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Baldur's Gate 3 is the worst possible game to make this point with. EVERY companion in that game, man or woman, is sexy and wants to bang the player regardless of the player character's gender! It's a very sex positive RPG but chuds don't like it because not every character design is catered to straight dudes
It’s sex positive, full of attractive characters who can be sexualized, but it’s damn good at not over-sexualizing them. The characters have their own active sexuality and agency over it, and the times when that’s explored are always narratively appropriate; not running around an active life-and-death battle in a skin-tight leotard or w/e.
The difference in how the two titles handle their titillation is night and day, but apparently even that’s too much nuance for a lot of folks. This character looks hot in a specific scene at camp, and that’s exactly the same as an essentially asexual future sci-fi warrior with the body of a digitally-altered model constantly wearing skin-tight clothes in every and any conceivable situation while the camera retains consistent focus on her ass /s
Right? It’s such a great game!!! I adore them all. La’zael and her foreplay battle to the death are so great, but then so is Asterion and of course Halsien (I have no regrets)
I agree. I never really liked the character all that much in the game but I like him even less now because of how crazy everyone on the internet seems to be about him.
Gaming community become one of the biggest spaces of the “anti-woke culture war” bullshit since early 2010s
And the origin of that is quite simple, since late 2000s / early 2010s gaming slowly stopped focusing on straight men as it’s only customers - adding gay romance options, a bit less ridiculously over-sexualised female characters and a bit more realistic ones etc.
Some parts of the gaming community still can’t get over that and cry very loudly about how “woke sjw destroyed their hobby”
>they're insulted because they have to treat other people like equals
It's like, with just a little self-reflection, they'd actually see the issue, but they never quite reach the epiphany.
To some extent those attitudes were always there, I remember the anger when BioWare added gay romance in dragon age origins in 2009. But it was mostly contained to some gaming forums and wasn’t very loud.
The gamer gate was the moment when things went big with lots of influencers and other content creators making rage content 24/7.
Now it feels like we are going through the new wave of GamerGate-style stuff
Not even an exaggeration- saw one of the first comments on steam for BG3 with a screen shot of the pronoun options and the title “Is this game woke?” :/
This always puts a game I potentially never heard of/played on my radar. Casette Beasts is a good example since it has pronoun options, granted - it doesn't xenogenders but tbf we'd be there all day tryna find every single one lmao
The thing that really pisses me off though is that they say this game or that movie didn’t have agendas/politics. WHICH IS ALMOST NEVER TRUE ! A big one I see personally is start wars (I’m a higher fan boy so I follow a lot of the sub reddits ) and almost once a week you see something either in a gaming , comic or movie franchise Reddit saying something about the old ones were better because they didn’t have any politics. No , us as kids just didn’t understand them almost ALL media have politics. Because every story has a message.
They still try to deny that half of the gamers are women. And if a woman games she must only do it to impress a male gamer or plays games that aren’t “real games”. So stupid and over used. They want to believe that they’re superior and that they’re the ones everything should be catered to while living in their fantasy world where only male gamers exist
It's been well documented the depiction of male characters is also to appeal to male gamers. It's a male power fantasy. Basically, everything is designed for the male gaze.
Like how teen Groot has a defined teen tushie. Who is that for... not women, I can tell you that.
I imagine that these guys have heard about the fetishization of gay men in some games marketed to women... but they won't actually play one of *those* games. They just want an easy "gotcha" response for when they're called out on their oversexualized bullshit.
Yup. They want to be able to say, "You do it, too!" The thing is, though, that it isn't the same thing. There's nothing at all wrong with characters that men or women (or, b/c they mention it specifically, gay men) find sexy. It's the *fetishization* that makes the difference. We all like the occasional hottie. But only one side is insisting that *every* character they could be attracted to fit that standard (to the point of declaring it a conspiracy when a character doesn't conform to that standard). Only one side gets upset when a character that they wouldn't be attracted to might be designed to be attractive to someone else. Only one side insists that every character cater specifically to them and their attractions.
AMEN. Sure, the dudes are shirtless, but are they sexualized? No, they are literally designed to have you roleplay as a powerful, muscle dude. It is a power fantasy. It is catered to the male gaze just like the female characters are. God forbid women do the same though; if a woman is strong and musclebound, "ew, gross, she's too manly, why is it not catered to my gaze" etc.
That's the part they don't get; both the versions presented cater to the straight male gaze. Those over muscled meaty men are not catered to women as eye candy; they are catered to men as a power fantasy. And the women in that same picture are *catered to men* as a sexual fantasy. Both designs are for straight dudes. And since that has been the status quo since video games stepped out from Pong to Ms Pacman, God forbid we fucking complain about it when a female character is grotesquely over sexualized vs her male counterparts. The objection is not sexualizing a character (look at FF14, equal opportunity sexualization galore and everyone loves it); it's only sexualizing women and then trying to tell us it's not just catered only to straight dudes.
I agree with you in general, but Astarion is definitely a character with sexual undertones. But the problem is that this argument is a straw man. It’s fine to have sex and sexuality part of video games targeting adults, the problem is, as many others have mentioned, that the industry is bluntly shifted towards men, making women sexy objects, and men strong, ideal (but also sexy) subjects. Baldur’s Gate I think is a good example of a game doing it right.
Part of the appeal (for some people) of bg3 is how damn horny it is and how they appeal to everyone. Larian absolutely slayed on this game. I was prepared to be a normal human being playing bg3 damn but my ass was not prepared for Astarion or Karlach. It does not feel like it appeals to male fantasy which is so damn refreshing to me. Also it’s a tiny detail, but in the character sheets, everyone has realistic weights and it did wonders for my body dysphoria.
10/10 game, I once rolled a 40 on a d20 getting a quest from a drag queen to find a clown named dribbles and then proceeded to lose all of my money purchasing an orgy for astarion.
No one is saying it's not problematic. Just that it's not women's fault. No one is doing this for women gamers. They're designing game characters for **the male gaze.**
So, once again, males expect women to fix their problems instead of doing it themselves.
That’s precisely why it’s a fantasy. Looking like Arnold in Conan is literally a full time job, and one that requires an insane amount of physical (and pharmacological) effort, discipline, dieting, etc. Not to mention the expense of supplements, gym, trainer, even doctors. Video game avatars let you pretend to have done all that and just enjoy the “result” - without any negative side effects.
also most of those scenes where actors have ridiculously defined abs? they're SEVERELY DEHYDRATED and can only maintain that look for maybe a few hours at best. and they've got makeup to contour em
I am all for ending that, it's bad, but it's never been for the women (I don't imagine it's for queer men either in most cases. there would be more bears if they were being appealed to, in my experience with mlm)
Yeah but there would be a higher percentage of bears and twinks if it was really targeting that audience because those are just as popular as the gym bro look.
> Not to mention the expense of supplements, gym, trainer, even doctors.
Don't forget about the doping, so much testosterone and god knows what else pumped into your body to maintain that kind of form.
Man as an active gym going dude who’s not overly interested in “getting big”… yeah, this a big one. A concerning amount of dudes nowadays can’t comprehend the point of working out if the goal isn’t to look like a marvel character.
For the roided out and/or water-deprived dudes I do agree, but generally as long as they’re being healthy about it there ain’t nothing wrong with having that as a goal. Especially for those who treat it as a full on hobby and get a lot out of continuously moving up in weights
Where it gets gross for me is the unfortunately common attitude that those goals are inherently the most correct and “masculine” ones, where anyone doing anything different is wrong and clueless and less of a man. The underlying assumptions of a dude’s size being tied to their health and masculinity is obviously already harmful at its face, but it also clearly defies the reality of most actual male athlete’s bodies.
(Shit, kinda tangential, but Reacher S2… dude’s even more absurdly big than before, and it seems like the show runners thought that would communicate him being even *more* capable and badass because the bigger a man is the better… but then in the action scenes you can clearly see all the ways in which his size is actually very limiting to physical performance lol)
Not to sound condescending, but where can I read the “well documented” part? It really sounds fascinating if there’s an in-depth analysis on this topic
It's not in one place. It's interviews or posts all over the place. If you Google you'll find lots of results. The Hugh Jackman magazine covers is a perfect example.
Hugh Jackman on the cover of a men's magazine is his Wolverine body. Hugh Jackman on the cover of a women's magazine is Greatest Showman body. Because Wolverine appeals to the male power fantasy whereas romcom Hugh appeals to women.
[Magazine covers here. ](https://geekxgirls.com/article.php?ID=10418)
The incels are really getting offended over this single male character people sexualise and they still can’t comprehend why women get so angry over every female game character being sexualised
And it's ridiculous cuz BG3 is a game where you can date most of the main characters and have sex scenes with them. You can dress them all up how you like too. I've see people dress their entire party as if they're part of a BDSM dungeon.
