COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': In Defense of Breast Physics
September 19, 2007 4:04 PM | Leigh Alexander
[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]
Last week, this column discussed the dignity of our long-standing heroine, Samus Aran, the respect we as gamers maintain for a woman who doesn’t show skin, and the relative low popularity of searches for Samus hentai (which, ironically, have abruptly spiked in the recent week as if to spite me). Scantily-clad game heroines and burgeoning breast physics are a topic quick to raise ire in particular among female gamers – it’s exploitive and degrading, some say; it’s unnecessary and misleading, others claim.
Let's rethink that a little, shall we?
On this subject, the women of the fighting genre are perhaps the worst offenders. First of all, as Erin Hoffman points out in her recent Escapist feature, “Holding Out For a Heroine,” it’s not realistic – it’s obvious, for example, how lacking female fighters generally are in underwire support, which while titillating in a game would be prohibitively uncomfortable, to say the least, in real combat. As Aspyr Media senior producer Jennifer Bullard says in the article, fighting in heels is hazardous to the ligaments of the legs, and tight-fitting metal bodysuits would be outright painful to femme flesh.
It’s also common to take offense at what many perceive as the inequity in these sort of displays, too – female costumes are outlandish showpieces, while men are often credited with more sensible dress. Though, it’s not hard to find examples that beg to differ; it’s impossible for a red-blooded heterosexual female not to sexualize the decidedly pretty brutality of Street Fighter’s Vega or Tekken’s fire-eyed Jin Kazama, both shirtless and raw – and let’s not even get started on Voldo, Soul Calibur’s tightly-clad, eerily flexible submissive whose trappings bear more than a passing resemblance to bondage gear.
However, if we dismissed all gaming concepts that didn’t hold up to practical reality, we’d be out of a pastime, I fear. Moreover, it can be argued that the fighting genre needs every bare inch and crevice of exposed, exploited, inappropriate and excessive skin.
Why? Fighting games are inherently sexual, and the costuming of the characters is merely an extension of this. Any setting that brings together young, beautiful, powerful men and women in a no-holds barred, high-stakes grapple over lifelong goals is bound to make tensions and pheromones run high. At a glance and out of context, it can be tough to distinguish fighting from sex, and they share several key features in common – adrenaline, physicality, the goal of individual satisfaction.
The question as to why it necessitates such a strong degree of physical exploitation is a legit one, though. Taki’s nipples have been meticulously articulated since the graphics technology existed to make it possible, and as the next generation of fighting games lines up to march on the audience, concept art and preliminary scans reveals that the bustlines are bigger, the waistlines are slimmer and the clothes are smaller than ever. Is it all really necessary?
Games allow us to live in a deliciously debauched world. Take BioShock, for example, where in addition to the usual gun, the player is equipped with genetic enhancements. Using fire and ice as offensive weapons is as old as gaming, so the ante gets upped with a hive of raging bees that emerge from under the skin in squirm-inducing visceral detail. It’s not something we could do in real life, to say the least -- and lighting a Splicer on fire and then electrocuting her to death when she runs for the salve of water is brutality above and beyond that we probably wouldn’t want to do, even if we were put in that dreadful situation wherein we needed to end another life to preserve our own. It’s excess that makes the fantasy of freedom to commit violence without consequences and outside of society’s collective moral conscience feel like a mental vacation.
Survival horror, too, gains immersion from every repugnant detail. The sense of revulsion we feel when the stagnant whatever inside the toilet of a rotting, blood-spattered bathroom, the faint nausea induced by piecemeal, loathsome creatures and the crunch of their skull is necessary. Is it realistic? Of course not, for when do you ever actually anticipate having to fend off an undead two-headed dog or hiding out from zombies in a decaying village? The lavish excess creates the fantasy.
And that’s the key. A world where purposeful, passionate females with irrational proportions and a distinct absence of physical flaws fight without yield alongside hungry, animalistic men is much more fantastic than offensive. People often say they want games to be detailed in order to create realism whereby they can become more immersed in the action – but it’s often realism that interrupts the suspension of disbelief. Every facet of fantasy must be shamelessly rendered, no matter how ludicrous it would be through the lens of normal physics and real-world behavioral standards. There are limits, surely, else the array of gratuitous weapons that sometimes appear in fighting games would summarily dispatch their fist-fighting opponents in a singly easy stroke. And nobody’s clothing falls off – at least, not outside of the hentai fighting genre a la Battle Raper.
