Hey, I’m just wondering, is the “male empowerment” a bad thing? Maybe I am just missing some of the subtleties, but, if I may be frank “So what?” I went through a few pages of the tag “Sexy Male Armor”, and I’m not sure what I should feel. From your tone, you often seemed like you were trying to show these costumes in a negative light. On the other hand, I saw JoJo and DIO, so I knew you weren’t saying they were bad.
While we touched upon the subject of male empowerment before, we never discussed it in detail. Also, our tone in sexy male armor posts shifts a lot between sarcasm and talking straight, so can I understand the confusion.
Let’s start with why BABD even posts examples of “empowered men”.
To us, the intent of showing men in skimpy/sexualized armor is satire through contrast. The “Women NEED to be sexy (read: show a lot of skin and do sultry poses)” mentality is so deeply ingrained in our culture that many just assume it to be the natural order of things, that “sexyness” is inherent part of the female gender. But not of the male one.
The “This is NOT a man!” reactions to the initial Mobius Final Fantasy protagonist design come from this line of thinking. Dudebros refuse to accept that men can be unironically sexualized.
Funnily, it’s often paired with the insistence that any shirtless man balances out all the scantily clad ladies. As long as he’s not too sexy, that is. Textbook doublethink.
With such widespread double standard, it takes reversing the scenario to highlight its inherent problem. The big picture gets clearer when the shoe is on the other foot.
GIF source (x)
That’s why blogs/movements like @theliberationofmanfire, @thehawkeyeinitiative or @magicmeatweek were created. And why we post sexy male warriors every Friday. To make men empathize with women’s problem.
Comic source (x)
As for the empowerment itself, we discussed before that both women and men can feel empowered in various ways, but media skews it strongly based on gender stereotypes: women in fiction usually draw power from being sexy, while men from being strong (and/or violent).
And while there’s slow shift towards giving women more varied representation, men (who have
otherwise
very diverse presence) rarely get to be the overtly sexy characters. And those who are usually get to be the villains, which feeds into “evil is sexy” trope as well as to villain gay coding, both ugly concepts that should die.
We have yet to see genuine, non-incidental sexy male empowerment in mainstream media that doesn’t come off as some sort of mockery.
~Ozzie
Also worth remembering that a lot of our commentary on sexy male armor is tongue-in-cheek parody of the kind of rhetoric we regularly receive in our ask box, in reblogs and in broad-spectrum posts that conflate us with other critics.
Because let be clear, if we tried to keep the “sexy male armor” tag stocked with images I came across naturally through my typical cishet male surfing, it wouldn’t happen every Friday or even every month.
But it seems we will never stop hearing that eighteen years ago a game with a villain in briefs was released, fourteen years ago a unpopular video game protagonist did a nudey run and sometimes they get funny feelings during the glimpses of male butt in spandex – so clearly the market is constantly over-saturated and it’s only fair every game have c-string clad warrior women in it.
– wincenworks
Hey, I’m just wondering, is the “male empowerment” a bad thing? Maybe I am just missing some of the subtleties, but, if I may be frank “So what?” I went through a few pages of the tag “Sexy Male Armor”, and I’m not sure what I should feel. From your tone, you often seemed like you were trying to show these costumes in a negative light. On the other hand, I saw JoJo and DIO, so I knew you weren’t saying they were bad.
While we touched upon the subject of male empowerment before, we never discussed it in detail. Also, our tone in sexy male armor posts shifts a lot between sarcasm and talking straight, so can I understand the confusion.
Let’s start with why BABD even posts examples of “empowered men”.
To us, the intent of showing men in skimpy/sexualized armor is satire through contrast. The “Women NEED to be sexy (read: show a lot of skin and do sultry poses)” mentality is so deeply ingrained in our culture that many just assume it to be the natural order of things, that “sexyness” is inherent part of the female gender. But not of the male one.
The “This is NOT a man!” reactions to the initial Mobius Final Fantasy protagonist design come from this line of thinking. Dudebros refuse to accept that men can be unironically sexualized.