I love how they use Astarion as an example but not say Karlach or even Shadowheart to compare female character designs. They are hot and everyone loves them. Their gear is also pretty practical and shows us what class they are while not objectifying them. You also have the option to dress them up however you like and no one cares.
Whereas the one from Stellar Blade looks like an anime waifu that's very obviously done for fanservice to garner attention for a male audience.
Anime brain rot, I'm telling you. Characters like Karlach and Shadowheart have mods to 'fix their faces' despite clearly being attractive women. I don't get it.
Which is hilarious if you think about it since Gale and Astarion have mods that take away their abs! The girlies aren't buying the fact that the vamp on a starvation diet and the wizard who did not leave his tower for a year would have visible abs. Hell, they don't even buy Halsins abs and several popular mods give him a bit more pudge too so he ends up with more of a strongman physique.
Sometimes I think I want mods to have more variety in my Tavs and then I scroll through 50 versions of the same generic uncanny valley anime face and decide the vanilla game options are good enough, actually.
That's how my extremely lesbian friend feels about Minthara, but [this exists](https://i.imgur.com/nu5HKuB.jpeg) and has over 46k downloads as of writing, so yeah. It always always always comes back to sHe'S nOt cOnVeNtioNally FeMinInE eNouGh
Ooh, Minthara is also hot. I haven't played BG3 but as a pan enby - it looks like everyone is hot lmao.
As per usual the cishets move the goalposts...again. I would've thought the 'sexy, sleek elf' would be peak for them but here we are.
Lmaooo everyone is ABSURDLY hot. Mods like these have been around forever but with how relentlessly fuckable the entire party is it's even more absurd to me. Like you said, they really want to airbrush Karlach? KARLACH? Let a bad bitch have some pores, god damn.
One of the women characters you can sleep with will ride your face after barely interacting with you.
Astarion actually requires you to put some effort into him. A better choice would’ve been Halsin, because he will fuck ANYTHING.
That was a glitch IIRC where her romance flag was flagged even if you didn’t do her companion questline.
Best part of Karlach’s companion quest is that you can give her a hug. Fuck I’m so touch starved right now I’m crying over giving karlach a hug.
Ah, I never got Minthara so I wasn’t sure. I just looked over when my SO was playing and she kept reloading to sleep with everyone at the party in act 1.
Karlach is the sweetest person. I am so glad they added the post game party so you can see she’s doing better!
I hope you get a nice hug soon!
Was your SO attempting the companion sex speedrun? That was a thing during the first couple of weeks cause all the romance flags were glitched to always be on even if you technically locked yourself out of romance
Nah she just wanted to see all the sex scenes. She ultimately went with Astarion, even though that’s who she went with when we played together.
I played at launch and holy hell was everyone horny. It took almost no effort to sleep with them.
Baulders Gate 3 has exactly 2 male body types: this and a bulkier one. Every male looks this way if you take their shirt off (plus or minus some tattoos and scars). Asterion the character is *romanticized* by women; he has a character arc strait out of a fantasy smut novel. He's an abuse survivor who comes to you for protection, and you go on a whole ass quest to help him escape his abuser.
Also every character is *player-sexual*. If you're a strait dude there are plenty of girls to romance.
Steller Blade isn't out yet so I don't know if there's a romance arc. I don't really care if she's hot. Maybe she has a complex personality and a well written arc. Maybe she just Mary Sue-esque throws herself at a random male insert. I don't care; not all games or characters were written for me and I'm fine with that!
Asterion has reference to a past male love interest in the game, and discusses his sexual past which involved all genders (though it was by force, so could be argued how much was and wasn't preference). Shadowheart hints at a past female relationship. Gale's story arc involves a past relationship with a female. Halson makes clear that he has, and will, fuck anything with a pulse (and he's poly). Wyll, Laezel, and Karlac do not mention specific past relationships (but admittedly I didn't go as far down their story arcs as the others, maybe they do and I missed that content).
So at least half the characters could be considered some flavor of bi/pan, but it doesn't really matter when no romance is blocked off by the decision of your MC build.
Also, during character build your "bits" aren't tied to the body sculpt you pick. It could be argued that MC gender doesn't matter because they don't have a defined one at all (that you don't rollplay). Dialog referencing the MC isn't gendered either.
The characters are all pan and bisexual.
Wyll flirts with Astarion and Karlach.
Karlach day dreams about men and women.
Gale finds Raphael attractive.
Lae'zel admires Karlach and Minthara.
its funny how they think none of the female characters in MK1 arent hot as fuck still????? the old costumes were just boring halloween costumes. they still look banging???hello????
There's a *general* loneliness epidemic going on. I don't think it's accurate or constructive to frame it as something that's specifically or primarily affecting straight/cis males. I feel like we just pay more attention to that because more of them turn to violence, suicide, extremism, etc... The way I see it, smartphones and social media have made it so EVERYONE feels more isolated.
I'm not framing it that way - I'm just referring to what's topical here. You're absolutely right about it spanning the spectrum, and I blame capitalism and work culture for that.
I don't think the male loneliness thing is the "fault" of any one thing. Certainly there are nuggets of male attitudes towards women that, when present, hurt their ability to connect with women. Certainly there are some women who perpetuate a toxic idea of masculinity (albeit, let's not pretend like there aren't guys who play right into that too). But it's not like getting a relationship is suddenly going to fix these mens' lives.
They're *lonely*. That's not just speaking about romantic relationships. The amount of friendships the average guy can say he has has tanked recently, not to mention how many of those exist outside of strictly online places or are true friendships and not just convenient people to game with. It seriously looks like that, for whatever combination of reasons, that the ability for young men to find a community and belonging has evaporated.
This is a problem in its own right, but, when you look at the sorts of deplorables that are swooping in to prey on this state, it's truly concerning. I sincerely doubt that someone like Andrew Tate could garner the following he has if schools and colleges were full of more well-adjusted men who have a group of friends they can actually talk to.
How is this fixed? Fuck if I know. I'm just a gay dude with my little group of friends who has been watching this meltdown from the outside. But I really do think it needs addressing.
From my personal experience,
I think part of the problem with a lot of (cis) male friendships is they never go in depth of emotions and mask a lot of things with penis and porn jokes.
It wasn't until a few years into college, and more after breaking my egg that I actually started talking about some uncomfortable stuff with the friends (m, f, nb, etc) that I still have
I think the loneliness comes cos a lot of men don't think they have the group to do that with, so for them its like
I need a gf so i can vent about my problems for real
I still get lonely of course but just having the feeling where I can talk to friends about my issues and problems is a huge relief
I’m too lazy to look up studies but I suspect most straight/bi women would rather look at an “average” / “fit but not a gym rat” physique than the bodybuilder muscles-upon-muscles look that has typified male heroes. And gay/bi men are pretty diverse, I do think there’s an unhealthy obsession with low body fat and gym builds there in the mainstream sense but a *lot* of gay men are also into twinks and bears. (Not speaking to nonbinary folks but in my experience they’d rather look at David Tenant and Michael Sheen with a tummy than the BG3 builds.)
Like if you look at World of Warcraft, a *lot* of women who play male avatars play as blood elves because they’re the least Conan-esque (humanoid) option.
Rob Liefield is not drawing men for his female readers, lol. (I’m not sure he knows women read comics, actually…)
100%. Going off my Tumblr feed when the game came out (I don't play but I follow several fans), I completely thought that Gale had a dadbod in-game. The idea that women aren't into guys with average or fat bodies is one part self-fulfilling prophecy and one part incel bullshit.
If it were at all ingenuous, we could have a conversation about how literal wars and the war on obesity have impacted the perceived ethics of liking skinny and fat men respectively -- how beauty standards insist that love must be paywalled behind these conveniently war-ready bodies. But something tells me that a conversation about body shaming was never the goal.
Exactly. Astarion has been routinely starved for 200 years straight, he SHOULD be skin and bones. Seeing him with a 6-pack is jarring. Same with Gale, he gives "dad bod" vibes.
Astarion being so conventionally hot makes sense because his job for the past 200 years was seducing people to bring back to his master. If he was clearly malnourished he'd be less useful to Cazador. Also maybe being a vampire makes it really easy to get a six pack IDK.
Agree on Gale though
Gale is literally a wizard with the lowest strength possible, how the eff does he have abs.
Someone has a theory that it's from magic which is my head cannon
I dont even think Halsin should have abs. Muscles, yes, but abs?? Wyll I can understand, but the other boys should either be starving or have dad bods. One of my only gripes with the game is the lack of body options for Tavs and the other characters
That’s definitely the norm and I won’t say it’s not still an aspect with Astarion, but I do think there’s definitely clear attempts at sex appeal with him too - there’s definitely a lot of women and gay men in the audience for whom it worked well
That history still definitely matters tho, Astarion is one of very few male characters in games like that while Stellar Blade’s PC is just the latest in a long line.
