BABD officially on Steam and deviantArt!
Since bikiniarmorbattledamage’s second and Female Armor Bingo’s first anniversary (March the 1st) approaches, we’re preparing a few surprises.
Till then, though, here’s a surprise for now: BABD now has official groups, run by us, on Steam and deviantArt! Feel free to join them!
Steam group, of course, comes with our own curator recommendation list. It’s still getting updated, but games collected there are the selection of ones that feature badass non-sexualized women warrior characters and/or defy the misogynist status quo in clever ways.
Basically what GamerGaters would never recommend on their list.
deviantArt group is focused on collecting any art (and/or journal entries) that criticize, make fun of or defy skimpy female armor. The gallery so far is sorted into those categories:
- Parody
- Sexy Male Armor
- Positive Female Armor
- Resources + References
- General Commentary
If you know (or do) any anti-bikini armor art on dA, submit it to the group! Some of it might eventually end up on the blog (if it didn’t before ;D).
~Ozzie & – wincenworks
Tangentially related to BABD’s subject matter, but very important point for the gender in gaming discussion.
Just as the association of colors pink and blue with femininity and masculinity, the link between certain game mechanics and gender is a result of completely arbitrary choices made fairly recently, while the mechanics were being developed.
Therefore, marketing different types of games to “opposing” gender demographics does NOT prove that men and women are inherently attracted to different facets of aesthetic or forms entertainment.
~Ozzie
I think this is also worth remembering not just in terms of game mechanics but those assigned to female characters. Limiting female characters to support roles, femme fatales or rewards means that the designs of female characters limited to just those that serve these purposes.
– wincenworks
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Why do a lot of people forget that boobs aren’t here for you. They are supposed to produce breast milk, not be sex objects.
It’s the question I ask myself all the time.
Of course being aroused by breasts is natural and by no means bad in itself, let’s make it clear. But our culture skewed the perception of breasts by overemphasizing their arbitrary* sexual value (*boobs are not necessary for sex to happen, after all). They’re treated like some kind of secondary genitals, while tabooing the actual function they’re designed for (feeding babies).
That’s the sad reason why on one hand a bare female breast is considered “indecent” to the point of shaming women from nursing in public places, while on the other hand they’re used as a shortcut for what straight male audience would (allegedly) instantly find appealing.And as (horny) hetero men are somehow the default audience for most of entertainment media, boobs need to be bared, or at least emphasized beyond any logic (and beyond how science works) on every possible occasion, even when it makes little to no sense in context.
Frustration with above school of thought is one of the major reasons that this blog exists. You know there’s something wrong when it’s more important to show that a warrior character happens to have boobs than to apply some practical battle wear for them.
Bringing this back, cause according to SOME people corenthal’s Power Boy’s crotch-window is a proof that we agree boobs to be equally sexual in nature with dicks… To which I say: wow, go learn what a strawman fallacy is!
The fact that a satire works within the system it makes fun of doesn’t mean it promotes the system. It’s basically required to take a thing we’re ridiculing to an extreme to even count as a satire in the first place!
And in the culture that treats flaunting women’s boobs like a something inherently sex-related (as if female breasts were genitals) but is completely okay with male pecs and nipples, flaunting what part of a man’s body would be comparably sex-related, huh?
As I said before, satire that reverses the oppressive status quo is very important and potentially eye-opening to privileged groups.
And since mere shirtlessness of a male fictional character doesn’t make cishet men uncomfortable in the same way as pointless boob windows make women, a penis-shaft-window should work.
~Ozzie