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Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
An Immodest Proposal
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Friday, January 17, 2014
Ms. Sword and Glasses of Herding Cats is so happy about WildStar reducing the size of the breasts on their female characters. Even worse, she offers a terrible suggestion: putting the larger models in a cash shop. To top it off, she makes this insanely-biased, factless claim:
This is to you, Jessica Cook.
I believe I speak for a lot of that "vocal minority" when I say this. Maybe they're afraid to say it, but someone has to say the words that are only being thought.
I think it is offensive that you would even suggest that a core gameplay element like absurd character models be stuck in the cash shop. Next thing all the armor skins (or lack of armor) to show off those absurd models will be placed in the cash shops. This is just a slippery slope toward needing to pay for the 'privilege' of sending creepy chat message. You can be sure I'll be boycotting this game until they fix their messaging toward women and make it a bit more against.
Most people either don’t care or are generally pleased with the decision, while a vocal minority are flipping out."Don't care" sounds a lot like "too scared to speak" while "vocal minority" sounds a lot like "the few who dared to stand up for having standards." I'm standing up. For too long we've had to deal with this nonsense and I've said nothing, beside some posts that I've probably written, but even if I have said anything, I'm going to say it again because it needs saying.
This is to you, Jessica Cook.
I believe I speak for a lot of that "vocal minority" when I say this. Maybe they're afraid to say it, but someone has to say the words that are only being thought.
I think it is offensive that you would even suggest that a core gameplay element like absurd character models be stuck in the cash shop. Next thing all the armor skins (or lack of armor) to show off those absurd models will be placed in the cash shops. This is just a slippery slope toward needing to pay for the 'privilege' of sending creepy chat message. You can be sure I'll be boycotting this game until they fix their messaging toward women and make it a bit more against.
Mutual Distress and Damsels
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Wednesday, June 12, 2013
A conversation with Syl of MMO Gypsy has gotten me thinking again about Bioshock Infinite. I'd claimed that Elizabeth was not a mere useful damsel. She was instead a character with her own motivations and goals rather than a useful object that sometimes threw other useful objects to the player.
In part this was based on my view that she and Booker experienced mutual distress. She'd need rescuing, but he would as well, making it something more like a partnership than a male-dominated rescue fantasy. It could still be slightly tilted one way or another, but with how games generally go, having a female character who ever saves the male character is something significant (though not necessarily sufficient) I'm not to aiming for mathematical parity here.
This should actually be pretty easy to evaluate. I'll start with a basic standard: does Elizabeth save Booker? The answer is pretty obviously, yes. The incident that first comes to mind is when Songbird has them cornered and is just about to crush Booker into goo when she yells at him to stop. She agrees to return with Songbird if she leaves Booker alone.
Okay then, she's saved Booker. Done.
Or did she? Well yes, but how? Merely keeping him from dying hardly makes her a mutual protector or means that he's mutually distressed.
Notice how she saves him. She doesn't use a tear. She doesn't run away to draw his attention. She doesn't poke a weak spot. She gives up. She surrenders. She puts herself right back into a situation of needing saving. In effect, she hasn't saved Booker, she's just reset the story back to the point where Booker is wandering a hostile city looking for her.
Resetting is her true power. In the end, which the phrasing of which should indicate that spoilers follow, she resets Booker. She doesn't actually fix him or fix history. She's just hitting a reset button and if we're lucky, Booker won't be as evil this time, but since I think he was evil all along...
When I first started discussing this with Syl I didn't mind that she hid a lot. Look at her. She's never been in combat. She doesn't know how to fight. She doesn't have a shield tonic. One bullet at the game is over. Yet as I tried to argue this I realized something: she never changes. She never gets used to the fighting. She's always startled, terrified, at everything. She never develops a sense of confidence in herself or even in Booker. If they changed her sound, to make her a little less scared all the time, I think that would make a big difference.
But when can't she fight? She's been learning so much in all her books. Surely she's read a few about combat. She could have even read too many that make combat seem glorious and exciting. The books are such a convenient thing for the writers, like the uploads in the Matrix. She could learn anything, with every book and all the time in the world. We're not given the sense that her knowledge was restricted; her lockpicking skills are evidence that she learned things that people locking her up might not have wanted her to know.
I'm not suggesting that she should have been a good fighter. In fact, I think it would have been great if in the first fight she was utterly worthless. Make her terrified at the sound of the gun, having never heard it before. Make the recoil knock her off an airship, saved by a tear, just as she does for Booker. This could be comical or dramatic, depending on how they portray it. But then she learns, slowly getting used to the weapons, learning to use them. And yes, she'd kill a few people. Would that ruin her purity? No! Purity is a silly concept and besides, is it pure to leave someone else to do all the killing while you throw them more guns? Let her feel bad about killing, but don't pretend that she's not allowed to do it. Even with no change to the overall story, making Elizabeth more directly active would have made her less of a damsel and more of a person.
After this it's just baseless speculation. Maybe Fitroy's an Elizabeth from a different universe. She made a tear and pulled in another self. She told that self how to start a revolution. With the revolution and the fall of Comstock's regime, Elizabeth would be free. She would break herself out using herself and her power. Suddenly she's not a damsel being rescued. Booker walked into her story, and while he did a lot, it was Elizabeth who was running the show. She saw that Booker was useful and when her alternate self threatened to get out of control she disposed of it. Wouldn't you react somewhat poorly if you had to stab yourself?
In part this was based on my view that she and Booker experienced mutual distress. She'd need rescuing, but he would as well, making it something more like a partnership than a male-dominated rescue fantasy. It could still be slightly tilted one way or another, but with how games generally go, having a female character who ever saves the male character is something significant (though not necessarily sufficient) I'm not to aiming for mathematical parity here.
This should actually be pretty easy to evaluate. I'll start with a basic standard: does Elizabeth save Booker? The answer is pretty obviously, yes. The incident that first comes to mind is when Songbird has them cornered and is just about to crush Booker into goo when she yells at him to stop. She agrees to return with Songbird if she leaves Booker alone.
Okay then, she's saved Booker. Done.
Or did she? Well yes, but how? Merely keeping him from dying hardly makes her a mutual protector or means that he's mutually distressed.
Notice how she saves him. She doesn't use a tear. She doesn't run away to draw his attention. She doesn't poke a weak spot. She gives up. She surrenders. She puts herself right back into a situation of needing saving. In effect, she hasn't saved Booker, she's just reset the story back to the point where Booker is wandering a hostile city looking for her.
Resetting is her true power. In the end, which the phrasing of which should indicate that spoilers follow, she resets Booker. She doesn't actually fix him or fix history. She's just hitting a reset button and if we're lucky, Booker won't be as evil this time, but since I think he was evil all along...
When I first started discussing this with Syl I didn't mind that she hid a lot. Look at her. She's never been in combat. She doesn't know how to fight. She doesn't have a shield tonic. One bullet at the game is over. Yet as I tried to argue this I realized something: she never changes. She never gets used to the fighting. She's always startled, terrified, at everything. She never develops a sense of confidence in herself or even in Booker. If they changed her sound, to make her a little less scared all the time, I think that would make a big difference.