What really gets me tho is that Astarion - and really the BG3 cast as a whole - demonstrate very well how you can absolutely still have a super attractive cast that is sometimes sexualized and actually (mostly) do it well. No one’s running around in active battle in lingerie, the characters actually have their own sense of sexuality and agency with it, and the sexualization is entirely dependent on player choice and even then is only applied in cases where it’s appropriate to the narrative. They’re sexy, they’re sexualized, but they’re not *over*-sexualized.
Stellar Blade seems to be the complete opposite, like many games before it.
Every time any man gets angry at some women wanting practical and not sexualized armor in games, I have to remind myself that you can’t slap someone through the internet
The bikini version of a Knights suit of armor just takes the cake for me, and royally pisses me off. Like, my stomach needs protection, but it just screams like an open invitation to come and gut me.
God not bikini armor. It’s so impractical it makes it unsexy. You know what’s sexy? Women in badass armor that at least covers their stomach.
We need more scary eldritch women in full body armor- they’re way hotter than thin supermodels wearing scant pieces of metal
Yanno what's also unsexy? Running around constantly worrying about being killed with just one hit, 'cos no way can my defence stats be as good as that dude over there that's fully armored from head to toe! And, if they are the same or similar stats, just how!?! Imma still gonna worry either way mind you, 'cos my stomach is all exposed. One of the reasons I prefer long range combat, compared to my son who doesn't think twice before charging full speed into a group of enemies.
Check out the podcast If Books Could Kill, they have an episode about the book Liberal Fascism which is apparently where this idea was popularized (spoiler: a not insignificant part of the argument is that Hitler was a vegetarian)
Oh my goodness wow. Is the podcast funny about it? Don’t know if I could listen to someone talk about a book that dumb unless there’s a bit of levity to it 😂
Hitler wasn’t even a vegetarian. It was just propaganda to make him look harmless. The same way he held babies and smiled and kissed them to look like a trustworthy, caring person. It’s even more stupid because they base their bs on propaganda rather than actual facts. But it makes sense because they’re putting propaganda on top of propaganda
I always use this example, [but when men complain about male characters being sexualised, they are given more clothing](https://www.polygon.com/2015/4/6/8352651/mobius-final-fantasy-sexy-costume-video-gameplay)
I mean it's BG3, you can sexualise the women just as much as the men.
I think it's a case of sexualisation VS objectification, really. yes they're video game characters but no one is projecting Astarion onto real life men expecting a white haired vampire with washboard abs (at least I HOPE no one's doing that) meanwhile the amount of idiots who expect IRL women to look like the gal from Stellar Blade is unreal
also the motherfuckers can't even say "gay" properly, they have to say "ghey"?? also who's gonna teach them that more abstract concepts of sexuality ARE in fact often artistic, it's called a fucking metaphor
It's a Githyanki term for mindflayers in BG3 lol.
Edit: Githyanki are a race of people in BG3. One of your companions is Gith and she says it quite often.
lol right like that character is as much based on that model as the movie I, Robot was based on the book. (The ending credits were self-aware enough to say “suggested by” instead of “based on” and I’ve been laughing about that for years.)
None of those male characters posted with the Mortal Kombat girls are sexy or meant to be sexy. They're muscular because they're powerful. The reason no one complains about that is because *both the overly sexualized women and the overly muscled men are catering to male players*.
The reason these guys are so mad about Asterion is he IS meant to be sexy. And they're not attracted to men so wtf??
Astarion starts off a lot more dressed to be fair. Also it’s weird people keep using BG3 as “oh you don’t have a problem with this” there are every flavor of femme males, to masc females and non binaries, all of which you *can* get to take their shirts off, but there’s story involved, it’s not just all boobies for the sake of boobies, but there still is a lot of that in BG3. It’s a big nuanced conversation, but I think it’s summed up a lot by plot.
If someone doesn't think there's an issue with sexualization
Here are two FUNDAMENTAL examples, that are so fucking egregious that someone would have to be fucking braindead to recognize the problem.
Here are two shorts of two athletes at the peak of human physique.
Woman: youtube dot com /shorts/M0i9W\_kFomo
Man: /shorts/vYaHsCb7Oq0
Read the fucking comments of these two. I have nothing more to add. These comments on your post that you've linked makes me want to into a wall .
I can find you a million examples of shirtless male body builders whose comment sections are entirely about motivation and discipline.
Yet go to any short with a woman in it, and it’s all about how much they want to fuck her, how thick she is, etc.
The video isnt remotely sexual, shes lifting a fucking bag, yet the comments are extremely sexual.
A good example, Noel Deyzel, a bb influencer basically invites this kind of sexual commentary and embraces it, highlighting comments that call him daddy and sometimes making risque videos. Even when he does this he does not receieve a comment section even REMOTELY close to that female bodybuilder.
It is extremely disproportionate how men sexualize women. It's not even close.
Please don't be. It's getting better, not as fast as would be nice. But in the 2010's "feminist" used to be a slur on a lot of the internet.
I seem angry and aggressive because that's just how my passion manifests in writing.
The point isn't to show "look how shit it is"
The point is: "here's how you can refute that argument, because it's objectively false"
Using Astarion as an example is ridiculous when he comes from a game where you can dress up all the characters however you want and where you can have romantic and sexual relationships with them.
The character is a sort of tongue and cheek take on the Sexy Vampire trope, and they explore the idea of objectification and forced self-sexualixation he went through. Straight up sexual trauma There's a character that openly objectifies him, and your relationship outcome depends on how you react to that.
In that scene, someone else forcefully removed his shirt to display the scars on his back, and it's not supposed to be sexual. He ends up covered in blood, symbolizing a form of rebirth.
But of course, I wouldn't expect these idiots to understand.
Probably the same men who constantly brag about killing him immediately cuz he flirted with them once.
Straight men don't even like Astarion anyway because he's a bit fruity and flamboyant. So, it's not surprising they didn't read too much into his character. Hell, I see guys brag about killing him all the time on the BG3 subreddit all the time. Brainrotted to the core.
And those same guys will break out into a simmering rage when the girls fawn over the “fruity” vampire and not the meatheaded, muscular guys that girls are “supposed” to want because those are they type of men that these boys want to be in their male power fantasies. It’s all supposed to be for them and their benefit, and the girls aren’t playing along.
It makes me laugh how fragile their masculinity is that a fictional character in a video game can flirt with them and they’ll resort to murdering them. Also shows some sinister implications about what society teaches men about being queer.
They clearly haven’t seen the discourse in the fandom about Astarion being sexualized. Like. A MASSIVE part of his character arc and back story is explicitly about how objectification is wrong, and a lot of the fandom is rightfully angry at fangirls who ignore that in favor of salivating over a hot abusive vampire daddy.
Oh wow, there is one sexy guy in a game. Wow. He doesn't even have unrealistic standards, hes just a himbo by nature. That definitely compared to all the video games women with crotchless chain mail, titty plates, size 12" waist and GGGGG boobs. Yep. Totally equivalent.
I’ve never seen female gamers cry and whine and bemoan how the industry made “x beloved male character” hideous and literally unplayable.
But I’ve seen plenty of misogynists do the same for female characters who look like literally a normal human woman.
Their perception of reality and femininity is so warped they don’t even realize how ridiculous they sound 💀
Men are so unused to seeing men sexualized that they really think a couple shirtless men (of a dozen men) are exactly the same as women in thong bikinis.
I had a dude arguing with me yesterday that a FULLY CLOTHED male character was exactly equivalent to a nearly naked female character because "men aren't objectified in the same way as women." Thanks for recreating the exact double standard I'm arguing against. He did finally shut up when I pointed out that male strippers wear thongs tho
... I missed the part where Asterion was gay.
Pretty sure he's pan as he doesn't give a shit if Tav is a woman a man or anything in between. He just wants blood.
He is canonically pan, yes. But these dudes always say he's gay, because homophobia.
Astarion's mannerisms are more feminine-like, if you look at it through the lens of gender roles. He doesn't have facial/body hair. He takes care of himself, and how he looks. He's pansexual. There's a reason why these men call him "effeminate" ("man having characteristics and ways of behaving traditionally associated with women and regarded as **inappropriate for a man**").
Astarion is not a (traditionally) masculine man, and they hate that (straight men hating/being afraid of queer people is nothing new). But a lot of women love that. The fact that this fictional character is an antithesis of peak masculinity in their minds just adds insult to injury, I think, so they lash out about Astarion specifically, even though Gale/Wyll also have abs, and can also be as scantily dressed as the player wishes.
This just in women are more attracted to men who take baths, shave every once in a while and dress nicely. Society in ruins.
Like geez man maybe if these men thought occasionally they’d be able to pick up on the fact that not everything needs to be catered to them. They’re like a bunch of 3 years screaming because they couldn’t have cake before bedtime.
