyone using it to score feminist e-cred lately is really chafing my ass. Shame on you for buying a game that has exaggerated females in it. Stop expressing your sexuality or what you like, even if it is natural and something we see everyday is other human bodies or even just our own, they're gross. Stop it.
There's a good article here that talks about how weird it is that we're placing emphasis on such a common life thing. Boobs exist and always will. In any size. And liking any of it is okay because our obsession with trying to pretend we hate it is really weird. It's getting us nowhere.
One of my problems? The whole game is exaggerated. It's a game in style of other exaggerated fantasy beat-em-ups from the heydays of arcades. Here's one of the men and here's another. They're just as disproportionate as the women. Hell just look through the gallery and you will see very little that isn't exaggerated. The monsters are. The settings are. The NPCs are. Even the logo is wildly artistic and stylized. It's done on purpose. They look strong. They're big and noticeable as player characters and stand out against the backgrounds and enemies.
If the game had only been everyone looking normal BUT the Amazon and Sorceress being weirdly exaggerated, then we'd have a problem. But as is everything is such a goddamn caricature that I can't find myself able to articulate rage at someone's thighs.
And the whole obsession with us pretending we hate what we like to appear educated and nice? Is leading to repression. Don't repress yourself. Don't repress others. I did it once. I tried to be the purest most stereotypical man-hating lesbian I could a few years ago. It lead to a massive nervous breakdown one August evening and I almost lost a good chunk of my friends over it. It was only by examining why this is stupid and lying to myself only hurt others was I able to get out of it. Yeah, saying you hate it may get you on someone else's good side, but that's not going to help you when you crash and burn from hating yourself over what you like so much. It isn't worth it. Trust me.
It's also pushing the blame on the wrong targets. I'm to blame because I am open and honest about my sexuality. I like tits a lot. I always have. I remember being a 5 year old fascinated with how women looked while all the other girls dreamed of princes. It's always been part of who I am. I am comfortable and happy with myself nowadays. I look but don't touch; objectifying and acting like I'm owed anything are the last things I'd do. I don't catcall or wolfwhistle or other animal noises at women. I'll smile at most. But I'm always going to look and admire and enjoy because damn, women are nice to look at for me. They are so cool.
But it's my fault because I'm comfortable and like how muscular the Amazon is compared to most women in games because I made the mistake of treading on the holy ground of boobs. I'm the self-loathing misogynist. Gross dyke, get out of here. I bet you're really a rapist or something. I hear these a lot. Second-wave feminism really fucking hated lesbians and transwomen and was amazingly sex-negative and it wound up tinting things even to this day and I am public enemy #1 because treating women with respect and enjoying what they are sure is bad.
I've seen people say they'd be embarrassed to be seen playing this game. How are you not embarrassed over most games then? Or other fiction? There is a lot worse out there than this game. How do you even function?
The media needs to stop trying to censor me and claim it isn't because they're just standing up to the patriarchy. Stop telling me what I like or what I must think since I'm so unashamed just based on a video game. You know what they say about assuming. I'm all for a good patriarchy smashing but not when you're putting me in the crossfire because you're afraid I got cooties and will get them on you. Only the purest and chastest of handholding allowed from this point on and you better do it while in a burlap sack. Don't want those curves exposed.
And I can't even win because if they were all small-chested I'd be called a pedophile instead of a dirty women-hating perv like I am now. It's happened before. Keep moving those goalposts and regurgitating buzzwords to generate fake hype and panic.
This isn't the only instance of this new weird wave of sex-negativity in journalism. Or video games. Or anything. I don't know why this trend got picked back up but it needs to stop. How much do you all hate yourselves?
Because now we're all mad about boobs in a video game and we all look like fucking idiots. Even me. I just wrote over a thousand goddamn words about goddamn boobs and I can't even enjoy it. This is stupid. Stop shaming bodies and get some real social progress done already.
This is what the bottom of the barrel feels like. I hope we're proud.
This week there's been a shitton of controversy about an upcoming beat-em-up game by Vanillaware called Dragon's Crown. It was the last game I expected to cause a journalistic shitstorm because I'm a stupid optimist, but here we are. What's got everyone in a tizzy?
Tits. Boobs. Women.