Funnily, it’s often paired with the insistence that any shirtless man balances out all the scantily clad ladies. As long as he’s not too sexy, that is. Textbook doublethink.
With such widespread double standard, it takes reversing the scenario to highlight its inherent problem. The big picture gets clearer when the shoe is on the other foot.
GIF source (x)
That’s why blogs/movements like @theliberationofmanfire, @thehawkeyeinitiative or @magicmeatweek were created. And why we post sexy male warriors every Friday. To make men empathize with women’s problem.
Comic source (x)
As for the empowerment itself, we discussed before that both women and men can feel empowered in various ways, but media skews it strongly based on gender stereotypes: women in fiction usually draw power from being sexy, while men from being strong (and/or violent).
And while there’s slow shift towards giving women more varied representation, men (who have
otherwise
very diverse presence) rarely get to be the overtly sexy characters. And those who are usually get to be the villains, which feeds into “evil is sexy” trope as well as to villain gay coding, both ugly concepts that should die.
We have yet to see genuine, non-incidental sexy male empowerment in mainstream media that doesn’t come off as some sort of mockery.
~Ozzie
Also worth remembering that a lot of our commentary on sexy male armor is tongue-in-cheek parody of the kind of rhetoric we regularly receive in our ask box, in reblogs and in broad-spectrum posts that conflate us with other critics.
Because let be clear, if we tried to keep the “sexy male armor” tag stocked with images I came across naturally through my typical cishet male surfing, it wouldn’t happen every Friday or even every month.
But it seems we will never stop hearing that eighteen years ago a game with a villain in briefs was released, fourteen years ago a unpopular video game protagonist did a nudey run and sometimes they get funny feelings during the glimpses of male butt in spandex – so clearly the market is constantly over-saturated and it’s only fair every game have c-string clad warrior women in it.
– wincenworks
Tidy Up Tuesday #12
This week tidying-up:
To anyone who says BABD is shaming women who like to dress their female game characters in skimpy gear: we challenge you to find a single post where we say that. Go, look it up! We’ll wait.
When submitting, please remember that this blog’s primary concern is warrior costume design. Art where contorted anatomy, not the costume, is the problem is more appropriate as a submission to @eschergirls.
Inquiries covered before on the blog:
- Why shirtless male characters do not level out
sexualization of female characters in impossible bras
(do we still have to reiterate this?) - While Blizzard does some token effort to improve, they still don’t seem fully committed to positive change.
- Captain Phasma
- This sexy holy knight (NSFW)
~Ozzie & – wincenworks
Tidy Up Tuesday #12
This week tidying-up:
To anyone who says BABD is shaming women who like to dress their female game characters in skimpy gear: we challenge you to find a single post where we say that. Go, look it up! We’ll wait.
When submitting, please remember that this blog’s primary concern is warrior costume design. Art where contorted anatomy, not the costume, is the problem is more appropriate as a submission to @eschergirls.
Inquiries covered before on the blog:
- Why shirtless male characters do not level out
sexualization of female characters in impossible bras
(do we still have to reiterate this?) - While Blizzard does some token effort to improve, they still don’t seem fully committed to positive change.
- Captain Phasma
- This sexy holy knight (NSFW)
~Ozzie & – wincenworks
Concerning my previous ask: I think it’s time we stop beating around the bush and ask the real question that has been looming. What makes a guy sexy to women? What is the “t ‘n’ a” of men? What makes Conan different from Jacob from Twilight?
Well we do have a tag… but okay. (This was the previous ask)
Well, the most obvious differences between Conan and Jacob is that Conan was what his creator, Robert E Howard (who struggled his entire life with the pressures of society and toxic masculinity) not-secretly-at-all yearned to be and Jacob is the Stephanie Meyer’s idea of semi-exotic potential boyfriend. Check out this classic depiction of Conan by Frank Frazetta and try to remember the last time you saw a guy like this on the cover of a romance novel.
What makes guys sexy to women (physically)?
Well, it turns out since women are not a monolith and women don’t get to dictate beauty standards for men there’s no real standard.