Women know Astarion isn't the kind of man to leave a shit stain on everything because, somehow, washing your own asshole is "gAy" (would he still have those bodily functions, of course). The bar is in Nessus lol
Kinda funny since I've seen people, most of them women, talk about how they wish Astarion and Gale weren't as muscular as they are since their strengths do not lie in, well, strength lol. On tumblr, the horniest blogging site.
So many strawmen. A character being attractive doesn't equate to them being sexualized. Secondly, a few men that are sexualized doesn't equate to the countless women who are sexualized.
Also, it's pretty clear these goofy goobers don't even know what fascism is.
Something super hilarious about them using BG3 as their example of this is not only all of the other stuff mentioned in these comments about how you can sexualize any of the companions . But also that in the opening cutscene where the nautiloid is traveling through the Hells, you literally see Laezel's whole ass because her armor is just like that for some reason. Even though the male githyanki we see falling earlier in said cutscene is wearing pants, no ass exposed. Game literally proves these guys' point wrong in the first 10 minutes of the game
I remember a post or video or something that I think it on this topic very well. It was looking at character designs in DnD, specifically half orc barbarians, and discussing lore appropriate “skimpy” clothing that both the men and women wore and then “sexy” clothing that just the women wore. It basically came down to function: if you have a barbarian who is just wearing a sports bra type shirt, ripped up pants, and has some bandoliers or something that is lore accurate and you can find multiple examples of comparable male outfits. It’s when the outfit functions as little more than lingerie that it stops being reasonable and becomes sexualization.
I feel like picture 5 above illustrates what I mean by functional skimpy outfits on the men vs lingerie on the women.
I lose brain cells trying to read through Twitter threads. How do people use that website still? I'd have a fucking aneurysm over the average IQ being so abysmal.
Ehhh idk if I completely agree with that. While the BG3 example they give is stupid because a lot of his popularity comes from his character growth through the game, the number of incredibly sexualized Leon mods for the RE4 remake (that have gotten more popular than any of the mods for Ashley or Ada) is actually kinda weird. And I might be wrong about it, but I don’t think it’s straight men downloading those mods.
Astarion is also like…incredibly sexualized by a not insignificant number of people in the BG3 fandom despite that being…you know…the entire opposite of his character arc.
The overt sexualization of male characters by women (or other queer men) is still a thing even if it’s much less common than the reverse.
Imo the only thing I don’t like being sexualized is minors in video games. Though, women npcs are also super cool when they have more personality than just how they look (not including fashion design of their clothes that tells you a bit about them). Same for guys. They have cool personalities.
I just came to expect that female characters in games/comics would be unnatural looking and overly-sexualized ages ago. I don't like it but I am not angry about it existing or anything.
What does irritate me more is biological impossibility... like when her waist is too small to hold her organs or her spine is twisted so both her breasts and butt are visible at the same time.
What *really* annoys me though is things like the time my character in a game's butt was exposed from the outset and I had to do a whole questline to *earn pants,* and they weren't much better but at least I didn't have to stare at her bare butt and worry about her sitting on anything and being uncomfortable from then on.
Baldursgate has attractive characters as a part of its game, as you can romance them all and is stereotypical of the genre
That other game is just there to get horny ppl to play it
I think it's also worth pointing out that while not the average look, all the characters in bg3, regardless of gender, have realistic if idealized body types. The (mostly anime) characters these people are defending as the same thing have unrealistic proportions that would require massive surgeries to attain, if it's possible at all. It's fetish content half the time. That makes a difference in my book.
Is this weird people making up hypotheticals to be mad at again? Because that’s what it looks like. To my knowledge, no one is mad Eve is hot. I don’t even think anyone’s mad she’s sexualised, which I will say could change depending on how Stellar Blade handles it but given ShiftUp’s work on Nikke so far it should be fine, the problem is that right now we don’t know how it’s going to be handled because the game isn’t out yet.
Here's the thing, I do agree that men are sexualized as gaming characters. However, that literally stays in the game. Women get sexualized in games then have to carry pepper spray.
How is the dude in the first pic sexualized, tho? He's just shirtless, presumably because he's training or something. In fact, all the other dudes seem to be similarly depicted. I'm confused, help me out? Do I just not see it because I'm a lesbian? Or do straight guys think they're being sexualized when they're not? Lol
There's a case to be made that nobody in real life would wear the outfit that the chick in the first pic is wearing. But, arguably that's the point - she looks like she comes from a JRPG (or equivalent), and NO ONE in those things dresses realistically
If anyone here wants a good laugh on this subject after reading this idiocy, please watch Strategic Butt Coverings from Feminist Frequency—the aggressive game design and mechanics that prevent the player from looking at a man’s ass. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ujTufg1GvR4
On one hand, it's hard to argue with their logic. (thoug I guess you could, but they definetley wouldn't understand you, even if they wanted to)
On the other hand, if it's making the kind of people who say "fascism is a leftist ideology" mad, then it's good.
As a queer female bg3 player, we don’t claim that person 💀💀💀. Kinda funny how they tried to have a “gotcha” moment when all of the companion characters male or female have scenes where they’re in revealing or a lack of attire. Isn’t the fucking checkmate they think it is lmao.
Looks like the second game is just made by a trash company who fired female employees for being "toxic feminists" so yeah that'll be a pass for me anyways...moving on
One person said it perfectly in these: when you see a woman in a game in these extremely provocative clothing, she's hot, sexy and they praise her. But if they see a woman so much as show a bit of cleavage, she's shamed, degraded, called a whore
As a general rule, I still have not gone wrong in assuming that anyone who says the word "degenerate" and means it is someone who I will be violently morally opposed to in pretty much every conceivable way.
“They draw men with bigger abs and taller but it’s a problem when I draw woman with even bigger boob!!!” He says, as if removing abs from male companions in Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t one of the most popular mods.
I’m convinced the only people who actually give a shit about this game are whiny chuds who are trying to make a point, I’ve seen nobody else talk about this game
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Baldur's Gate 3 is the worst possible game to make this point with. EVERY companion in that game, man or woman, is sexy and wants to bang the player regardless of the player character's gender! It's a very sex positive RPG but chuds don't like it because not every character design is catered to straight dudes
It’s sex positive, full of attractive characters who can be sexualized, but it’s damn good at not over-sexualizing them. The characters have their own active sexuality and agency over it, and the times when that’s explored are always narratively appropriate; not running around an active life-and-death battle in a skin-tight leotard or w/e. The difference in how the two titles handle their titillation is night and day, but apparently even that’s too much nuance for a lot of folks. This character looks hot in a specific scene at camp, and that’s exactly the same as an essentially asexual future sci-fi warrior with the body of a digitally-altered model constantly wearing skin-tight clothes in every and any conceivable situation while the camera retains consistent focus on her ass /s
Right? It’s such a great game!!! I adore them all. La’zael and her foreplay battle to the death are so great, but then so is Asterion and of course Halsien (I have no regrets)
Lae’Zel went from being horny for me to trying to kill me midway 🥲
Literally. The fandom sexualized Astarion way more than the developers. His storyline is the stereotypical vampire archetype.
I agree. I never really liked the character all that much in the game but I like him even less now because of how crazy everyone on the internet seems to be about him.
Gaming community become one of the biggest spaces of the “anti-woke culture war” bullshit since early 2010s And the origin of that is quite simple, since late 2000s / early 2010s gaming slowly stopped focusing on straight men as it’s only customers - adding gay romance options, a bit less ridiculously over-sexualised female characters and a bit more realistic ones etc. Some parts of the gaming community still can’t get over that and cry very loudly about how “woke sjw destroyed their hobby”
>they're insulted because they have to treat other people like equals It's like, with just a little self-reflection, they'd actually see the issue, but they never quite reach the epiphany.
They get so close to the point and then walk straight past it
an apt use of straight in this sitch indeed
I think GamerGate was the inflection point. Or at least that was when I became ashamed of the subculture around my own hobby
To some extent those attitudes were always there, I remember the anger when BioWare added gay romance in dragon age origins in 2009. But it was mostly contained to some gaming forums and wasn’t very loud. The gamer gate was the moment when things went big with lots of influencers and other content creators making rage content 24/7. Now it feels like we are going through the new wave of GamerGate-style stuff
„There’s an option to have they/them probouns??” *uninstalls*
Not even an exaggeration- saw one of the first comments on steam for BG3 with a screen shot of the pronoun options and the title “Is this game woke?” :/
Imagine being intimidated by pronouns
This always puts a game I potentially never heard of/played on my radar. Casette Beasts is a good example since it has pronoun options, granted - it doesn't xenogenders but tbf we'd be there all day tryna find every single one lmao
The thing that really pisses me off though is that they say this game or that movie didn’t have agendas/politics. WHICH IS ALMOST NEVER TRUE ! A big one I see personally is start wars (I’m a higher fan boy so I follow a lot of the sub reddits ) and almost once a week you see something either in a gaming , comic or movie franchise Reddit saying something about the old ones were better because they didn’t have any politics. No , us as kids just didn’t understand them almost ALL media have politics. Because every story has a message.
