And now, a word about the sexualization of female videogame characters

Videogame characters are not real.
I knew that when I was 5.

Here is today's must-read GamerGate article. In keeping with the whole "positive life choices" thing I started yesterday, it's an article I don't wish to attack. There are just a few observations I want to make.

Highly popular game franchises with an optional female lead include Skyrim, Fallout, and Mass Effect; in the latter, even male gamers often chose the female-protagonist option, apparently due to the female voice actor’s impressive performance.

Actually, it's because the Mass Effect games are 20-hour third-person shooters, and given the choice, we sheltered virgin nerds would rather stare at a woman's ass for 20 hours than a man's.

As for choosing female protagonists in Skyrim: that's so we can put them in skimpy outfits. And then get mods that lets us put them in even skimpier outfits.

And I reject the notion that there is anything wrong with that.

Because the argument that this behavior encourages the objectification of women in the real world is an argument that presupposes that male gamers are unable to tell fantasy from reality.

And that's fucking bullshit.

The real hot-button issue in feminist videogame criticism is not the shortage of female protagonists but the sexual objectification of female characters who, critics say, are routinely treated as eye candy for the “male gaze.”

Wow, you mean that gamers are sheltered virgin nerds? That sex sells? That videogame producers want to make oodles of moolah? 

There's a fundamental "problem" here: Women, as 99.999999% of the Earth's population (aside from [redacted - no wish to be jihaded]) understands, don't exist simply for our pleasure. Videogames, however, do. Ergo, the elements of the videogames exist for our pleasure. Ergo, videogame characters (including the female ones) exist for our pleasure.

And that's okay. Because videogame characters are not real. 


We figured this out when we were five.