But given that the tension, frustration and raw physical action of fighting games will never be divested from its sexual undertone, the gratuitous endowments and high-cut battle skirts, every little plate of waist-cinching, virtually useless armor and every graphic jiggle is as necessary to the genre as the subtle moan of the shambling undead and the high-powered arsenal of the world’s best shooters. And to shamelessly enjoy and appreciate every bare-skinned brawler does not indicate unfairness or misogyny any more than an appreciation for wrench kills or car thievery indicates real-world sociopathy.
Gals like Samus that keep it covered are much-appreciated bastions of dignity, but our fighting furies have an important role to play, too. It looks like Ivy’s back is set to snap – but she’s a game character; she’ll be fine. Why not just enjoy it?
[Leigh Alexander is the editor of Worlds in Motion and writes for Destructoid, Paste, Gamasutra and her blog, Sexy Videogameland. She can be reached at leigh_alexander1 AT yahoo DOT com.]
Categories: Column: The Aberrant Gamer
22 Comments
Hahaha, Voldo's cod piece in Soul Calibur 4, hahaha, oh dear me.
Soul Calibur is a good example of both sexes getting extremely sexed up, especially if you look at a character who has been in every game. Males and females alike, I think the graphics are not the only reason but certainly the art direction went to "more sexy" in its large-breast, huge-biceps-and-muscles and erogenous-spiked-codpiece way.
I guess when 99% of the time you have to state intently at these same figures again and again fighting, it's something to make the characters at least interesting to watch, and perhaps "targeting the market" in this way too, heh.
Andrew | September 19, 2007 6:19 PM
You don't have to look to Battle Raper, as SNK allowed a losing female character to have her top blown off way back in Art of Fighting 1. It even played a story purpose, as it was used for the reveal that King was in fact a woman. Okay, they still had undergarments, but it was there. (And has sporadically been touched upon in other SNK games.)
Dead or Alive takes a lot of heat for extreme sexuality, but it really hasn't been that bad. The worst parts were shifted into the Xtreme spin-off (like watching a girl effectively dry hump a tree branch), leaving a fairly normal 3D fighter. I find it somewhat funny that DOA has relatively cleaned up its act, while Namco has gone the other direction with the Soul Calibur franchise. Yet Soul Calibur games get a pass from the same people that still beat up the designs of DOA.
I wonder about another game convention though. Why are hit sounds and death screams for women often more orgasmic than pained? And the fewer the sound samples used, the more likely this is to be true.
Baines | September 19, 2007 8:48 PM
"Of course not, for when do you ever actually anticipate having to fend off an undead two-headed dog or hiding out from zombies in a decaying village?"
You'd be surprised.
chesh | September 20, 2007 4:45 PM
"Why are hit sounds and death screams for women often more orgasmic than pained? And the fewer the sound samples used, the more likely this is to be true."
Oh god Perfect Dark on the N64 was hilarious for this. If she gets hurt she sounds like she's having a raging orgasm.
Shrike | September 21, 2007 5:53 AM
Leigh,
I respectfully but utterly disagree with your reasoning here.
The reason we should not "just enjoy it" is the same reason I don't "just" enjoy Michael Bay films: the idea of violence as glamorous and indeed, sexual, is propagated without any further comment. In other words, these entertainments are pornographic in nature (either of the sexual of violent kind). Porn, of course, has its place in our society, but its desensitising effects should never be taken for granted.
"...given that the tension, frustration and raw physical action of fighting games will never be divested from its sexual undertone..." I also disagree with what you imply here. Fighting games can be fast and furious, but there are also examples that are more controlled and technical. Prime examples of the latter sort are Virtua Fighter and Square's Bushido Blade. Besides, even if I did acknowledge a sexual undertone in all fighting games, it's another thing entirely to make it overt by designing your female characters to look like porn stars.