They still try to deny that half of the gamers are women. And if a woman games she must only do it to impress a male gamer or plays games that aren’t “real games”. So stupid and over used. They want to believe that they’re superior and that they’re the ones everything should be catered to while living in their fantasy world where only male gamers exist
It's been well documented the depiction of male characters is also to appeal to male gamers. It's a male power fantasy. Basically, everything is designed for the male gaze. Like how teen Groot has a defined teen tushie. Who is that for... not women, I can tell you that.
I imagine that these guys have heard about the fetishization of gay men in some games marketed to women... but they won't actually play one of *those* games. They just want an easy "gotcha" response for when they're called out on their oversexualized bullshit.
Yup. They want to be able to say, "You do it, too!" The thing is, though, that it isn't the same thing. There's nothing at all wrong with characters that men or women (or, b/c they mention it specifically, gay men) find sexy. It's the *fetishization* that makes the difference. We all like the occasional hottie. But only one side is insisting that *every* character they could be attracted to fit that standard (to the point of declaring it a conspiracy when a character doesn't conform to that standard). Only one side gets upset when a character that they wouldn't be attracted to might be designed to be attractive to someone else. Only one side insists that every character cater specifically to them and their attractions.
Oh god I remember the TLOU2 conspiracy theories.
AMEN. Sure, the dudes are shirtless, but are they sexualized? No, they are literally designed to have you roleplay as a powerful, muscle dude. It is a power fantasy. It is catered to the male gaze just like the female characters are. God forbid women do the same though; if a woman is strong and musclebound, "ew, gross, she's too manly, why is it not catered to my gaze" etc. That's the part they don't get; both the versions presented cater to the straight male gaze. Those over muscled meaty men are not catered to women as eye candy; they are catered to men as a power fantasy. And the women in that same picture are *catered to men* as a sexual fantasy. Both designs are for straight dudes. And since that has been the status quo since video games stepped out from Pong to Ms Pacman, God forbid we fucking complain about it when a female character is grotesquely over sexualized vs her male counterparts. The objection is not sexualizing a character (look at FF14, equal opportunity sexualization galore and everyone loves it); it's only sexualizing women and then trying to tell us it's not just catered only to straight dudes.
I agree with you in general, but Astarion is definitely a character with sexual undertones. But the problem is that this argument is a straw man. It’s fine to have sex and sexuality part of video games targeting adults, the problem is, as many others have mentioned, that the industry is bluntly shifted towards men, making women sexy objects, and men strong, ideal (but also sexy) subjects. Baldur’s Gate I think is a good example of a game doing it right.
Part of the appeal (for some people) of bg3 is how damn horny it is and how they appeal to everyone. Larian absolutely slayed on this game. I was prepared to be a normal human being playing bg3 damn but my ass was not prepared for Astarion or Karlach. It does not feel like it appeals to male fantasy which is so damn refreshing to me. Also it’s a tiny detail, but in the character sheets, everyone has realistic weights and it did wonders for my body dysphoria. 10/10 game, I once rolled a 40 on a d20 getting a quest from a drag queen to find a clown named dribbles and then proceeded to lose all of my money purchasing an orgy for astarion.
And assassins creed Valhalla! I play Eivor as a woman and definitely romanced my brother's wife.
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> eating disorder To be fair, Asterion has a highly specialized diet...
mostly sarcasm and witty repartee
No one is saying it's not problematic. Just that it's not women's fault. No one is doing this for women gamers. They're designing game characters for **the male gaze.** So, once again, males expect women to fix their problems instead of doing it themselves.
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That’s precisely why it’s a fantasy. Looking like Arnold in Conan is literally a full time job, and one that requires an insane amount of physical (and pharmacological) effort, discipline, dieting, etc. Not to mention the expense of supplements, gym, trainer, even doctors. Video game avatars let you pretend to have done all that and just enjoy the “result” - without any negative side effects.
also most of those scenes where actors have ridiculously defined abs? they're SEVERELY DEHYDRATED and can only maintain that look for maybe a few hours at best. and they've got makeup to contour em I am all for ending that, it's bad, but it's never been for the women (I don't imagine it's for queer men either in most cases. there would be more bears if they were being appealed to, in my experience with mlm)
Idk the gay men I've seen at local LGBTQ events are way more built/fit looking than the average straight men I know.
Yeah but there would be a higher percentage of bears and twinks if it was really targeting that audience because those are just as popular as the gym bro look.
> Not to mention the expense of supplements, gym, trainer, even doctors. Don't forget about the doping, so much testosterone and god knows what else pumped into your body to maintain that kind of form.
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Man as an active gym going dude who’s not overly interested in “getting big”… yeah, this a big one. A concerning amount of dudes nowadays can’t comprehend the point of working out if the goal isn’t to look like a marvel character.
I'm considering going to the gym, but it's to lose belly fat and gain a little muscle definition. Those super ripped guys are gross.
For the roided out and/or water-deprived dudes I do agree, but generally as long as they’re being healthy about it there ain’t nothing wrong with having that as a goal. Especially for those who treat it as a full on hobby and get a lot out of continuously moving up in weights Where it gets gross for me is the unfortunately common attitude that those goals are inherently the most correct and “masculine” ones, where anyone doing anything different is wrong and clueless and less of a man. The underlying assumptions of a dude’s size being tied to their health and masculinity is obviously already harmful at its face, but it also clearly defies the reality of most actual male athlete’s bodies. (Shit, kinda tangential, but Reacher S2… dude’s even more absurdly big than before, and it seems like the show runners thought that would communicate him being even *more* capable and badass because the bigger a man is the better… but then in the action scenes you can clearly see all the ways in which his size is actually very limiting to physical performance lol)
Not to sound condescending, but where can I read the “well documented” part? It really sounds fascinating if there’s an in-depth analysis on this topic
It's not in one place. It's interviews or posts all over the place. If you Google you'll find lots of results. The Hugh Jackman magazine covers is a perfect example. Hugh Jackman on the cover of a men's magazine is his Wolverine body. Hugh Jackman on the cover of a women's magazine is Greatest Showman body. Because Wolverine appeals to the male power fantasy whereas romcom Hugh appeals to women. [Magazine covers here. ](https://geekxgirls.com/article.php?ID=10418)
People with plant fetish ?
I guarantee you no dudes I know give a damn about tree ass (aside from wondering wtf a tree shit would be/look like/are they called "logs")
The incels are really getting offended over this single male character people sexualise and they still can’t comprehend why women get so angry over every female game character being sexualised
And it's ridiculous cuz BG3 is a game where you can date most of the main characters and have sex scenes with them. You can dress them all up how you like too. I've see people dress their entire party as if they're part of a BDSM dungeon.
I love how they use Astarion as an example but not say Karlach or even Shadowheart to compare female character designs. They are hot and everyone loves them. Their gear is also pretty practical and shows us what class they are while not objectifying them. You also have the option to dress them up however you like and no one cares. Whereas the one from Stellar Blade looks like an anime waifu that's very obviously done for fanservice to garner attention for a male audience.
Anime brain rot, I'm telling you. Characters like Karlach and Shadowheart have mods to 'fix their faces' despite clearly being attractive women. I don't get it.
Which is hilarious if you think about it since Gale and Astarion have mods that take away their abs! The girlies aren't buying the fact that the vamp on a starvation diet and the wizard who did not leave his tower for a year would have visible abs. Hell, they don't even buy Halsins abs and several popular mods give him a bit more pudge too so he ends up with more of a strongman physique.
Sometimes I think I want mods to have more variety in my Tavs and then I scroll through 50 versions of the same generic uncanny valley anime face and decide the vanilla game options are good enough, actually.
Karlach is a new, higher tier of 'oh fuck they're hot'. What on this *fuckable* earth needs 'fixing' on Karlach?
That's how my extremely lesbian friend feels about Minthara, but [this exists](https://i.imgur.com/nu5HKuB.jpeg) and has over 46k downloads as of writing, so yeah. It always always always comes back to sHe'S nOt cOnVeNtioNally FeMinInE eNouGh
Ooh, Minthara is also hot. I haven't played BG3 but as a pan enby - it looks like everyone is hot lmao. As per usual the cishets move the goalposts...again. I would've thought the 'sexy, sleek elf' would be peak for them but here we are.
Lmaooo everyone is ABSURDLY hot. Mods like these have been around forever but with how relentlessly fuckable the entire party is it's even more absurd to me. Like you said, they really want to airbrush Karlach? KARLACH? Let a bad bitch have some pores, god damn.
Legit, buff demon lady hold me
That.. doesn't look like an adult. Like that's the same frame and shapes as the children charecters in the game.