The game contains two characters called Amazon and Sorceress. As you can see by clicking their names, they're rather blatant and exaggerated characters with strong features. Cue the internet collectively shitting itself because apparently they've never seen some boobs in a video game or in real life before. We're acting like this is some new phenomenon when it's existed for centuries before video games and it's like are you fucking kidding me? Why pretend to be outraged now? I bet you're just scared the Amazon could crush you and your masculinity to bits. Asshole.
I have a lot of problems with how people, especially men, are deciding to go on about this.
We, as a culture, have decided that women's bodies, especially boobs, are some amazing holy ground. And the bigger the better. What, you don't like boobs? What are you, some kind of faggot? Oh, but don't admit you enjoy them either, broseph, because that's a crime greater than murder.
It's a hypocritical dichotomy and everyone using it to score feminist e-cred lately is really chafing my ass. Shame on you for buying a game that has exaggerated females in it. Stop expressing your sexuality or what you like, even if it is natural and something we see everyday is other human bodies or even just our own, they're gross. Stop it.
There's a good article here that talks about how weird it is that we're placing emphasis on such a common life thing. Boobs exist and always will. In any size. And liking any of it is okay because our obsession with trying to pretend we hate it is really weird. It's getting us nowhere.
One of my problems? The whole game is exaggerated. It's a game in style of other exaggerated fantasy beat-em-ups from the heydays of arcades. Here's one of the men and here's another. They're just as disproportionate as the women. Hell just look through the gallery and you will see very little that isn't exaggerated. The monsters are. The settings are. The NPCs are. Even the logo is wildly artistic and stylized. It's done on purpose. They look strong. They're big and noticeable as player characters and stand out against the backgrounds and enemies.
If the game had only been everyone looking normal BUT the Amazon and Sorceress being weirdly exaggerated, then we'd have a problem. But as is everything is such a goddamn caricature that I can't find myself able to articulate rage at someone's thighs.
And the whole obsession with us pretending we hate what we like to appear educated and nice? Is leading to repression. Don't repress yourself. Don't repress others. I did it once. I tried to be the purest most stereotypical man-hating lesbian I could a few years ago. It lead to a massive nervous breakdown one August evening and I almost lost a good chunk of my friends over it. It was only by examining why this is stupid and lying to myself only hurt others was I able to get out of it. Yeah, saying you hate it may get you on someone else's good side, but that's not going to help you when you crash and burn from hating yourself over what you like so much. It isn't worth it. Trust me.
It's also pushing the blame on the wrong targets. I'm to blame because I am open and honest about my sexuality. I like tits a lot. I always have. I remember being a 5 year old fascinated with how women looked while all the other girls dreamed of princes. It's always been part of who I am. I am comfortable and happy with myself nowadays. I look but don't touch; objectifying and acting like I'm owed anything are the last things I'd do. I don't catcall or wolfwhistle or other animal noises at women. I'll smile at most. But I'm always going to look and admire and enjoy because damn, women are nice to look at for me. They are so cool.
But it's my fault because I'm comfortable and like how muscular the Amazon is compared to most women in games because I made the mistake of treading on the holy ground of boobs. I'm the self-loathing misogynist. Gross dyke, get out of here. I bet you're really a rapist or something. I hear these a lot. Second-wave feminism really fucking hated lesbians and transwomen and was amazingly sex-negative and it wound up tinting things even to this day and I am public enemy #1 because treating women with respect and enjoying what they are sure is bad.
I've seen people say they'd be embarrassed to be seen playing this game. How are you not embarrassed over most games then? Or other fiction? There is a lot worse out there than this game. How do you even function?
The media needs to stop trying to censor me and claim it isn't because they're just standing up to the patriarchy. Stop telling me what I like or what I must think since I'm so unashamed just based on a video game. You know what they say about assuming. I'm all for a good patriarchy smashing but not when you're putting me in the crossfire because you're afraid I got cooties and will get them on you. Only the purest and chastest of handholding allowed from this point on and you better do it while in a burlap sack. Don't want those curves exposed.
And I can't even win because if they were all small-chested I'd be called a pedophile instead of a dirty women-hating perv like I am now. It's happened before. Keep moving those goalposts and regurgitating buzzwords to generate fake hype and panic.
This isn't the only instance of this new weird wave of sex-negativity in journalism. Or video games. Or anything. I don't know why this trend got picked back up but it needs to stop. How much do you all hate yourselves?