And another thing: are you actually implying that male and female game characters are created equal? Male characters might be muscle-bound and barely dressed, but they too are designed with a male audience in mind, as points of idealized identification. That's the basis for inequality.
"...it’s impossible for a red-blooded heterosexual female not to sexualize the decidedly pretty brutality..." Yes it is: the simple fact is that (generally speaking; you're apparently an exception to the rule) female sexuality is far less visually oriented than the male variety: even if game designers were interested in titillating the average female player, they wouldn't know where to start.
Male-oriented pornography serves a definite purpose, but let's not start defending it on an intellectual level. It could, after all, even be said that the male sex drive, however natural, by definition creates inequality if left to its own devices: if the biological goal is to impregnate as many women as possible, where does that leave them?
farren79 | September 21, 2007 8:30 AM
The real factor at work is that, in video games, women are usually rendered in only one body type, but men are rendered in several different body types.
All the sample pictures in your article are big-breasted, wasp-waisted women. Their silhouettes are all exactly the same. Contrast this with, say, Team Fortress 2, where all the characters are male but extremely distinctive in profile.
The message to gamers is that women come in only one shape. It's not so much the clothes as the stereotyping.
Norman Rafferty | September 21, 2007 8:57 AM
Excellent points made by all, even (and especially) where they disagree with mine. Despite the fact that I find it enormously valid and valuable to examine the psychology of games, perhaps paradoxically I also don't weigh them any more heavily than any other entertainment medium; I don't believe that games should be expected to present a rational or equitable standard of human appearance or behavior.
We do look to video game characters for representations of ourselves -- but I think that this extends beyond basics like visuals. I think there are a variety of emotional touchstones that we can use, and implying that a video game character's appearance makes a real man or woman feel under-represented or insecure isn't giving enough credit to a human being's rationally-founded sense of self.
In other words, it's a fiction we care about, but it's still a fiction; I don't believe that, for example, there always need to be gay characters because there are straight ones, or fat characters because there are skinny ones, or that there's a problem if all of the characters involved in a fantasy scenario are gorgeous or unrealistic.
Would it be nice if we had more games that were easy for the Everyman to connect to -- average-looking heroes, the non-violent and unglamorous? Sure -- I think that's a lot of the appeal of, say, Silent Hill. But does that discredit the sensationalized entertainment forms that we've got already? I don't think so.
In other words, I believe that the audience understands that the visceral brawn or whip-waisted oversexuality of game characters is fictional and doesn't reflect on them. If they don't, I'm not so sure it's the game's fault in that case.
Leigh | September 21, 2007 9:42 AM
Hoo boy, this is gonna turn a bit political, I'm afraid...
That games present ridiculous female stereotypes is in itself not that much of a problem. The problem is that these representations of women are becoming so prevalent, in all media, that they are affecting our ideas of what a woman should look like, and ultimately, be like. This is a slow but insidious process: if a stereotype is reinforced over and over again, in time it becomes an unshakable truth.
The ongoing sexualization of female characters and on-screen women, combined with the repression of a serious dialogue about sexuality by the religious right is a recipe for disaster. Young women are subliminally taught that they'll be more successful, more popular and more respected if they show just a little more skin from an age at which they're kept in the dark about their own sexuality.
The problem is that most representations of sexuality show the male perspective, cranked up to a ridiculously idealised degree (women are being presented as sex objects). Young women accept this as the truth, and are thus ill-prepared for actual sex and ignorant about their own right to sexual pleasure.
I agree that producers of entertainment can't be held accountable for the effect their works have on the general populace and society as a whole. But they are damn well responsible for thinking about what ideas they propagate, and the excuse "it's just entertainment" isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card.
(Please read Eugene Levy's brilliant book "Female chauvinist pigs". She makes these arguments far better than I can).
farren79 | September 21, 2007 3:04 PM
That last line should be: "But they are damn well morally obligated to think about what ideas they propagate,..."
Sorry.
farren79 | September 21, 2007 3:41 PM
"The message to gamers is that women come in only one shape. It's not so much the clothes as the stereotyping."