But when can't she fight? She's been learning so much in all her books. Surely she's read a few about combat. She could have even read too many that make combat seem glorious and exciting. The books are such a convenient thing for the writers, like the uploads in the Matrix. She could learn anything, with every book and all the time in the world. We're not given the sense that her knowledge was restricted; her lockpicking skills are evidence that she learned things that people locking her up might not have wanted her to know.
I'm not suggesting that she should have been a good fighter. In fact, I think it would have been great if in the first fight she was utterly worthless. Make her terrified at the sound of the gun, having never heard it before. Make the recoil knock her off an airship, saved by a tear, just as she does for Booker. This could be comical or dramatic, depending on how they portray it. But then she learns, slowly getting used to the weapons, learning to use them. And yes, she'd kill a few people. Would that ruin her purity? No! Purity is a silly concept and besides, is it pure to leave someone else to do all the killing while you throw them more guns? Let her feel bad about killing, but don't pretend that she's not allowed to do it. Even with no change to the overall story, making Elizabeth more directly active would have made her less of a damsel and more of a person.
After this it's just baseless speculation. Maybe Fitroy's an Elizabeth from a different universe. She made a tear and pulled in another self. She told that self how to start a revolution. With the revolution and the fall of Comstock's regime, Elizabeth would be free. She would break herself out using herself and her power. Suddenly she's not a damsel being rescued. Booker walked into her story, and while he did a lot, it was Elizabeth who was running the show. She saw that Booker was useful and when her alternate self threatened to get out of control she disposed of it. Wouldn't you react somewhat poorly if you had to stab yourself?
Do not mistake caste for hatred
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Thursday, May 30, 2013
Quick disclaimer: Caste isn't quite the word I'm going for. Maybe disdain works better. Hopefully context will do the trick.
I'm seeing hatred pop up a lot lately. Someone hates gay people. Someone hates women. It's usually wrong. The problem is not one of hatred, at least not initially, and so to diagnose it as hatred is to attempt to treat the wrong disease.
The true problem is one of dogs. Let it be known that I love dogs. They're a species that co-evolved with humans, evolved to accept us and be accepted. I do not think dogs should be abused, starved, or even left alone and unloved. Yet I also do not think that dogs deserve the right to vote. I believe they should pee outside. They should stay out of the flowers. They should not bark excessively. As much as I love them, I also have rules for them and will attempt to keep them following these rules. That's not a euphemism for abusing dogs when they break the rules.
Are women so different? Well, obviously. In my mind at least. I'm guessing in yours as well. But what about in the mind of the supposed hater? I'm guessing they don't actually hate women. Instead, they regard women as something somewhat like dogs: beings of varying intelligence that we have the right to order around, and in fact it is the natural order to do such. The issue here is not hatred, but caste. Women are placed in an inferior caste and are therefore subject to certain treatment. They'll be stared at (or worse (much worse)). They'll be kept out of professions. They'll be portrayed a certain way and told to fit that portrayal.
Hatred may happen, but when? Only a select few monsters beat a dog that behaves. A much wider group of monsters beat a dog that misbehaves. Here enters the hatred, directed, not against women, but against those women who misbehave. Few people like to think of themselves as hateful. Call them hateful and they'll reject the idea and anything that goes along with it. In their minds they're simply putting dogs in their places.
The problem is the rules. What are the rules? Are they reasonable? Who wrote those rules? Who enforces them? Should those rules even exist? What's so natural about the natural order and even if it is natural, does that make it good?
This isn't a problem just for women, but for gay people, black people, and anyone who doesn't fit the rules, or doesn't want to fit the rules but does out of fear. Some people hate gay people, but the wider problem is the rule that men must have sex with and marry women. I used to believe in that rule. Then I stopped caring much if people broke that rule. Eventually I wondered why that rule even exists. Seems like a pointless rule. Like so many.
Of course, accusing someone of following stupid social rules doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Maybe it can. Regnusantiquisphilia is a mouthful and doubtlessly grammatically incorrect, but it's a start.
I'm seeing hatred pop up a lot lately. Someone hates gay people. Someone hates women. It's usually wrong. The problem is not one of hatred, at least not initially, and so to diagnose it as hatred is to attempt to treat the wrong disease.
The true problem is one of dogs. Let it be known that I love dogs. They're a species that co-evolved with humans, evolved to accept us and be accepted. I do not think dogs should be abused, starved, or even left alone and unloved. Yet I also do not think that dogs deserve the right to vote. I believe they should pee outside. They should stay out of the flowers. They should not bark excessively. As much as I love them, I also have rules for them and will attempt to keep them following these rules. That's not a euphemism for abusing dogs when they break the rules.
Are women so different? Well, obviously. In my mind at least. I'm guessing in yours as well. But what about in the mind of the supposed hater? I'm guessing they don't actually hate women. Instead, they regard women as something somewhat like dogs: beings of varying intelligence that we have the right to order around, and in fact it is the natural order to do such. The issue here is not hatred, but caste. Women are placed in an inferior caste and are therefore subject to certain treatment. They'll be stared at (or worse (much worse)). They'll be kept out of professions. They'll be portrayed a certain way and told to fit that portrayal.
Hatred may happen, but when? Only a select few monsters beat a dog that behaves. A much wider group of monsters beat a dog that misbehaves. Here enters the hatred, directed, not against women, but against those women who misbehave. Few people like to think of themselves as hateful. Call them hateful and they'll reject the idea and anything that goes along with it. In their minds they're simply putting dogs in their places.
The problem is the rules. What are the rules? Are they reasonable? Who wrote those rules? Who enforces them? Should those rules even exist? What's so natural about the natural order and even if it is natural, does that make it good?
This isn't a problem just for women, but for gay people, black people, and anyone who doesn't fit the rules, or doesn't want to fit the rules but does out of fear. Some people hate gay people, but the wider problem is the rule that men must have sex with and marry women. I used to believe in that rule. Then I stopped caring much if people broke that rule. Eventually I wondered why that rule even exists. Seems like a pointless rule. Like so many.
Of course, accusing someone of following stupid social rules doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Maybe it can. Regnusantiquisphilia is a mouthful and doubtlessly grammatically incorrect, but it's a start.
Elizabeth is not a "useful damsel"
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Thursday, April 11, 2013
Recently Syl asked on Twitter, "So, is Elizabeth just another 'helpful damsel'?" (she's the woman in blue in Bioshock Infinite). If you don't want to watch the entire video, here are the bits I'm focusing on: subject vs. object (around minute 10) and "helpful damsel" (around minute 15).
To be clear, the player character still treats her as an object. He's on a job and people on jobs tend to treat people as objects, whether it's the object to retrieve, the object to kill, or the many objects that get on the way. Objectification is rampant in videogames and it is not always a gender issue.
However, the game treats her as a subject. She makes decisions. She forces the player's actions. I previously described her as a support class during combat, which certainly looks like the "helpful damsel." But during combat I'm just a mindless killing machine, so that's hardly the way to determine the personality of a character. Since there is more to Bioshock than just the combat, evaluating the characters based only on their roles in combat would lead to an incomplete picture.