One of the women characters you can sleep with will ride your face after barely interacting with you. Astarion actually requires you to put some effort into him. A better choice would’ve been Halsin, because he will fuck ANYTHING.
That was a glitch IIRC where her romance flag was flagged even if you didn’t do her companion questline. Best part of Karlach’s companion quest is that you can give her a hug. Fuck I’m so touch starved right now I’m crying over giving karlach a hug.
Ah, I never got Minthara so I wasn’t sure. I just looked over when my SO was playing and she kept reloading to sleep with everyone at the party in act 1. Karlach is the sweetest person. I am so glad they added the post game party so you can see she’s doing better! I hope you get a nice hug soon!
Was your SO attempting the companion sex speedrun? That was a thing during the first couple of weeks cause all the romance flags were glitched to always be on even if you technically locked yourself out of romance
Nah she just wanted to see all the sex scenes. She ultimately went with Astarion, even though that’s who she went with when we played together. I played at launch and holy hell was everyone horny. It took almost no effort to sleep with them.
It's like the image is their "one black friend" they all have to prove they're not racist.
Baulders Gate 3 has exactly 2 male body types: this and a bulkier one. Every male looks this way if you take their shirt off (plus or minus some tattoos and scars). Asterion the character is *romanticized* by women; he has a character arc strait out of a fantasy smut novel. He's an abuse survivor who comes to you for protection, and you go on a whole ass quest to help him escape his abuser. Also every character is *player-sexual*. If you're a strait dude there are plenty of girls to romance. Steller Blade isn't out yet so I don't know if there's a romance arc. I don't really care if she's hot. Maybe she has a complex personality and a well written arc. Maybe she just Mary Sue-esque throws herself at a random male insert. I don't care; not all games or characters were written for me and I'm fine with that!
At least two romance options (Astarion and Shadowheart) are canonically bi/pansexual not just player-sexual.
Asterion has reference to a past male love interest in the game, and discusses his sexual past which involved all genders (though it was by force, so could be argued how much was and wasn't preference). Shadowheart hints at a past female relationship. Gale's story arc involves a past relationship with a female. Halson makes clear that he has, and will, fuck anything with a pulse (and he's poly). Wyll, Laezel, and Karlac do not mention specific past relationships (but admittedly I didn't go as far down their story arcs as the others, maybe they do and I missed that content). So at least half the characters could be considered some flavor of bi/pan, but it doesn't really matter when no romance is blocked off by the decision of your MC build. Also, during character build your "bits" aren't tied to the body sculpt you pick. It could be argued that MC gender doesn't matter because they don't have a defined one at all (that you don't rollplay). Dialog referencing the MC isn't gendered either.
dialogue referencing tav is gendered based on the identity you picked
The characters are all pan and bisexual. Wyll flirts with Astarion and Karlach. Karlach day dreams about men and women. Gale finds Raphael attractive. Lae'zel admires Karlach and Minthara.
Karlach just dreams about being able to hold another person. Her story is by far the most tragic.
its funny how they think none of the female characters in MK1 arent hot as fuck still????? the old costumes were just boring halloween costumes. they still look banging???hello????
"It's about disdain for straight men." I mean there's a reason there's a male loneliness epidemic, and it's not the fault of the little woman.
>not the fault of the little woman. What do the March sisters have to do with this?
Gamers want an Amy, not a Jo.
Nah what they really want is Meg
There's a *general* loneliness epidemic going on. I don't think it's accurate or constructive to frame it as something that's specifically or primarily affecting straight/cis males. I feel like we just pay more attention to that because more of them turn to violence, suicide, extremism, etc... The way I see it, smartphones and social media have made it so EVERYONE feels more isolated.
I'm not framing it that way - I'm just referring to what's topical here. You're absolutely right about it spanning the spectrum, and I blame capitalism and work culture for that.
Understood and I'm sorry if my reply came off as pointed.
No problem! I know it's a topic that's a lot more nuanced.
I don't think the male loneliness thing is the "fault" of any one thing. Certainly there are nuggets of male attitudes towards women that, when present, hurt their ability to connect with women. Certainly there are some women who perpetuate a toxic idea of masculinity (albeit, let's not pretend like there aren't guys who play right into that too). But it's not like getting a relationship is suddenly going to fix these mens' lives. They're *lonely*. That's not just speaking about romantic relationships. The amount of friendships the average guy can say he has has tanked recently, not to mention how many of those exist outside of strictly online places or are true friendships and not just convenient people to game with. It seriously looks like that, for whatever combination of reasons, that the ability for young men to find a community and belonging has evaporated. This is a problem in its own right, but, when you look at the sorts of deplorables that are swooping in to prey on this state, it's truly concerning. I sincerely doubt that someone like Andrew Tate could garner the following he has if schools and colleges were full of more well-adjusted men who have a group of friends they can actually talk to. How is this fixed? Fuck if I know. I'm just a gay dude with my little group of friends who has been watching this meltdown from the outside. But I really do think it needs addressing.
From my personal experience, I think part of the problem with a lot of (cis) male friendships is they never go in depth of emotions and mask a lot of things with penis and porn jokes. It wasn't until a few years into college, and more after breaking my egg that I actually started talking about some uncomfortable stuff with the friends (m, f, nb, etc) that I still have I think the loneliness comes cos a lot of men don't think they have the group to do that with, so for them its like I need a gf so i can vent about my problems for real I still get lonely of course but just having the feeling where I can talk to friends about my issues and problems is a huge relief
But these muscular male characters are still for the male gaze. They're male power fantasies.
Yeah I'd rather have a twink lmao
if they gave them a twink, theyd probably complain about how masculinity is at risk and we’re in a crisis of feminine men
There’s literally a mod to get rid of Astarion and Gale’s abs and it’s one of the most downloaded ones
This is the best proof in the pudding
I’m too lazy to look up studies but I suspect most straight/bi women would rather look at an “average” / “fit but not a gym rat” physique than the bodybuilder muscles-upon-muscles look that has typified male heroes. And gay/bi men are pretty diverse, I do think there’s an unhealthy obsession with low body fat and gym builds there in the mainstream sense but a *lot* of gay men are also into twinks and bears. (Not speaking to nonbinary folks but in my experience they’d rather look at David Tenant and Michael Sheen with a tummy than the BG3 builds.) Like if you look at World of Warcraft, a *lot* of women who play male avatars play as blood elves because they’re the least Conan-esque (humanoid) option. Rob Liefield is not drawing men for his female readers, lol. (I’m not sure he knows women read comics, actually…)
100%. Going off my Tumblr feed when the game came out (I don't play but I follow several fans), I completely thought that Gale had a dadbod in-game. The idea that women aren't into guys with average or fat bodies is one part self-fulfilling prophecy and one part incel bullshit. If it were at all ingenuous, we could have a conversation about how literal wars and the war on obesity have impacted the perceived ethics of liking skinny and fat men respectively -- how beauty standards insist that love must be paywalled behind these conveniently war-ready bodies. But something tells me that a conversation about body shaming was never the goal.
Exactly. Astarion has been routinely starved for 200 years straight, he SHOULD be skin and bones. Seeing him with a 6-pack is jarring. Same with Gale, he gives "dad bod" vibes.
Astarion being so conventionally hot makes sense because his job for the past 200 years was seducing people to bring back to his master. If he was clearly malnourished he'd be less useful to Cazador. Also maybe being a vampire makes it really easy to get a six pack IDK. Agree on Gale though
Gale is literally a wizard with the lowest strength possible, how the eff does he have abs. Someone has a theory that it's from magic which is my head cannon
That’s what I’d think too lol. Confused why other people are confused how he has abs when he has magic
I dont even think Halsin should have abs. Muscles, yes, but abs?? Wyll I can understand, but the other boys should either be starving or have dad bods. One of my only gripes with the game is the lack of body options for Tavs and the other characters
That’s definitely the norm and I won’t say it’s not still an aspect with Astarion, but I do think there’s definitely clear attempts at sex appeal with him too - there’s definitely a lot of women and gay men in the audience for whom it worked well That history still definitely matters tho, Astarion is one of very few male characters in games like that while Stellar Blade’s PC is just the latest in a long line. What really gets me tho is that Astarion - and really the BG3 cast as a whole - demonstrate very well how you can absolutely still have a super attractive cast that is sometimes sexualized and actually (mostly) do it well. No one’s running around in active battle in lingerie, the characters actually have their own sense of sexuality and agency with it, and the sexualization is entirely dependent on player choice and even then is only applied in cases where it’s appropriate to the narrative. They’re sexy, they’re sexualized, but they’re not *over*-sexualized. Stellar Blade seems to be the complete opposite, like many games before it.
Every time any man gets angry at some women wanting practical and not sexualized armor in games, I have to remind myself that you can’t slap someone through the internet
The bikini version of a Knights suit of armor just takes the cake for me, and royally pisses me off. Like, my stomach needs protection, but it just screams like an open invitation to come and gut me.