Because now we're all mad about boobs in a video game and we all look like fucking idiots. Even me. I just wrote over a thousand goddamn words about goddamn boobs and I can't even enjoy it. This is stupid. Stop shaming bodies and get some real social progress done already.
This is what the bottom of the barrel feels like. I hope we're proud.
no subject
no subject
Date: 2013-04-28 05:06 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2013-04-28 10:50 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)no subject
Date: 2013-04-29 02:49 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2013-04-28 07:20 pm (UTC)From:The thing that really gets me is the double standard. People who think that tits are wrong are salivating over two men swapping saliva. And vice versa.. a man who is like OH MY GOD GAY MEN.. and then BRING ON THE LESBIAN PORN.
It's not the boobs that are the problem, it's generally people's ATTITUDES toward them. Suck it up, we're all big kids on this earth (I hope) and boobs are one of those things that are universal.. EVERYONE has had access to them in some point in their lives.
Ah Atma, ilu.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-29 03:01 am (UTC)From:Boobs aren't a problem. They don't grant you agency or take it away. Plot and narrative do. I could not care less about how a person in real life or fiction looks or dresses themselves. I do care when a perfectly competent lady character is suddenly stripped of what made her so neat because a badguy showed up and the hero needs a crappy excuse to save the day.
The Amazon and the Sorceress are both playable characters in a game about just who can kill the most monsters fastest. That's how it should be. They're strong and it's their job to be strong. Unless there's some magic secret "stay in the kitchen" ending, which I doubt there is, I'm not seeing a problem beyond people's embarrassment of their own sexualities. And that's a damn shame.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 01:25 pm (UTC)From:I mean, if you enjoy seeing it more power to you. I do too. Titties are awesome. But consider that we generally don't see most male fighting game characters drawn up in sexualized attire and bodies and with every bulge and curve of their enormous erect penises lovingly detailed as it strains against the fabric of their loincloths. Clearly someone is being catered to here, and I don't think lesbian fans were the target demographic.
Note: Hadn't even heard of this game before I saw your post, not into modern gaming past the PSP and DS, so this is all general stuff.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 12:15 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)When this part of the debate comes up I am always completely mystified. I mean, if I saw a honking camel toe sported by Sorc and Amazon then this would have more traction, but...
no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 06:04 pm (UTC)From:Also I got this notification yesterday morning just as I switched to a Les Miserables track. Freaky.
Three years later, a wild anon appears!
Date: 2016-04-03 04:22 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)The first anon was right saying that this stuff is so basic it shouldn't even need to be addressed. I mean, that was the whole point of the sexual revolution, wasn't it? Which makes it all the more sad that we've moved so far backward that these things need to be said.
I'm not sure what to call this movement that's reared its ugly head since the 2010's kicked off. It reeks strongly of bigotry and prudishness disguised as "progressive." It's a complex web of double standards that demonizes men and objectifies them, while infantalizing women despite trying to praise them as strong. Whatever these "progressives" think straight men might enjoy is vehemently denounced (and as you've said, that throws a lot more people under the bus than just straight men), yet these "progressives" behave exactly in the ways they denounce with whatever it is they like. These "progressives" will gloat about how weak, biologically inferior, and worthless men are; they'll mockingly say "Not all men!" or "lol misandry" while they sip from their "male tears" mugs, but they will be the first to scream "misogyny!" if someone confronts them on their behavior, no matter how politely or respectfully.
With how much crossover there is between the roleplaying scene here on Dreamwidth and on Tumblr, I guess it was inevitable that this toxic faux-progressiveness would infect the community. Over the years I've been seeing more and more of that garbage on places like rpanons (and I've seen you targeted by them a few times). It's always amazed me how little self-awareness they have, that they can be happily shitting on some series for having sexualized female characters while they're busy threading it up in the "Kinks You Want To Play" section or some smut meme with a Benedict Cumberbatch character or sports anime/otome game guy. Or how they'll accuse some series of being "lolicon" (regardless of whether it really is) while they're happily flicking their bean to Homestuck smut (a series where all the kids started out younger than Naruto did!).
Maybe it's really about control, the thrill of getting people to shrink away and beg forgiveness for whatever transgression these faux-progressives dreamed up. Heaven knows that kowtowing to these people does absolutely nothing, sort of like how Neville Chamberlain's strategy of appeasement didn't stop the invasion of Poland.