I'm a bit limited with what I can say due to spoilers, and I hate sticking up tags and forcing people to skip posts, so here goes. She has a mission of her own. It ends up being Elizabeth who grabs the player, shoves him through time and space, and puts him on the path to fixing something. That's her initiative, her plan. Right before that she sacrifices herself to save the player character from what I'm pretty sure was certain death. You might point out that she probably intended to be rescued, but in my mind that's part of her plan rather than an indication that she is helpless. One step back and two steps forward, if you will.
Elizabeth spends a great deal of time helpless or supporting the more violent male. She also spends a great deal of time saving him or going off on her own. The characters are linked and dependent on each other; it's not a one-way street. To say that she's merely a "helpful damsel" is selective, picking out the times when she's helpless and ignoring the fact that the other lead character, DeWitt, is helpless at times as well. Nor is his helplessness merely in the form of being unable to stop her from being kidnapped. Instead, he is unable to help himself, unable to save his own life. Mutual rescue is not sexist unless you're only looking at one side.
Elizabeth as object
If you've just started the game then she's going to look like an object. The recurring phrase of the game is some variation of, "bring us the girl and wipe away the debt." It's something between rescue and kidnapping, as it's not at all clear what they want with her. You fight your way in, killing a lot of people, and break her out. And then you chase her down repeatedly because you keep getting separated.Elizabeth as subject
You don't get separated because someone swoops in and kidnaps her from you. She's not your instant friend. She's instead someone who's been in a cage a long time and justifiably isn't so sure about the next cage you're trying to bring her to, and isn't a fan of the constant killing either. If that second part sounds like the weak, scared woman trope, put yourself in her shoes: imagine you've been locked up but safe, and all of a sudden you're ducking behind cover while a complete stranger kills dozens of people every few minutes. Maybe the first cage doesn't sound so bad anymore...To be clear, the player character still treats her as an object. He's on a job and people on jobs tend to treat people as objects, whether it's the object to retrieve, the object to kill, or the many objects that get on the way. Objectification is rampant in videogames and it is not always a gender issue.
However, the game treats her as a subject. She makes decisions. She forces the player's actions. I previously described her as a support class during combat, which certainly looks like the "helpful damsel." But during combat I'm just a mindless killing machine, so that's hardly the way to determine the personality of a character. Since there is more to Bioshock than just the combat, evaluating the characters based only on their roles in combat would lead to an incomplete picture.
I'm a bit limited with what I can say due to spoilers, and I hate sticking up tags and forcing people to skip posts, so here goes. She has a mission of her own. It ends up being Elizabeth who grabs the player, shoves him through time and space, and puts him on the path to fixing something. That's her initiative, her plan. Right before that she sacrifices herself to save the player character from what I'm pretty sure was certain death. You might point out that she probably intended to be rescued, but in my mind that's part of her plan rather than an indication that she is helpless. One step back and two steps forward, if you will.
DeWitt as object
Elizabeth started the game as an object, something to which things happen. The same was the case for the protagonist. You're stuck on an island, told to do something, trapped by your past, and pushed forward along a narrow path. You're manipulated along the way, attacked and branded as a false prophet. The character did not choose to be the false prophet, it was forced upon him. He's as much dragged along by the world as Elizabeth, maybe more so since he can't pick his world.Why'd she change clothes?
Something I'm still puzzling over is her change of clothes. She switches to a more revealing set of clothes early in the game. However, these are not the transition to helpless female. Instead she knocks you out with a wrench, probably because at that moment the player character is treating her as a prize to capture. Resisting being an object seems like a strong argument in favor of being a subject.In conclusion: Who's using the conformation bias here?
Maybe I'm just trying to defend and justify a game and story that I enjoy. I suppose I could break out a calculator and add up the incidents of helplessness for each character, with some modifier for degree of seriousness and the extent to which they are saved by luck vs. the actions of the other character (I exclude saving themselves since that would not be a helpless situation).Elizabeth spends a great deal of time helpless or supporting the more violent male. She also spends a great deal of time saving him or going off on her own. The characters are linked and dependent on each other; it's not a one-way street. To say that she's merely a "helpful damsel" is selective, picking out the times when she's helpless and ignoring the fact that the other lead character, DeWitt, is helpless at times as well. Nor is his helplessness merely in the form of being unable to stop her from being kidnapped. Instead, he is unable to help himself, unable to save his own life. Mutual rescue is not sexist unless you're only looking at one side.
I hope I never live a gaymer lifestyle
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Monday, October 15, 2012
This post is long. It might offend you. It is only tangentially related to gaming.
The other night when I couldn't fall asleep I did what anyone else would do, ruminated about the philosophical points in District 9. You might remember the main character, initially a socially inept and completely unsympathetic man who was more than willing to trick the aliens into moving into worse conditions. Then he turned into one and had a slightly different perspective on the matters of oppression and dissection of living, sentient beings.
I doubt I'm going to turn into an alien. Or a gay person. My guess is that I'm going to be more or less the same person for a while; maybe with a different haircut or slightly changed political views, but essentially a middle class white male. I might not change much, but society might, or almost certainly will.
My hope is to live in a society, not where I am always the winner (though that would be nice, for me), but a society in which losers are not utterly crushed. I don't imagine being a white male is going to be a liability any time soon, whether ten or a thousand years from now, but if it does, I hope it is a very small one. Maybe I'm pessimistic to think that it is human nature that some groups will be better off than others and more acceptable to society than others, but I'm also an optimist, that I think we can have this up and down in society but that down doesn't have to be all the way down.
I never want who or what I am to be a reason to deny to me basic rights, justice, and livelihood. That is, unless who or what I am is somehow innately harmful to other people, such as if I were infected with radioactive bird flu. But, beside that obviously absurdly extreme example, I think major powers shouldn't mess with people's personal lives [too much, because sometimes personal lives overlap and then it's not so personal anymore].
Speaking of gay people, I have a confesion to make: I find it slightly amusing that Rachel Maddow, who for context is an openly lesbian liberal on MSNBC, is really pushing the birth control and abortion battles as new stories. I'm not suggesting that they aren't news stories, but is birth control really such a big deal for a lesbian?
Of course. Well maybe not birth control literally, but symbolically, very. Birth control isn't just for heterosexual whores (or even just bisexual whores). Am I offensively stating the obvious? Probably. Sadly, that is a view that some people don't seem to share. We had multiple presidential candidates who are against birth control. I suspect that two of them see it as politically advantageous. But Rick Santorum, he's the real deal. He's not a smooth-talking, slickly-presented politician who says whatever you want to hear. He's an honest man of consistent values and he's a terrifying person because of it.
Birth control is a health issue. It's also a women's rights issue. It's about the ability of women to regulate what happens to their bodies, even after that oh so shameful act of... you know.