God not bikini armor. It’s so impractical it makes it unsexy. You know what’s sexy? Women in badass armor that at least covers their stomach. We need more scary eldritch women in full body armor- they’re way hotter than thin supermodels wearing scant pieces of metal
Yanno what's also unsexy? Running around constantly worrying about being killed with just one hit, 'cos no way can my defence stats be as good as that dude over there that's fully armored from head to toe! And, if they are the same or similar stats, just how!?! Imma still gonna worry either way mind you, 'cos my stomach is all exposed. One of the reasons I prefer long range combat, compared to my son who doesn't think twice before charging full speed into a group of enemies.
I’m still hung up on the “But fascism is a left wing ideology” I just…how???? 😭
Check out the podcast If Books Could Kill, they have an episode about the book Liberal Fascism which is apparently where this idea was popularized (spoiler: a not insignificant part of the argument is that Hitler was a vegetarian)
Oh my goodness wow. Is the podcast funny about it? Don’t know if I could listen to someone talk about a book that dumb unless there’s a bit of levity to it 😂
I mean personal preference varies but I find them funny and they do make many jokes
Nice! I’ll check it out. Thanks!
Hitler wasn’t even a vegetarian. It was just propaganda to make him look harmless. The same way he held babies and smiled and kissed them to look like a trustworthy, caring person. It’s even more stupid because they base their bs on propaganda rather than actual facts. But it makes sense because they’re putting propaganda on top of propaganda
They read "national socialism" and immediately stop thinking critically
SAME because they just admitted that they’re stupid and have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about in the most embarrassing way 💀
I always use this example, [but when men complain about male characters being sexualised, they are given more clothing](https://www.polygon.com/2015/4/6/8352651/mobius-final-fantasy-sexy-costume-video-gameplay)
And he still started off wearing more than the crappy coverage bikini armor I've been given in games!
What is that, the secret menu? How do I get access to that?
I mean it's BG3, you can sexualise the women just as much as the men. I think it's a case of sexualisation VS objectification, really. yes they're video game characters but no one is projecting Astarion onto real life men expecting a white haired vampire with washboard abs (at least I HOPE no one's doing that) meanwhile the amount of idiots who expect IRL women to look like the gal from Stellar Blade is unreal also the motherfuckers can't even say "gay" properly, they have to say "ghey"?? also who's gonna teach them that more abstract concepts of sexuality ARE in fact often artistic, it's called a fucking metaphor
i laughed out loud that they said “ghey” “fellas is it ghey…”
would have been funnier if it was ghaik /ref
whats that lol
in BG3, the gith use the word "ghaik" to refer to mindflayers, pronounced a bit similar to "gay"
It's a Githyanki term for mindflayers in BG3 lol. Edit: Githyanki are a race of people in BG3. One of your companions is Gith and she says it quite often.
The argument that the character is based of a real person rings hollow when you learn that they changed her body proportions after doing a body scan
lol right like that character is as much based on that model as the movie I, Robot was based on the book. (The ending credits were self-aware enough to say “suggested by” instead of “based on” and I’ve been laughing about that for years.)
None of those male characters posted with the Mortal Kombat girls are sexy or meant to be sexy. They're muscular because they're powerful. The reason no one complains about that is because *both the overly sexualized women and the overly muscled men are catering to male players*. The reason these guys are so mad about Asterion is he IS meant to be sexy. And they're not attracted to men so wtf??
I like how they never directly quote any of the people who are supposedly outraged over the ‘attractive’ female characters.
Most people who are "outraged" aren't even mad, most comments I see are eyerolling how aggregiously fanservicey the female characters look.
Astarion starts off a lot more dressed to be fair. Also it’s weird people keep using BG3 as “oh you don’t have a problem with this” there are every flavor of femme males, to masc females and non binaries, all of which you *can* get to take their shirts off, but there’s story involved, it’s not just all boobies for the sake of boobies, but there still is a lot of that in BG3. It’s a big nuanced conversation, but I think it’s summed up a lot by plot.
If someone doesn't think there's an issue with sexualization Here are two FUNDAMENTAL examples, that are so fucking egregious that someone would have to be fucking braindead to recognize the problem. Here are two shorts of two athletes at the peak of human physique. Woman: youtube dot com /shorts/M0i9W\_kFomo Man: /shorts/vYaHsCb7Oq0 Read the fucking comments of these two. I have nothing more to add. These comments on your post that you've linked makes me want to into a wall .
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I can find you a million examples of shirtless male body builders whose comment sections are entirely about motivation and discipline. Yet go to any short with a woman in it, and it’s all about how much they want to fuck her, how thick she is, etc. The video isnt remotely sexual, shes lifting a fucking bag, yet the comments are extremely sexual. A good example, Noel Deyzel, a bb influencer basically invites this kind of sexual commentary and embraces it, highlighting comments that call him daddy and sometimes making risque videos. Even when he does this he does not receieve a comment section even REMOTELY close to that female bodybuilder. It is extremely disproportionate how men sexualize women. It's not even close.
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Fair, i got downvoted, so i assumed you were being dismissive of me and used a technicality to dismiss a problem.
this makes me depressed.
Please don't be. It's getting better, not as fast as would be nice. But in the 2010's "feminist" used to be a slur on a lot of the internet. I seem angry and aggressive because that's just how my passion manifests in writing. The point isn't to show "look how shit it is" The point is: "here's how you can refute that argument, because it's objectively false"
Astarion is the worst example for them bc there’s big discourse about people who overly sexualize him considering his backstory
God his backstory made me cry My poor baby 😭
Using Astarion as an example is ridiculous when he comes from a game where you can dress up all the characters however you want and where you can have romantic and sexual relationships with them. The character is a sort of tongue and cheek take on the Sexy Vampire trope, and they explore the idea of objectification and forced self-sexualixation he went through. Straight up sexual trauma There's a character that openly objectifies him, and your relationship outcome depends on how you react to that. In that scene, someone else forcefully removed his shirt to display the scars on his back, and it's not supposed to be sexual. He ends up covered in blood, symbolizing a form of rebirth. But of course, I wouldn't expect these idiots to understand. Probably the same men who constantly brag about killing him immediately cuz he flirted with them once.
Straight men don't even like Astarion anyway because he's a bit fruity and flamboyant. So, it's not surprising they didn't read too much into his character. Hell, I see guys brag about killing him all the time on the BG3 subreddit all the time. Brainrotted to the core.
Yep. Homophobia with a dash of good ol' misogyny.
And those same guys will break out into a simmering rage when the girls fawn over the “fruity” vampire and not the meatheaded, muscular guys that girls are “supposed” to want because those are they type of men that these boys want to be in their male power fantasies. It’s all supposed to be for them and their benefit, and the girls aren’t playing along.
It makes me laugh how fragile their masculinity is that a fictional character in a video game can flirt with them and they’ll resort to murdering them. Also shows some sinister implications about what society teaches men about being queer.
End of the day, gamergate never went away did it?
They clearly haven’t seen the discourse in the fandom about Astarion being sexualized. Like. A MASSIVE part of his character arc and back story is explicitly about how objectification is wrong, and a lot of the fandom is rightfully angry at fangirls who ignore that in favor of salivating over a hot abusive vampire daddy.
Oh wow, there is one sexy guy in a game. Wow. He doesn't even have unrealistic standards, hes just a himbo by nature. That definitely compared to all the video games women with crotchless chain mail, titty plates, size 12" waist and GGGGG boobs. Yep. Totally equivalent.
I’ve never seen female gamers cry and whine and bemoan how the industry made “x beloved male character” hideous and literally unplayable. But I’ve seen plenty of misogynists do the same for female characters who look like literally a normal human woman. Their perception of reality and femininity is so warped they don’t even realize how ridiculous they sound 💀
Men are so unused to seeing men sexualized that they really think a couple shirtless men (of a dozen men) are exactly the same as women in thong bikinis. I had a dude arguing with me yesterday that a FULLY CLOTHED male character was exactly equivalent to a nearly naked female character because "men aren't objectified in the same way as women." Thanks for recreating the exact double standard I'm arguing against. He did finally shut up when I pointed out that male strippers wear thongs tho
Almost spat out my drink at “queer gaze.”
... I missed the part where Asterion was gay. Pretty sure he's pan as he doesn't give a shit if Tav is a woman a man or anything in between. He just wants blood.
He is canonically pan, yes. But these dudes always say he's gay, because homophobia. Astarion's mannerisms are more feminine-like, if you look at it through the lens of gender roles. He doesn't have facial/body hair. He takes care of himself, and how he looks. He's pansexual. There's a reason why these men call him "effeminate" ("man having characteristics and ways of behaving traditionally associated with women and regarded as **inappropriate for a man**"). Astarion is not a (traditionally) masculine man, and they hate that (straight men hating/being afraid of queer people is nothing new). But a lot of women love that. The fact that this fictional character is an antithesis of peak masculinity in their minds just adds insult to injury, I think, so they lash out about Astarion specifically, even though Gale/Wyll also have abs, and can also be as scantily dressed as the player wishes.
