AFAIK "Sex Sells" was a term that was coined in the early 20th century at the dawn of advertisement. It's not an idea about that sex ALWAYS sells more, but just that sex sells. Sex works to sell something if other things fail. I believe the term to be depressingly true, given that it's the creative entertainment industry with little to say, who use sex to sell more than any other.
The root cause is that most games don't have interesting stories to tell or anything interesting to say. Most video game narrative and plot are based around coming up with an excuse to engage with the game design. Most game design revolve around destroying; eliminating, deducing, beating or otherwise overcome some sort of obstacle or challenge. That is one of the reasons why video game stories often revolve around capable Hero archertypes; Particularly in action games. These characters can kill thousands of people and not give two shits about it. The value of violence of entertainment is a lot like the allure of sex; We cannot come up with anything better, so this is what we'll do.
I don't have a problem with either grotesquely violent video games or sexualized video game characters. I enjoy it a lot. But I enjoy it a lot some of the time, and the rest of the time I am bored. I am bored with most games stories, as I am with most Hollywood movies.
But I don't dislike the characters just because she is dressed poorly. I wouldn't have liked Quiet more had she been covered up. I am not less likely to play Nier Automata because you can see her panties. I don't care. I am completely desensitized amist the blurs hardcore porn exposure being thrown into the vicinity at every turn.
"According to the American Psychological Association, sexualization occurs when "individuals are regarded as sex objects and evaluated in terms of their physical characteristics and sexiness." " Is what the wiki says about one of the proposed definitions of sexualizations; A relatively new co-opted meaning that has been adopted in the west in only the last few decades. It goes without saying that this definition is only one, and shouldn't be held as gospel.
The words within imply the fluidity of the beholder and the context of the individuals placement in culture around the world. There are many famous people who are sex objects despite having not been seen as revealing or outwardly sexualized in dress- This trend is disturbing particularly in the field of corporate paedophelia, where young pre-teen starts have these disgusting memes along the lines of "is she 18 yet?".
There is a deep and problematic level of sexualization into anything that is attractive, because people inherently sexualize whatever they are attracted to at a rudimentary base level. This is horrifying and one of the symptoms of rape culture, of opression of women around the world. Women are to be controlled, contained and kept under wraps because some men cannot deal with their primal urges. This has been the par for course for humanity for the last 10,000 years and it reflects in how we set up many of our social constructs like marriage and monogamy to try and protect ourselves from ourselves due to illogical and predatory basic instincts from our ancestors.
In contrast, I'd say- And I don't know if anyone else feel the same way; I am much, much more attracted to a pretty face than a sexualized body. If you ask me who I find the most sexually attractive; Lara Croft standing in the blizzard covered in head to toe, or some lollipop crotch pic of Bayonetta, I'd say Lara Croft.
To me, sexualization is not a question of showing skin, but how sexually attractive someone is. The moment you sexualize someone in your own mind- That is sexualization. You cannot confine, box or compartmentalize sexualization into a coined term used in one rudimentary way.
The physical characteristics and the silhouette of the character leaves everything for the imaginiation.
Lara Croft breasts, hips, and tight silhouette is completely visible despite her clothes supposedly being designed for the blistering cold. You don't need to see anything beyond enough to leave the rest up to the imagination. This is also the fascination with celebrity nude sex tapes and leaks- People are fetishizing seeing naked pictures of famous people because they've sexualized them just for being pretty or handsome. It's not because they are the most beautiful, it's not because they've sexualized themselves. It's because we sexualize constantly.
Human sexuality itself is confined into seeking procreation. Our species has evolved from trying to fuck everything all the time. That is part of the problem. And as a result you have many situations there are completely asexual, but have sexual tensions none the less.
Cultural customs tells us that all over the world, what is sexually charged is very different. In India it is taboo to kiss people in publicly. That is seen as sex, and that is apparantly why in Bollywood movies, that people dance and sing all the time, to deal with sexualization.
