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.
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I disagree. Men's faces are almost universally irrelevant compared to importance put on their bodies. for instance, take Daniel Craig. lets face it, his face is ugly, proportionately speaking. and yet, he's considered to be incredibly hot. why? body. He has a damn fine body and just like the key factor to hotness in women is an hourglass midsection, the key factor to mail hotness is a set of chiseled abs and nice biceps. this concept is the reason why so many Gym rats end up with what's known among the gym crowd as Bar Body. No lower body development, so so back, but they have nice abs and big biceps that look good in a tight shirt.
those are very doable in game design. Just look and bloodelf men - perfect examples of a bar body (which by the way, is extremely common among some of the vainer gay men, which is probably part of the reason for "Blood elves are gay" comments)
> 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.
When it comes to clothes - especially tight-fitting clothes, yes, the female shape is more noticeable.
When it comes to armor - real, sensibly designed armor, and definitely not WoW armor - not so much. If the woman's armor was to slope upwards from chest to chin, like you see so often in fantasy art and in games, then all the attacker has to do is slash or stab at that sloping section of the armor. The sword will then slide up the armor and hit her in the head. Which, given this is fantasy art, is probably not guarded very well.
And if it follows the curve of waist and hip, then an attack to the side will slide along the armor and naturally find the waist. Which is armored, but enough bashes to the same area is going to really hurt.
If in sensible armor, then both men and women will probably both look very unappealing and similar to each other, except the women are probably a little shorter.
Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine. And not really related, since WoW is all fantasy art and doesn't have to worry about insensible armor design. :)
"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."
That's not a fair comparison. This assumes all females wear form-fitting clothing while men do not. If you want to compare male bodies to female bodies, you at least have to start from a level playing field. So take one idealised male and one idealised female. Assume both are in peak physical condition. Put them both in form-fitting armor. David versus Aphrodite. You might have an in-built personal preference, but I'm not sure it's so easy to objectively dismiss one over the other, is it?
@Leah: This is exactly why I couldn't give this theory much weight: Daniel Craig is definitely not ugly.
But maybe there's an alternative theory there with the blood elves: men can't handle being hotter than they are.
@sscougall: You raise a good point. Maybe wizards are enablers of sexism. It's only because of their influence that women can survive wearing what they wear. This only adds to my earlier theory that wizards ruin fantasy.
@Merlot: Are they all still wearing pants? If so, the woman will still have the sillouette advantage (or is that a disadvantage?).
sorry, Klep, but while Daniel Craig is most definitely a handsome man, his face is ugly from an artistic standpoint. or maybe a better way of saying would be - its not pretty. Pierce Brosnan's face is pretty.
but...for a man, the prettiness of the face is still not as relevant as prettiness of the body. In fact I'll go as far as to say that attractiveness of the face is a lot more important when judging the hotness of a woman, then a man.
I've learned never to trust the opinions of artists. Their way of judging beauty is often too far different from the rest of humanity to be of any use.
With further thought I am inclined to agree with your claim that a woman's face matters more than the body. I still some some more angles to work on, but perhaps it's not my fight.
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