Research has shown that men in general overestimate how much muscle women find attractive. They also tend to overestimate the importance and the preferred size of penises. (Seriously guys, don’t send unsolicited dick pics and don’t expect bragging about ridiculous endowment to help you)
Honestly though, the notion that you have to adhere to beauty standards in order to make a character attractive is kind of ridiculous. I mean, butts are sexualized across genders. Feeling comfortable pressed up against someone and kissing them is usually a plus. Looking like they may find you interesting as a person or want to impress you are definite help.
When designing a sexy male character: Leave the books about primary and secondary characteristics alone and forget about what manly men say a man should be like and ask, “What’s she going to like in this guy?”
Nothing is genuinely universally attractive, but at least this way you have a chance that the audience will see the appeal even it’s not for them.
– wincenworks
Gendered power fantasies and costume design | Male characters are not sexualized the same
Concerning my previous ask: I think it’s time we stop beating around the bush and ask the real question that has been looming. What makes a guy sexy to women? What is the “t ‘n’ a” of men? What makes Conan different from Jacob from Twilight?
Well we do have a tag… but okay. (This was the previous ask)
Well, the most obvious differences between Conan and Jacob is that Conan was what his creator, Robert E Howard (who struggled his entire life with the pressures of society and toxic masculinity) not-secretly-at-all yearned to be and Jacob is the Stephanie Meyer’s idea of semi-exotic potential boyfriend. Check out this classic depiction of Conan by Frank Frazetta and try to remember the last time you saw a guy like this on the cover of a romance novel.
What makes guys sexy to women (physically)?
Well, it turns out since women are not a monolith and women don’t get to dictate beauty standards for men there’s no real standard.
Research has shown that men in general overestimate how much muscle women find attractive. They also tend to overestimate the importance and the preferred size of penises. (Seriously guys, don’t send unsolicited dick pics and don’t expect bragging about ridiculous endowment to help you)
Honestly though, the notion that you have to adhere to beauty standards in order to make a character attractive is kind of ridiculous. I mean, butts are sexualized across genders. Feeling comfortable pressed up against someone and kissing them is usually a plus. Looking like they may find you interesting as a person or want to impress you are definite help.
When designing a sexy male character: Leave the books about primary and secondary characteristics alone and forget about what manly men say a man should be like and ask, “What’s she going to like in this guy?”
Nothing is genuinely universally attractive, but at least this way you have a chance that the audience will see the appeal even it’s not for them.
– wincenworks
Gendered power fantasies and costume design | Male characters are not sexualized the same
Hey, I was just looking at that rule 63 Power Girl, and it got me thinking. Why do people, when they make these types of rule 63, focus on the primary sexual characteristics, and not the secondary? If you were to make a rule 63 of the rule 63 Power Girl, you would need to give her a huge clitoris/vulva.
(source)
Whether something classifies as a primary or secondary characteristic is mostly only of interest to biologists and people involved in medicine. The classification refers purely to biological matters and development during puberty.
If someone were to make a Rule 63 of the Rule 63 would look like Power Girl, because massive genitalia is not what society considers “sexy” in women – but massive boobs are.
What’s really interesting to me is the disregard for all the other aspects involved. For example, Power Boy’s lips remain full and kissable but his upper body is more bulked than Power Girl – but not as ripped and chiseled as conventional super heroes are.
– wincenworks
Hey, I was just looking at that rule 63 Power Girl, and it got me thinking. Why do people, when they make these types of rule 63, focus on the primary sexual characteristics, and not the secondary? If you were to make a rule 63 of the rule 63 Power Girl, you would need to give her a huge clitoris/vulva.
(source)
Whether something classifies as a primary or secondary characteristic is mostly only of interest to biologists and people involved in medicine. The classification refers purely to biological matters and development during puberty.
If someone were to make a Rule 63 of the Rule 63 would look like Power Girl, because massive genitalia is not what society considers “sexy” in women – but massive boobs are.
What’s really interesting to me is the disregard for all the other aspects involved. For example, Power Boy’s lips remain full and kissable but his upper body is more bulked than Power Girl – but not as ripped and chiseled as conventional super heroes are.
– wincenworks