In a lot of the muslim (and western world) the difficult debates about females and headwear continues as arguments for and against female rights as opposed to what is appropriate and what it is not. I don't presume to have the answers to the questions here; I am just saying- Let us not take a western-approach only to explain what sexualization is and can only be.
What is the end game here? Why does sexualization cause harm? Well, people, through over exposure get bombarded with seeing beautiful people, and as a result they feel very shitty about themselves.
I hope that we can all understand the deeper underlying point.
Many teenagers feel terrible about their own bodies because porn warps their self perception; they don't know the difference between porn and sex, and as a result they grow up in a distorted reality brimmed with unrealistic expectations of the other sex, as well as self loathing over their own body.
But in the context of movies, tv and video games, I'd argue that just having incredible handsome characters like Nathan Drake over and over and over and over and over, has the potential to make people also feel very badly about themselves.
I don't think that people feel significantly worse about themselves regardless if they see Nathan Drake as half naked swole or not. At the end of the day, he has a standard of handsomeness that most people who play as him, and bought the game to be as him, won't look anywhere as him.
But this is everywhere, no? I think a lot of famous singers, actors and entertainers are incredible attractive. It seems to me that there is a massive skew towards making it seem that famous people are largely beautiful, and as a result; you as a normal balding person with slight crook on your nose, curly hair and imperfect features, are not part of any club that gets to be represented.
I don't think it's a sole origin, but I think that there are lots of men who enjoy video games who feel terrible about themselves and their own bodies, and I think that self hatred is part of what is being channeled into making some of these men so angry.
Has anyone here been through the experience of being perceived as largely unattractive at one point in your life, to making changes or having changes that meant you were suddenly seen as attractive? Did it change your life drastically too, and how many many people treated you differently? It is a cruel mind fuck how poorly unattractive people are treated. If you're a woman or a man with an unfortunate face, you're in for a rough a life. Particularly if you're a woman.
Few things will isolate you as much as being seen as ugly, and this goes down to the levels of the incredible petty wth people standing in line at the supermarket and going to the prettier cash register.
We must not lose face of that millions and millions of people feel terrible due to beauty ideals in general as a base rule in culture.
And culture is part of the problem. Cultures make people feel bad themselves if they cannot live up to the ideals in the culture, and it devalues the self. We're not good at understanding proportions when ideals have been grafted towards our entire lives.
I've been saying it before, but I'll say it before; Some of you are completely underestimating the body image effects of "swole" male characters.
There is an epidemic of teenagers and men who destroy themselves with steroids. I'd rather not elaborate further; But the consumption of steroids today is outragous, and I am convnced that video games, movies and tv have a lot to do with that.
And constantly I am seeing posts arguing like that you can easily attain such a body if you want to be build. The hypocricy here is staggering, and I don't know what the objective is to compartmentalize it in such a manner.
The video game industry make mostly terrible stories, have mostly terrible characters and nothing to say. We're still at a point where the story is shoehorned in to serve the game design. Games is still a young medium, and as it gets better and more mature, the character portrayals will be more nuanced. We need diversity, and we ned more types of people making video games for other audiences, so other types of people will be drawn in and expand games.
We don't need to remove volence, sexualized characters or swole buff military dudes- They have their place and I like them when they are good.
I just want people to stop hating themselves to the point where they become a detergent to themselves and others because they feel so miserable about themselves fueled by the poisonous body images.
I don't think you can take the bias towards things you are attracted to away; So how can you foster a deeper inner self confidence that erodes in men and women finding peace with what they look like and who they are, without letting the outside stimuli make them feel terrible? And I'd like to ask others in this thread; Have any of you had the experience of growing up or being perceived as unattractive for a part of your life, to then turning into a object of desire? Did that change how people view you, how people see you and how they treat you? Was that significant? And did the way other people treated you, alter how you felt about yourself?