Supposedly most evidence shows that (for lack of a better term) less attractive female fighters aren't desired by either male or female fighting game fans. It seems neither sex wants a female Zangief, for example.
Baines | September 21, 2007 4:32 PM
This is even more embarrassing: the author I was referring to is called Ariel Levy, not Eugene Levy. Eugene Levy is that guy who starred in a lot of Christopher Guest films (and also in the American Pie series - he's Jim's dad).
I'll go hide my shame in the corner now.
farren79 | September 22, 2007 11:19 AM
I feel like you could make similar claims for hentai. It's less an offensive representation of the real world as a fantastical world where everyone's breasts are the size of melons :).
Bonnie Ruberg | September 22, 2007 3:26 PM
No worries, Farren. You got your point across nonetheless -- thank you for that!
Leigh | September 22, 2007 4:37 PM
farren: well...not exactly. To the very least hentai games do have more body shapes than one, but the general idea remains the same: the female must always look attractive.
But taking that to the extreme, this is exactly the same in yaoi as well, and that is also a massive business.
And you have a point that neither gender likes a "female Zangief". That, perhaps, is the biggest reason of all.
Lyner | September 22, 2007 6:19 PM
Outside the two common sense axioms "sex sells" and "anyone can appreciate a nice pair of tits", there is an obvious and dominant trend in fighting games toward physically imposing characters. Huge breasts, one can easily argue, can be physically imposing.
There are plenty of male and female fighting game characters who aren't physically imposing. Cammy from the Street Fighter series is one of my favorites, and for an example of a non-bombshell-bodied girl also see Street Fighter III's Elena.
Since I'm running the risk of sending some people running to Wikipedia anyway, and I am an incurable smartass, try typing in this one:
Mitsuko the Boar
Just because people don't like "female Zangiefs" doesn't mean they never existed.
Also! To the person trying to disassociate fighting games from sex by saying they can be "fast and furious, but there are also examples that are more controlled and technical..."
At the risk of sounding gauche, there's certainly more than one way to fuck.
Zepyulos | September 22, 2007 10:34 PM
Unless I'm mistaken, Mitsuko the Boar was dropped after her first appearance. All the other women fall into either the "sexy" or "cute" catagory.
For someone with staying power, try Mary Ivonskaya from Tobal. She is the wrestler of the franchise. Rather than following the "young girl" trend, she is a 33 year old mother with a weight listed at 140kg. She is in both Tobal games. On the other hand, Dream Factory dropped the whole Tobal franchise, supposedly in part because they felt the Akira Toriyama character designs were hurting marketability.
I would certainly consider Elena sexy, even if she isn't the standard Capcom female body type. Attractive and nearly naked? Have you seen her "lose" portrait?
Elena also gets into another issue. I've heard research before that lighter skinned men prefer light-skinned "blacks". Now look at the darker skinned women in fighting games. How many actually have dark skin, and how many are light skinned? More than that, how many are light skinned with white hair? Storm (Marvel), Vanessa (VF), Vanessa (KOF), Elena (SF),...
For Virtua Fighter 5, Sega even lightened Vanessa's skin tone and reduced her visible muscles in an attempt to make her more popular.
Baines | September 23, 2007 1:00 AM
@Zepyulos:
"Also! To the person trying to disassociate fighting games from sex by saying they can be "fast and furious, but there are also examples that are more controlled and technical..."
At the risk of sounding gauche, there's certainly more than one way to fuck."
You're exactly right of course. But then, let's readjust my argument: if the "fast and furious" form of sex puts the focus on the physical aspect, and therefore on the outward sexuality of the participants, the more "technical and controlled" version (tantric sex, say) puts the focus on the spiritual aspect, the meeting of souls if you will.
In that sense, Leigh is right when she says fighting games are inherently sexual, but seeing as there are indeed many ways to fuck, that fact still doesn't excuse the measurements and attire of the female combatants.
farren79 | September 23, 2007 2:07 AM
I know I'm a bit late since the last post is from September 23, but I've been reading this and I felt like addind something: the sexual distortion of female characters is not just present in those fighting games, it is in almost all fricken games.