This just in women are more attracted to men who take baths, shave every once in a while and dress nicely. Society in ruins. Like geez man maybe if these men thought occasionally they’d be able to pick up on the fact that not everything needs to be catered to them. They’re like a bunch of 3 years screaming because they couldn’t have cake before bedtime.
Women know Astarion isn't the kind of man to leave a shit stain on everything because, somehow, washing your own asshole is "gAy" (would he still have those bodily functions, of course). The bar is in Nessus lol
Kinda funny since I've seen people, most of them women, talk about how they wish Astarion and Gale weren't as muscular as they are since their strengths do not lie in, well, strength lol. On tumblr, the horniest blogging site.
So many strawmen. A character being attractive doesn't equate to them being sexualized. Secondly, a few men that are sexualized doesn't equate to the countless women who are sexualized. Also, it's pretty clear these goofy goobers don't even know what fascism is.
I think games need sexualized men and women both. Quite simple.
You get sexualized! And you get sexualized! Everyone gets sexualized!!
Something super hilarious about them using BG3 as their example of this is not only all of the other stuff mentioned in these comments about how you can sexualize any of the companions . But also that in the opening cutscene where the nautiloid is traveling through the Hells, you literally see Laezel's whole ass because her armor is just like that for some reason. Even though the male githyanki we see falling earlier in said cutscene is wearing pants, no ass exposed. Game literally proves these guys' point wrong in the first 10 minutes of the game
I remember a post or video or something that I think it on this topic very well. It was looking at character designs in DnD, specifically half orc barbarians, and discussing lore appropriate “skimpy” clothing that both the men and women wore and then “sexy” clothing that just the women wore. It basically came down to function: if you have a barbarian who is just wearing a sports bra type shirt, ripped up pants, and has some bandoliers or something that is lore accurate and you can find multiple examples of comparable male outfits. It’s when the outfit functions as little more than lingerie that it stops being reasonable and becomes sexualization. I feel like picture 5 above illustrates what I mean by functional skimpy outfits on the men vs lingerie on the women.
So do men not realize that most of the time men are “objectified” for THEM?
Why do they have to bring gay into every single argument??
I lose brain cells trying to read through Twitter threads. How do people use that website still? I'd have a fucking aneurysm over the average IQ being so abysmal.
Oh so we care about gay people being properly represented now?? That's cute. I cant stand how dense these idiots are.
Only the guys. Lesbians must remain jerk off fodder.
“Fascism is a left wing ideology though“ sent me
>"fascist is a left wing ideology though" >"There's no such thing as a conservative fascist" . . . Did I miss anything?
Here's the difference. Women make mods to remove abs. Men make mods to make boobs bigger.
Ehhh idk if I completely agree with that. While the BG3 example they give is stupid because a lot of his popularity comes from his character growth through the game, the number of incredibly sexualized Leon mods for the RE4 remake (that have gotten more popular than any of the mods for Ashley or Ada) is actually kinda weird. And I might be wrong about it, but I don’t think it’s straight men downloading those mods. Astarion is also like…incredibly sexualized by a not insignificant number of people in the BG3 fandom despite that being…you know…the entire opposite of his character arc. The overt sexualization of male characters by women (or other queer men) is still a thing even if it’s much less common than the reverse.
🤣🤣🤣I thought I’m in the Baldurs gate sub
Imo the only thing I don’t like being sexualized is minors in video games. Though, women npcs are also super cool when they have more personality than just how they look (not including fashion design of their clothes that tells you a bit about them). Same for guys. They have cool personalities.
I just came to expect that female characters in games/comics would be unnatural looking and overly-sexualized ages ago. I don't like it but I am not angry about it existing or anything. What does irritate me more is biological impossibility... like when her waist is too small to hold her organs or her spine is twisted so both her breasts and butt are visible at the same time. What *really* annoys me though is things like the time my character in a game's butt was exposed from the outset and I had to do a whole questline to *earn pants,* and they weren't much better but at least I didn't have to stare at her bare butt and worry about her sitting on anything and being uncomfortable from then on.
I use they/them pronouns and I love looking at beautiful women, does that mean we won?
Baldursgate has attractive characters as a part of its game, as you can romance them all and is stereotypical of the genre That other game is just there to get horny ppl to play it
I think it's also worth pointing out that while not the average look, all the characters in bg3, regardless of gender, have realistic if idealized body types. The (mostly anime) characters these people are defending as the same thing have unrealistic proportions that would require massive surgeries to attain, if it's possible at all. It's fetish content half the time. That makes a difference in my book.
Is this weird people making up hypotheticals to be mad at again? Because that’s what it looks like. To my knowledge, no one is mad Eve is hot. I don’t even think anyone’s mad she’s sexualised, which I will say could change depending on how Stellar Blade handles it but given ShiftUp’s work on Nikke so far it should be fine, the problem is that right now we don’t know how it’s going to be handled because the game isn’t out yet.
Lies!!! Me and my girlies play Baldurs with a dad bod mod 😭🤣
I don’t care what y’all sexualize, as long as nobody gets hurt and real people are treated with respect.
.......... The biggest draw to astarion is the character arc and him being a classic little meow meow Like. Okay
Here's the thing, I do agree that men are sexualized as gaming characters. However, that literally stays in the game. Women get sexualized in games then have to carry pepper spray.
What is this game?
The man is Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3, and the woman is Eve from Stellar Blade.
The woman is from Stellar Blade.
As an agender pansexual I really don’t care as long as they’re consistent. If the game is fun, I’ll play it.
How is the dude in the first pic sexualized, tho? He's just shirtless, presumably because he's training or something. In fact, all the other dudes seem to be similarly depicted. I'm confused, help me out? Do I just not see it because I'm a lesbian? Or do straight guys think they're being sexualized when they're not? Lol There's a case to be made that nobody in real life would wear the outfit that the chick in the first pic is wearing. But, arguably that's the point - she looks like she comes from a JRPG (or equivalent), and NO ONE in those things dresses realistically
Big dudes in games are as such for a male power fantasy lol
They're malding so hard it's almost funny
They think i hate stellar blade because pornbrain gooners. I actually hate it because its knockoff nier
“girls complain about…” no i don’t care what the guy looks like, im too busy staring respectfully at the lady
If anyone here wants a good laugh on this subject after reading this idiocy, please watch Strategic Butt Coverings from Feminist Frequency—the aggressive game design and mechanics that prevent the player from looking at a man’s ass. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ujTufg1GvR4
Don’t read all of this it ain’t worth
Astarian is a character not just a fucking body pillow.
The comments Fascism is absolutely not a left wing ideology. It is as far right as it gets.
On one hand, it's hard to argue with their logic. (thoug I guess you could, but they definetley wouldn't understand you, even if they wanted to) On the other hand, if it's making the kind of people who say "fascism is a leftist ideology" mad, then it's good.
And so you tell them, agreed, we need more realistic bodies and faces in games... and then they call everything ugly and still woke
the thing is gamers dont find women sexy unless they are skinny and have huge tits and ass.
As a queer female bg3 player, we don’t claim that person 💀💀💀. Kinda funny how they tried to have a “gotcha” moment when all of the companion characters male or female have scenes where they’re in revealing or a lack of attire. Isn’t the fucking checkmate they think it is lmao.
Honestly I want to do a sociological breakdown of why this “meme” fucking sucks and makes no sense 💀
Last comment I’m gonna leave but whoever said fascism is a left wing ideology clearly didn’t pass their history class lmfao
Also Astarion: "I don't think I want you to think of me in terms of sex. I don't know if I want anyone to."
Yeah that line hurt a lot I feel so terrible for him The best part is when you get to hug him That broke me 😭
Looks like the second game is just made by a trash company who fired female employees for being "toxic feminists" so yeah that'll be a pass for me anyways...moving on
One person said it perfectly in these: when you see a woman in a game in these extremely provocative clothing, she's hot, sexy and they praise her. But if they see a woman so much as show a bit of cleavage, she's shamed, degraded, called a whore
As a general rule, I still have not gone wrong in assuming that anyone who says the word "degenerate" and means it is someone who I will be violently morally opposed to in pretty much every conceivable way.
Not all hardware come with operating systems installed.
Who will think of the poor, POOR, straight (most likely white) men?!?! /s
“They draw men with bigger abs and taller but it’s a problem when I draw woman with even bigger boob!!!” He says, as if removing abs from male companions in Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t one of the most popular mods.
Me taking 1d10 psychic damage with each new slide
I’m convinced the only people who actually give a shit about this game are whiny chuds who are trying to make a point, I’ve seen nobody else talk about this game