My aunt and godmother is one of those wonderful Irish women who is like a pillar of awesome, acting as an example to all of good behavior: respectful but not timid, hard-working without being taken advantage of, and when she was younger she could beat quite a lot of men at arm-wrestling. Maybe she still can, but we're all afraid to challenge her. My point is that she was the sort of person you want around kids, someone who radiates Good Values. Then one day she went and got pregnant, by her husband, to whom she had been married for well over nine months (I don't know the particular years), and when the school she taught at found out, she was immediately escorted out. This was not paternity leave. This was horrified "what would the children think?" get out RIGHT NOW. Apparently pregnant women are traumatizing or might give fourth-grade children the wrong ideas. This was the sort of stupidity that is on the downturn, or was.
I obviously don't have the full perspective on this. I cannot exactly comprehend the idea that sex could result in my having to carry a child, birth the child, and raise the child, possibly on my own. And you know what? I think that's great (for me). I'm glad that I cannot fully imagine that, because I will never have to deal with that. And I think it's a pretty important part of equality that slightly over 50% of the world share that as well (the not being enslaved part, not the lack of imagination).
The previously-mentioned lesbian cares about birth control because it is a matter of women's health and rights. She might be once-removed from birth control as a need, but she's directly in the crosshairs of attacks on women's rights. Me, I'm once-removed from women's rights. But I'm directly in the crosshairs of attacks on human rights and I don't want to become the oppressed group.
Maybe I am already. You might have noticed up in Maine that a candidate for state senate is being attacked for playing WoW. Somehow this hobby is not merely a hobby, but a lifestyle. It reminds me of the less-often heard notion of the "gay lifestyle", that gay people were somehow not merely people who had sex with the same sex, but who lived a different life entirely. It conjures up notions of them being foreign, of living like Frenchmen or Pakistanis, rather than people who live some variant of an American lifestyle with a particular private aspect of it being different. If this attack succeeds, gaming may go the same way. Or given the stigma that I thought was on the downturn, merely return to where it was. Gaming would be a "lifestyle choice" rather than a hobby. Of course for some people it is a lifestyle, but it is wrong to generalize a population based on a few outliers; it often pushes people toward those extremes.
The other night when I couldn't fall asleep I did what anyone else would do, ruminated about the philosophical points in District 9. You might remember the main character, initially a socially inept and completely unsympathetic man who was more than willing to trick the aliens into moving into worse conditions. Then he turned into one and had a slightly different perspective on the matters of oppression and dissection of living, sentient beings.
I doubt I'm going to turn into an alien. Or a gay person. My guess is that I'm going to be more or less the same person for a while; maybe with a different haircut or slightly changed political views, but essentially a middle class white male. I might not change much, but society might, or almost certainly will.
My hope is to live in a society, not where I am always the winner (though that would be nice, for me), but a society in which losers are not utterly crushed. I don't imagine being a white male is going to be a liability any time soon, whether ten or a thousand years from now, but if it does, I hope it is a very small one. Maybe I'm pessimistic to think that it is human nature that some groups will be better off than others and more acceptable to society than others, but I'm also an optimist, that I think we can have this up and down in society but that down doesn't have to be all the way down.
I never want who or what I am to be a reason to deny to me basic rights, justice, and livelihood. That is, unless who or what I am is somehow innately harmful to other people, such as if I were infected with radioactive bird flu. But, beside that obviously absurdly extreme example, I think major powers shouldn't mess with people's personal lives [too much, because sometimes personal lives overlap and then it's not so personal anymore].
Speaking of gay people, I have a confesion to make: I find it slightly amusing that Rachel Maddow, who for context is an openly lesbian liberal on MSNBC, is really pushing the birth control and abortion battles as new stories. I'm not suggesting that they aren't news stories, but is birth control really such a big deal for a lesbian?
Of course. Well maybe not birth control literally, but symbolically, very. Birth control isn't just for heterosexual whores (or even just bisexual whores). Am I offensively stating the obvious? Probably. Sadly, that is a view that some people don't seem to share. We had multiple presidential candidates who are against birth control. I suspect that two of them see it as politically advantageous. But Rick Santorum, he's the real deal. He's not a smooth-talking, slickly-presented politician who says whatever you want to hear. He's an honest man of consistent values and he's a terrifying person because of it.
Birth control is a health issue. It's also a women's rights issue. It's about the ability of women to regulate what happens to their bodies, even after that oh so shameful act of... you know.
My aunt and godmother is one of those wonderful Irish women who is like a pillar of awesome, acting as an example to all of good behavior: respectful but not timid, hard-working without being taken advantage of, and when she was younger she could beat quite a lot of men at arm-wrestling. Maybe she still can, but we're all afraid to challenge her. My point is that she was the sort of person you want around kids, someone who radiates Good Values. Then one day she went and got pregnant, by her husband, to whom she had been married for well over nine months (I don't know the particular years), and when the school she taught at found out, she was immediately escorted out. This was not paternity leave. This was horrified "what would the children think?" get out RIGHT NOW. Apparently pregnant women are traumatizing or might give fourth-grade children the wrong ideas. This was the sort of stupidity that is on the downturn, or was.
I obviously don't have the full perspective on this. I cannot exactly comprehend the idea that sex could result in my having to carry a child, birth the child, and raise the child, possibly on my own. And you know what? I think that's great (for me). I'm glad that I cannot fully imagine that, because I will never have to deal with that. And I think it's a pretty important part of equality that slightly over 50% of the world share that as well (the not being enslaved part, not the lack of imagination).
The previously-mentioned lesbian cares about birth control because it is a matter of women's health and rights. She might be once-removed from birth control as a need, but she's directly in the crosshairs of attacks on women's rights. Me, I'm once-removed from women's rights. But I'm directly in the crosshairs of attacks on human rights and I don't want to become the oppressed group.
Maybe I am already. You might have noticed up in Maine that a candidate for state senate is being attacked for playing WoW. Somehow this hobby is not merely a hobby, but a lifestyle. It reminds me of the less-often heard notion of the "gay lifestyle", that gay people were somehow not merely people who had sex with the same sex, but who lived a different life entirely. It conjures up notions of them being foreign, of living like Frenchmen or Pakistanis, rather than people who live some variant of an American lifestyle with a particular private aspect of it being different. If this attack succeeds, gaming may go the same way. Or given the stigma that I thought was on the downturn, merely return to where it was. Gaming would be a "lifestyle choice" rather than a hobby. Of course for some people it is a lifestyle, but it is wrong to generalize a population based on a few outliers; it often pushes people toward those extremes.
Cutting bitches out of my diet
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Wednesday, August 15, 2012
It started with the occasional bit of ironic emphasis while telling stories. Something something something, bitch." Then it became something closer to a running joke, but without the humor, or even hint of humor. A verbal tick almost. Nothing meant by it, which isn't a defense at all, since why something if it means nothing? Worse, why say something if it means nothing but will be perceived as meaning something, something which you'd not want people to thick you mean? So, I cut the bitches out of my diet.
I wonder what else there is in speech which "means nothing" to the speaker, but which others hear as meaning something. I wonder what the cost is of those words.
I wonder what else there is in speech which "means nothing" to the speaker, but which others hear as meaning something. I wonder what the cost is of those words.