For example, MMORPGs, where magically, the equipment that looks really tough and badass on a male toon becomes ridiculously small and skampy of a female toon.
From the game Ragnarok Online where all the female counterparts of any class all get incredibly scantily clad compared to the males. It is really annoying for girls like me that'd like to play a girl that looks tough and mean - not like a dancer in a bar. The paladin class; holy warrior, huge armor with crosses- turned into a girl gets miniskirts and a ridiculously small armor top that let the bellybutton show. Geez, if I wanted that kind of clothing, I would have taken the Dancer class, not the paladin!
(Wich is okay, dancers are the class to take if you want sex appeal. But why FORCING it on every single class? Why not admitting a reasonnably-dressed character can still be pretty? )
I'd also like to point, about World of Warcraft... What makes me like this game so much is the originality of the different races. I totally love it, and that wins me over let's say, Guild Wars, wich only implies humans (different skins colors, yeah, but all the same build. And you need a ton of expensions to really customize. But that is not the point...)
BUT, the bad thing is, there is a ridiculous dimorphism between the sexes of both races. Tough they did made an effort, a lot of the female builds look like a human supermodel with a skin color change and a few head features changed. Look at the really tall, crooked, hugely-tusked and big nosed Trolls. And then, the females are just, taller green/blue humans with two toes, three fingers and a funky hairdo...
Orcs, tough a bit more muscular than humans, look incredibly fragile compared to the males. And, worst case, the new race; the Draenei. The males are HUGE, really tall and incredibly muscular. And then the females are extra tiny, with skinny deer legs. It's almost scary thinking how the race reproduces; the males can crush their female counterparts heads with one head- not to imagine the rest... x_x
We all know males tend to be bigger than females (in most mammalian species) but this is getting ankward... The Tauren males are also a bunch bigger than the females, but it is still far more acceptable.
But, netherless my fussing over some races, I still must congratulate Blizzard for trying their hands at different female builds. I am extremely happy playing my huge, badass, Tauren Warrior. And even if you don't see much of them, some people do play female dwarves, omes or orcs.(and I made a female char of each XD )
So, in final, it is okay to have the sexy supermodel builds, but I am sick of getting it imposed on me. There is more and more female players, and the industry has to understand we want to enjoy the game and be as good, cool and badass as the male toons. We'd also like sometimes to have a gigantic armor set that spits fire that doesn't morph into a chainmail bikini when worn by a girl.
Too bad if the male gamers can't get their daily masturbation over my character, geez, there is enough fricking porn everywhere so they can get it elsewhere.
And cheers to the other comments above, especially the one about the over sexualisation of women in our society.
Women fought hard to gain right and become the men equal (and that is really not happening in the majority of the world), it is horrendous seeing us turned into sex toys by the society around!
:(
CelebrenIthil | October 26, 2007 1:59 PM
Correction:
"crush their heads with on HAND" and "omes" = "gnomes"
¬_¬"
CelebrenIthil | October 26, 2007 2:04 PM
Ahem. Yes, the exaggerated physiques in certain games are a pet peeve. But you did make an error:
Female draenei aren't "extra tiny." Their torsos are slightly larger than that of the female human model (although proportioned similarly). But (thanks to having legs a mile long, admittedly) they're about the same height as their kinsmen. (All draenei are approximately seven feet tall.)
Here's a screen cap for reference:
Notice that although the guard is much heftier, he doesn't tower over my character. The same can't be said for male vs. female humans in-game.
Qit el-Remel | November 28, 2007 6:53 PM
Argh. The screen cap is here:
http://www.image-upload.net/files/7656/WoWScreenCaps/shield.PNG
Qit el-Remel | November 28, 2007 6:56 PM
Don't female spies/secret agents have their femininity/sexuality as just one of the means to accomplish their task?
Couldn't the revealing clothing be a representation of that? It could be a distraction to the male opponent causing him to underestimate the ability of the female opponent.
And Namco did add a new female character who is fully equipped in knights armor. http://www.socialshots.com/files/images/sc4_pub_ss_hilde005%20copy--screenshot.preview.jpg
Gizmopop | January 3, 2008 6:00 AM