Girls are scary
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Wednesday, June 13, 2012
We're all familiar with the shy, nerdy, awkward guy who can't talk to girls. He stammers and sweats and mumbles before escaping. It's a bit sad to see, or experience, on either end. He has a problem with girls.
Then there's the guy who also has a problem with girls, but of a different sort. He also has no clue what to say, but says it anyway. Rather than a total lack of confidence, he has an excess, a failure to recognize that given how he acts, he should have a lack of confidence. Perhaps a lack of reproductive organs as well, but somehow eugenics always focuses on ethnicity rather than fraternity.
These two share a common thread in that they get lumped into a "gaming culture" dominated by men which causes all manner of problems for women who attempt to do weird things such as take part in a hobby which they enjoy. Perhaps I should do a survey: "Of these undesirable reactions, would you rather be greeted by awkward stammering or by a demand to see your tits?" Ideally it would be neither, but I write the questions so I get to make the false dichotomy.
Maybe what is needed is "Objectification Separation", which is the ability to objectify and also not. Porn: objectify. Not porn: don't objectify. This would require the highly complex mental task of recognizing that some women at some times wear nothing but those some women most of the time wear clothes and most women even more most of the time wear clothes. So sometimes there are women whose job at the time is to be stared at, but not always and not all women. Can you imagine going to a friend who designs websites and demanding, right then, that he break out some code? Or on an even greater level of absurdity, insisting that all male friends be able to, and have to, hand over a flashdrive of templates, on demand? That would be ridiculous.
Someone should make a gay MMO and bring it to E3. Have "Booth Beef", hot, shirtless men who sit and stand around looking hot and having no other purpose. Have women wandering by and gawking and then laughing at their male friends for not looking as good. Spread the phrase "dicks or it didn't happen." At first men might think it's great, being demanded pictures of their penises (by which I mean, one per man, multiple men, not the other way around). That is, until they start getting mocked. Laughed at. Measured by nothing else. Not even their epeen. So what if you've gotten every achievement, you're ugly and tiny!
On Twitter I found a link to a developer talking about the new Lara Croft. She's more realistically proportioned and the developer kept going on about how she'll be in these terrible situations and we'll want to protect her because she'll be so vulnerable and helpless. This confused me. How does her being less ridiculous in appearance make me want to protect her more? I'm just not seeing any link at all unless they made her a child and triggered the "save the children" instinct. Even stranger, unless I misunderstood, we're still playing her. We're not heroes leaping in to save the damsel in distress (which is its own problem), but are the damsel in distress, who despite being "helpless" is, I'm guessing, still going to survive and successfully taking things from tombs or other scary places. Why would I even want to see or play as a helpless female character? I much prefer female characters who can hold their own, as in Half Life 2 or Fallout: New Vegas. Not that they're unemotional, but that "being female" doesn't mean "being crippled by emotion and utterly helpless until a male hero or at least male player saves them."
I also don't get the "get back in the kitchen" nonsense. It might just be the family I grew up in, but cooking wasn't a woman's job (though due to various circumstances they did tend to do the majority). Why shouldn't a man be able to cook and if a man is able to cook, why wouldn't he? Of course there's the Barbeque Loophole, but that's not what I'm referring to either. We'd use actual stoves and ovens. Except me, I don't use ovens because I can never seem to time anything properly for it. My brother frequently has my family and his in-laws over for dinner and often, he's the one scurrying back to the kitchen to check on food while my sister-in-law can keep chatting (because she'd done the baking earlier in the day). It's not gender roles, but family roles: people doing what they are best at and what needs to be done. Maybe certain chromosomes give some innate tendency toward particular activities (they do), but that's more of a tendency and not a natural order of the universe. It's too bad more people can't recognize that.
Then there's the guy who also has a problem with girls, but of a different sort. He also has no clue what to say, but says it anyway. Rather than a total lack of confidence, he has an excess, a failure to recognize that given how he acts, he should have a lack of confidence. Perhaps a lack of reproductive organs as well, but somehow eugenics always focuses on ethnicity rather than fraternity.
These two share a common thread in that they get lumped into a "gaming culture" dominated by men which causes all manner of problems for women who attempt to do weird things such as take part in a hobby which they enjoy. Perhaps I should do a survey: "Of these undesirable reactions, would you rather be greeted by awkward stammering or by a demand to see your tits?" Ideally it would be neither, but I write the questions so I get to make the false dichotomy.
Maybe what is needed is "Objectification Separation", which is the ability to objectify and also not. Porn: objectify. Not porn: don't objectify. This would require the highly complex mental task of recognizing that some women at some times wear nothing but those some women most of the time wear clothes and most women even more most of the time wear clothes. So sometimes there are women whose job at the time is to be stared at, but not always and not all women. Can you imagine going to a friend who designs websites and demanding, right then, that he break out some code? Or on an even greater level of absurdity, insisting that all male friends be able to, and have to, hand over a flashdrive of templates, on demand? That would be ridiculous.
Someone should make a gay MMO and bring it to E3. Have "Booth Beef", hot, shirtless men who sit and stand around looking hot and having no other purpose. Have women wandering by and gawking and then laughing at their male friends for not looking as good. Spread the phrase "dicks or it didn't happen." At first men might think it's great, being demanded pictures of their penises (by which I mean, one per man, multiple men, not the other way around). That is, until they start getting mocked. Laughed at. Measured by nothing else. Not even their epeen. So what if you've gotten every achievement, you're ugly and tiny!
On Twitter I found a link to a developer talking about the new Lara Croft. She's more realistically proportioned and the developer kept going on about how she'll be in these terrible situations and we'll want to protect her because she'll be so vulnerable and helpless. This confused me. How does her being less ridiculous in appearance make me want to protect her more? I'm just not seeing any link at all unless they made her a child and triggered the "save the children" instinct. Even stranger, unless I misunderstood, we're still playing her. We're not heroes leaping in to save the damsel in distress (which is its own problem), but are the damsel in distress, who despite being "helpless" is, I'm guessing, still going to survive and successfully taking things from tombs or other scary places. Why would I even want to see or play as a helpless female character? I much prefer female characters who can hold their own, as in Half Life 2 or Fallout: New Vegas. Not that they're unemotional, but that "being female" doesn't mean "being crippled by emotion and utterly helpless until a male hero or at least male player saves them."
I also don't get the "get back in the kitchen" nonsense. It might just be the family I grew up in, but cooking wasn't a woman's job (though due to various circumstances they did tend to do the majority). Why shouldn't a man be able to cook and if a man is able to cook, why wouldn't he? Of course there's the Barbeque Loophole, but that's not what I'm referring to either. We'd use actual stoves and ovens. Except me, I don't use ovens because I can never seem to time anything properly for it. My brother frequently has my family and his in-laws over for dinner and often, he's the one scurrying back to the kitchen to check on food while my sister-in-law can keep chatting (because she'd done the baking earlier in the day). It's not gender roles, but family roles: people doing what they are best at and what needs to be done. Maybe certain chromosomes give some innate tendency toward particular activities (they do), but that's more of a tendency and not a natural order of the universe. It's too bad more people can't recognize that.
Get your sexy children and animals out of my violence
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Monday, May 7, 2012
I've been trying to sort out quite what is wrong with the Elin. My gut isn't much help, since it just screams "oh god what is wrong with those people!?" and gut-based psychoanalysis of developers isn't usually a successful endeavor. My brain kicks in eventually and says that no children are harmed by the development or play of the game, that is it fantasy events with fantasy characters in a fantasy world. Well okay, but that doesn't make me feel any less sick, so it appears as though my gut has triumphed.
Maybe by focusing on the children I'm looking at the wrong problem. Maybe the actual problem is the general habit of turning anything female into a sex object, at at least a thing to stare at. From this perspective, then there is a general societal problem of making female things (I say things because I'm going to go past the human realm soon) sexual, often primarily sexual. There is a particular mental disorder of being attracted to prepubescent girls. I won't use the word pedophilia because that's used for both law and psychology and of course the legal one, despite being the one we use to lock people up and ostracize them, is inaccurate.
And then there is the anthropomorphizing of animals or non-human beings, which by itself isn't so strange, but when we selectively apply it to female things, it gets weird. Take the worgen forms for example: the males are clearly not just wolves on their hind legs, but they are also clearly not just people who need to shave a bit more often. The female worgen are inexplicably more humanoid. Is it unimaginable that something can be female and not be eye candy for human men? I'm not saying they have to be unattractive worgen, by worgen standards the males might be quite the sex objects, but it seems like quite a bit of stretching to turn them into something halfway toward being sexy for humans.
The objectification of women within games can be opposed on multiple grounds, but rather than the usual sexism grounds, let's try good game design. Why must there be sexy stuff in my game of violence? MMOs tend toward violence. Argue against that somewhere else, but for here, let's take it as an assumption that games will be violent. Given that, why add sex objects?
Let's imagine the reverse, that World of Sexcraft is a popular online game where players control avatars which have sex. This probably exists but that is not a search history that I want to have. Within this game would it make any sense for the armor to have severed heads as kneepads and knives as sex toys? Beside a particular fetish group, no. It wouldn't make any sense at all. It would distract from the actual purpose of the game. Beyond that, it would simply be pointless. Shoehorning violent imagery into a game about sex would make it a worse game. Reversing back away from the reversal, why shoehorn sexual imagery into a game about violence?
Maybe by focusing on the children I'm looking at the wrong problem. Maybe the actual problem is the general habit of turning anything female into a sex object, at at least a thing to stare at. From this perspective, then there is a general societal problem of making female things (I say things because I'm going to go past the human realm soon) sexual, often primarily sexual. There is a particular mental disorder of being attracted to prepubescent girls. I won't use the word pedophilia because that's used for both law and psychology and of course the legal one, despite being the one we use to lock people up and ostracize them, is inaccurate.
And then there is the anthropomorphizing of animals or non-human beings, which by itself isn't so strange, but when we selectively apply it to female things, it gets weird. Take the worgen forms for example: the males are clearly not just wolves on their hind legs, but they are also clearly not just people who need to shave a bit more often. The female worgen are inexplicably more humanoid. Is it unimaginable that something can be female and not be eye candy for human men? I'm not saying they have to be unattractive worgen, by worgen standards the males might be quite the sex objects, but it seems like quite a bit of stretching to turn them into something halfway toward being sexy for humans.
The objectification of women within games can be opposed on multiple grounds, but rather than the usual sexism grounds, let's try good game design. Why must there be sexy stuff in my game of violence? MMOs tend toward violence. Argue against that somewhere else, but for here, let's take it as an assumption that games will be violent. Given that, why add sex objects?
Let's imagine the reverse, that World of Sexcraft is a popular online game where players control avatars which have sex. This probably exists but that is not a search history that I want to have. Within this game would it make any sense for the armor to have severed heads as kneepads and knives as sex toys? Beside a particular fetish group, no. It wouldn't make any sense at all. It would distract from the actual purpose of the game. Beyond that, it would simply be pointless. Shoehorning violent imagery into a game about sex would make it a worse game. Reversing back away from the reversal, why shoehorn sexual imagery into a game about violence?
What a perfect body is perfect for
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Sunday, May 6, 2012
This jumped out at me over at We Fly Spitfires: "Why Females Are Oversexualized in Video Games"
That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. But for one problem: What is the use of said perfect bodies?
Let's start with the male body. What is the purpose of a huge and buff body? There is some aesthetic aspect to it, that some people find that attractive. As a fantasy, most men probably wish they were a bit stronger, a bit fitter, even if they'd be confused if they looked in the mirror and saw the Hulk. There is also a practical aspect: a lot of muscle means a lot of strength. The muscled behemoth can exert physical control over his environment. It's useful to him personally, regardless of how others value it.
Contrast that with the perfect female body. For the sake of focus, just as we did with the male, let's set aside personal preference for appearance and go with the general fantasy trend: thin with big breasts. Who finds this attractive? Well since I already set aside personal preference, I get to say everyone: that men desire women with that appearance and women want to have that appearance. But what is it good for? We've covered aesthetics, but what else? There is some notion of fertility and health, that the breasts are a sign of sexual maturity and the thinness is a sign of taking care of oneself (which would be reversed in times of starvation when being bigger was a sign of having enough to eat and therefore health and economic security). Okay, so if we are looking to make babies, we've got that covered. But the muscled man gained the ability to singlehandedly exert control over his environment whereas the woman's great physical advantage, making babies (which is hardly of similar usefulness in the typical world beset by demons and bandits) is still a cooperative effort: She needs a man to gain any benefit from her power.
There's nothing wrong with the "perfect body", except when said perfect bodies mean that male characters appear capable of standing up to danger while the female is helpless, but sure looks great doing it. If ya know what I mean.
Secondly, because we think it’s what women want. Video games are mostly fantasy representations and reflect things as they would be in a ‘perfect’ universe. The male models are all huge and buff, straining their clothing through their rippling muscles beneath, a massive departure from not only real life but also the men themselves who play the games. If we like seeing ‘perfect’ men, why wouldn’t women like seeing ‘perfect’ women? And if males run around wearing what we would wear in our ultimate fantasies, wouldn’t we want our female characters do the same?
That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. But for one problem: What is the use of said perfect bodies?
Let's start with the male body. What is the purpose of a huge and buff body? There is some aesthetic aspect to it, that some people find that attractive. As a fantasy, most men probably wish they were a bit stronger, a bit fitter, even if they'd be confused if they looked in the mirror and saw the Hulk. There is also a practical aspect: a lot of muscle means a lot of strength. The muscled behemoth can exert physical control over his environment. It's useful to him personally, regardless of how others value it.
Contrast that with the perfect female body. For the sake of focus, just as we did with the male, let's set aside personal preference for appearance and go with the general fantasy trend: thin with big breasts. Who finds this attractive? Well since I already set aside personal preference, I get to say everyone: that men desire women with that appearance and women want to have that appearance. But what is it good for? We've covered aesthetics, but what else? There is some notion of fertility and health, that the breasts are a sign of sexual maturity and the thinness is a sign of taking care of oneself (which would be reversed in times of starvation when being bigger was a sign of having enough to eat and therefore health and economic security). Okay, so if we are looking to make babies, we've got that covered. But the muscled man gained the ability to singlehandedly exert control over his environment whereas the woman's great physical advantage, making babies (which is hardly of similar usefulness in the typical world beset by demons and bandits) is still a cooperative effort: She needs a man to gain any benefit from her power.
There's nothing wrong with the "perfect body", except when said perfect bodies mean that male characters appear capable of standing up to danger while the female is helpless, but sure looks great doing it. If ya know what I mean.
Hey, sexism!
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Wednesday, April 25, 2012
This post is being written by someone who has just finished an excessively-important paper about patent law, a subject about which I know little and am not expected to know much, and yet was supposed to improve, which I did because I'm just that awesome. Also it's a bit late. And I have an exam tomorrow. Plus the take-home due the next day. So why am I writing this? Because I am vaguely annoyed about an issue and by God, I am going to make you vaguely annoyed as well, if only about the post.
So, the womenfolk have gotten it into their heads that there's some sort of problem with their representation in gaming. It seems that pretty often, they are presented as sexy, and that's about all they are. Thin women with big tits and not too much clothing to cloud judgement seems to be the way to go. By cloud judgement I mean the way clouds obscure vision and make it harder to judge people. I'd hate to be blind and go through life with that added barrier to objectification. I'd need to grope women just to get a general idea and they'd just get more angry if I said I was trying to objectify them. Whiners.
But I was thinking, is it really all that sexy to have these strangely shameless women running about in high heels and a few bits of cloth? I think I'd find them a bit frightening. What other social norms are they lacking? People don't normally dress like that in public or for battle. If they can do that, maybe they also think fights to the death are the appropriate way to say "good morning", like they do in Japan, as best as I can tell. Thankfully, I've never been to Japan because then I'd end up dead or aware of my own ignorance and neither of those sound very good.
You know who's sexy? That Alyx Vance. She's almost like a person. She cries when her dad dies, like a person would. She has an adorable childhood pet robot which can throw armored cars, like an awesome person would. She made it herself. She cares about other people, but doesn't get all weepy and break down at the slightest sign of danger. She's no damsel in distress. Personally, I find that a bit sexy. And I'd love to see that more often.
But speaking of seeing that more often, what does she wear? Jeans, a t-shirt, and a jacket. Not a lot of skin showing there. Her hair is short. This is not to suggest that she is unattractive. She's thin and has a nice face, to the extent that computer-generated graphics can give the impression of a nice face. But she's not nothing but that. Her portrayal in the games and media is what we'd expect of a person who has survived a terrible life: slightly distressed, but determined, and usually pointing a gun at something.
This is the same set of games where the protagonist is a physicist who saves the world with the help of other physicists, a rocket scientist, and a semi-sentient robotic dog. This is a game which is clearly made for by and about geeks. If there is any game where attractive women would be expected to be stripping for the hero, this is it. After all, this is a game where we're the heroes, us socially-withdrawn geeks, and who among us would not opt for the occasional uh.. hero's welcome? But no, that's not what happens. Instead the female character has to go and be a person. It sets a dangerous standard! If the geeky game for geeks can have female persons, could it spread?
It would be nice if it did.
I tend to play female characters in WoW. I prefer the appearance, though it does make it harder to identify as the character. I don't mind skimpy armor as something which exists. If someone else wants to play naked Barbie, that's their choice. I prefer more clothing. For this, transmogrification has been a boon.
I am tireder now and will leave you with this incomplete post. But isn't it always incomplete? Of course. Only you can add in the misinterpretations and reactionary comments.
[edit] Edited for Alyx
So, the womenfolk have gotten it into their heads that there's some sort of problem with their representation in gaming. It seems that pretty often, they are presented as sexy, and that's about all they are. Thin women with big tits and not too much clothing to cloud judgement seems to be the way to go. By cloud judgement I mean the way clouds obscure vision and make it harder to judge people. I'd hate to be blind and go through life with that added barrier to objectification. I'd need to grope women just to get a general idea and they'd just get more angry if I said I was trying to objectify them. Whiners.
But I was thinking, is it really all that sexy to have these strangely shameless women running about in high heels and a few bits of cloth? I think I'd find them a bit frightening. What other social norms are they lacking? People don't normally dress like that in public or for battle. If they can do that, maybe they also think fights to the death are the appropriate way to say "good morning", like they do in Japan, as best as I can tell. Thankfully, I've never been to Japan because then I'd end up dead or aware of my own ignorance and neither of those sound very good.
You know who's sexy? That Alyx Vance. She's almost like a person. She cries when her dad dies, like a person would. She has an adorable childhood pet robot which can throw armored cars, like an awesome person would. She made it herself. She cares about other people, but doesn't get all weepy and break down at the slightest sign of danger. She's no damsel in distress. Personally, I find that a bit sexy. And I'd love to see that more often.
But speaking of seeing that more often, what does she wear? Jeans, a t-shirt, and a jacket. Not a lot of skin showing there. Her hair is short. This is not to suggest that she is unattractive. She's thin and has a nice face, to the extent that computer-generated graphics can give the impression of a nice face. But she's not nothing but that. Her portrayal in the games and media is what we'd expect of a person who has survived a terrible life: slightly distressed, but determined, and usually pointing a gun at something.
This is the same set of games where the protagonist is a physicist who saves the world with the help of other physicists, a rocket scientist, and a semi-sentient robotic dog. This is a game which is clearly made for by and about geeks. If there is any game where attractive women would be expected to be stripping for the hero, this is it. After all, this is a game where we're the heroes, us socially-withdrawn geeks, and who among us would not opt for the occasional uh.. hero's welcome? But no, that's not what happens. Instead the female character has to go and be a person. It sets a dangerous standard! If the geeky game for geeks can have female persons, could it spread?
It would be nice if it did.
I tend to play female characters in WoW. I prefer the appearance, though it does make it harder to identify as the character. I don't mind skimpy armor as something which exists. If someone else wants to play naked Barbie, that's their choice. I prefer more clothing. For this, transmogrification has been a boon.
I am tireder now and will leave you with this incomplete post. But isn't it always incomplete? Of course. Only you can add in the misinterpretations and reactionary comments.
[edit] Edited for Alyx
Sapped Men Can't Say No
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Friday, March 23, 2012
I can't believe this guild doesn't exist.
By my count on warcraftrealms.com, there are 92 guild names including the phrase "sapped girls" and another three of "sapped women can't say no". Just searching "sapped" yields a strangely high number of EU guilds called "sapped cows cant say moo". "Sap" results in a variety of names such as "sap girls cant say no", since apparently sapped was already taken and who wants to join someone else's rape joke guild? Ew. There are a dozen or so variants of "sap it before you tap it".
But c'mon, guys, rape is hilarious! Why isn't there a gay guild called "sapped men cant say no"? or a straight guild that recognizes that this would be funny, right? I mean, a woman can join a guild about female rape, why don't men join one about male rape?
It's almost as if men don't like the idea of men getting raped and neither do women.
[edit] Today my warrior got an invite from Sapped Gurls Cant Say No
By my count on warcraftrealms.com, there are 92 guild names including the phrase "sapped girls" and another three of "sapped women can't say no". Just searching "sapped" yields a strangely high number of EU guilds called "sapped cows cant say moo". "Sap" results in a variety of names such as "sap girls cant say no", since apparently sapped was already taken and who wants to join someone else's rape joke guild? Ew. There are a dozen or so variants of "sap it before you tap it".
But c'mon, guys, rape is hilarious! Why isn't there a gay guild called "sapped men cant say no"? or a straight guild that recognizes that this would be funny, right? I mean, a woman can join a guild about female rape, why don't men join one about male rape?
It's almost as if men don't like the idea of men getting raped and neither do women.
[edit] Today my warrior got an invite from Sapped Gurls Cant Say No
Now Recruiting for a Whites-Only Guild
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Monday, March 21, 2011
This isn't racist. It's just that sometimes there is drama when black people are around. I'm not saying the black people cause it, but most players are white and if a minority causes drama, it's pretty clear what to do. They can start their own guilds. I'm not saying it's the fault of black people, I just think it's better to have a place where white people can play without worrying about racial tensions.
So if you're white, and have vent to prove it, and don't want drama from racial mixing, come join on the Thrall server.
Again, not racist, just trying to avoid drama from black people. I have lots of black friends, I just don't do anything with them because they cause drama, which isn't their fault, or the fault of anyone else.
So if you're white, and have vent to prove it, and don't want drama from racial mixing, come join
Again, not racist, just trying to avoid drama from black people. I have lots of black friends, I just don't do anything with them because they cause drama, which isn't their fault, or the fault of anyone else.
Your graphics card cannot handle hot men
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Sunday, October 24, 2010
I'm going to say it right off the bat: While I'm not always supremely confident in my theories or ideas, this one is pretty low down.
What's sexy or beautiful? I see two generic physical sources, so no cultural influences like wealth, power, that sort of thing, meaning that I am after what makes a person beautiful given no other knowledge about them. One is overall shape, the other is the face.
I'm theorizing that given equal coverage with clothes, a woman's shape is more noticeable. In other words, even if they are both covered in head to toe armor, a woman will still curve while men do not have something to match unless the armor is tights. In other words, given a ban on nudity, men cannot display a comparable proportion of their uh, shape.
In contrast a face can be rendered with no issues about nudity or indecency, at least as long as the Taliban isn't designing the models. So a male and female face can be equally beautiful. But artists and technicians are still working out the technology to make a sufficiently realistic face which doesn't get stuck in the uncanny valley of being creepy as hell.
Or to express it mathematically, given current technology and obscenity laws:
BodyMale < BodyFemale
FaceMale = FaceFemale
BodyMale + FaceMale < BodyFemale + FaceFemale
In other words, game developers cannot make hot men.
What's sexy or beautiful? I see two generic physical sources, so no cultural influences like wealth, power, that sort of thing, meaning that I am after what makes a person beautiful given no other knowledge about them. One is overall shape, the other is the face.
I'm theorizing that given equal coverage with clothes, a woman's shape is more noticeable. In other words, even if they are both covered in head to toe armor, a woman will still curve while men do not have something to match unless the armor is tights. In other words, given a ban on nudity, men cannot display a comparable proportion of their uh, shape.
In contrast a face can be rendered with no issues about nudity or indecency, at least as long as the Taliban isn't designing the models. So a male and female face can be equally beautiful. But artists and technicians are still working out the technology to make a sufficiently realistic face which doesn't get stuck in the uncanny valley of being creepy as hell.
Or to express it mathematically, given current technology and obscenity laws:
BodyMale < BodyFemale
FaceMale = FaceFemale
BodyMale + FaceMale < BodyFemale + FaceFemale
In other words, game developers cannot make hot men.
I swear it's just irony
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Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Pugnacious is famous. You know, for a woman.
How does one respond to this? A nice person might say "Grats!" or "That sounded great." But what about an attention whore?
"I am offended at the sexism."
Not good enough. It needs some irony, some twist to catch the reader. Yes, my comments require this much thought. What I lack in everything else I try to make up for with obsession for details. Quick plug: Baggins; I use this to customize my bags a dozen dozen different ways, because dammit, I do NOT want something in the wrong bag.
"I am offended at the sexism. Shouldn't she be in the kitchen?"
Nah. Not really funny. No pizzaz. No zip or zing or unexpected.
Has faux sexism become cliched? No. Critical word being: become.
Well sure, delivery would help, and careful audience selection, and applying more than zero creativity. But the glory days of ironic sexism on the intertubes have certainly passed us by, if they were ever here. The link isn't intended to be an example of ironic sexism, but the opposite. Okay real reason: I like my posts more if they have xkcd links.
Despite being an 'impulse post', which tend to be faster to write, this is taking forever. By now I'm certain that my original sexist response isn't the one I put here, it was somehow less stupid and more funny, but I cannot imagine what it was. Perhaps it did not exist at all. Perhaps there was only the brief moment of blindness to the innate lack of humor in a trivial expression of uncountable years of oppression or worse.
Aha! It was a lame "but I'd never get plugged on that." No. That was the second attempt. I threw that out because I don't think I write the sort of posts that can be anything outside this spherical bubble of blogs, so I can't even joke that it's due to sexism.
Trolls are just bad at telling jokes.
How does one respond to this? A nice person might say "Grats!" or "That sounded great." But what about an attention whore?
"I am offended at the sexism."
Not good enough. It needs some irony, some twist to catch the reader. Yes, my comments require this much thought. What I lack in everything else I try to make up for with obsession for details. Quick plug: Baggins; I use this to customize my bags a dozen dozen different ways, because dammit, I do NOT want something in the wrong bag.
"I am offended at the sexism. Shouldn't she be in the kitchen?"
Nah. Not really funny. No pizzaz. No zip or zing or unexpected.
Has faux sexism become cliched? No. Critical word being: become.
Well sure, delivery would help, and careful audience selection, and applying more than zero creativity. But the glory days of ironic sexism on the intertubes have certainly passed us by, if they were ever here. The link isn't intended to be an example of ironic sexism, but the opposite. Okay real reason: I like my posts more if they have xkcd links.
Despite being an 'impulse post', which tend to be faster to write, this is taking forever. By now I'm certain that my original sexist response isn't the one I put here, it was somehow less stupid and more funny, but I cannot imagine what it was. Perhaps it did not exist at all. Perhaps there was only the brief moment of blindness to the innate lack of humor in a trivial expression of uncountable years of oppression or worse.
Aha! It was a lame "but I'd never get plugged on that." No. That was the second attempt. I threw that out because I don't think I write the sort of posts that can be anything outside this spherical bubble of blogs, so I can't even joke that it's due to sexism.
Trolls are just bad at telling jokes.
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