reply – Page 3 – Bikini Armor Battle Damage

February 22, 2015

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.

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

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

February 22, 2015

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.

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

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.

~Ozzie

January 8, 2015April 23, 2018

January 5, 2015

What if I just think Final Fantasy has bad costume design in general, regardless of sex? Or damn near any Square game? Is it okay to think that?

Seems to me it’s okay to think that, especially since we very much agree that FF has LOTS of horrendous female costumes to offer as well.
But it’s not so fine if you only voice that opinion with the male characters.
It’s really suspicious how people get vocal with “I don’t like it because of bad design” only when a dude is shown in skimpy armor, even though there are plenty more ridiculous female costumes to pick apart.

In the context of sexualized male armor, how much comparison do we actually have? Almost none.

How does male sexualization go “right”, then? There’s barely any standard to hold on to. So much so, that many people think that skimpiness itself is inherently feminine.

I have said already (and still stand by it), we’ve seen so many ugly-as-hell female armors in mainstream games that I do not mind if the first prominent sexy male armor in a while gets to be badly designed. We need to catch up on all kinds of skimpy male armor, “good” and “bad” alike, anyway.

Also, personally I really don’t find it bad in FF standards. The franchise always liked their costumes ridiculously over the top and silly, so this thing is actually not that unusual for them.
Part of the joke of our post was the fact how epicly the dudebros overreacted to a design that was just natural progression from how older Final Fantasy bishounen looked.

Anyway, to answer what you were actually trying to pursue with that question: everyone’s perfectly entitled to personally find that character (if not all FF visuals) bad design-wise, but it would be advised if they kept that opinion, well, personal.*

Skimpy male armor is so scarce in mainstream media that there is no way to criticize any particular one without sounding as if you found the mere concept of a man in sexy armor bad.
And, if you asked me, that concept, unlike the concept of sexy female armor, is not bad, it is subversive and therefore sheds light at the inherent problem of skimpy female armor.

~Ozzie

* Is is also advised to examine thoroughly what exactly makes the design supposedly “bad” to you.
If you (likely) discover that it’s the same element that makes the design “sexy”, then you officially missed the point.

PS: Regarding your other message concerning Japan’s sensibilities, I’d advice you to read this post.

December 23, 2014

We need to talk

Well we don’t really, these concerns are covered in the FAQ but since we’re still getting the outrage for our noble work – let’s have some fun!

Bring out contestant number one! Sorry, I already forgot your name!

Firstly I (the straight cis man known as wincenworks) love the assumption that it’s only women who are enjoying our Sexy Male Armor Fridays because a fairly hefty proportion of them are made by and for gay or otherwise queer men. It actually takes quite a bit of work to find them even on video game mod sites and art sites.

Meanwhile all I have to do to see women being objectified is open up Steam or visit my local comic book shop. It’s everywhere. In everything. It’s the predominant image of heroines and strong female characters.

So to answer your question, when we ever start to reach a reality where male characters aren’t considered worthwhile unless they conform to a very narrow beauty standard then we can start worrying about objectification of men. If that ever happens and isn’t immediately backpedaled over.

And now for our second concerned citizen! Sorry I forgot who you are too.

I can only assume this refers to one or more of the many “empowered” jokes that we make both on sexy male armor posts and others. This because the fallacy that it is somehow a power fantasy for women to conform to ridiculously demanding and implausible beauty standards.

High heels, thongs, push-up bras the flaunt cleavage, bared belly buttons and bedroom eyes often aren’t even used to to signal heightened sexuality in a female character – they’re just there as some sort of a “be sexy so boys will like you, remember you’re empowered” uniform. The top priority is still making straight men feel the character is made for them in particular.

Various media love spins of trying to excuse hypersexualizing women such as weaponized femininity, "she’s so powerful“ and a whole bunch of other things. But very rarely does it have anything to do female characters actually having power, doing what they want and not conforming to society’s demanding expectations.

James Bond gets to be powerful, sexy and use his sexual appeal to get what he wants too. But he also gets to do it while wearing awesome suits,having a charming personality and doing lots of things just because he wants to (as well as his super cool job). Not many female characters get this kind of opportunity.

So really it’s not that there’s not a relationship between sex and power, it’s just there’s a very limited relationship between hypersexualized female armor and power.

– wincenworks

November 11, 2014

I remember scrolling through your blog a while ago and it had a short comic like thing that showed how women would would put on kevlar armor but for the life of me I can’t find it. I need for reference material.

I think you’re referring to this reblog.

Important thing we’ve been noted regarding that comic: breast binding with bandages is a big no-no!
Compression bandage is designed rather to reduce blood flow to the wounds than to change the body shape; using it to contain a perfectly healthy body part may cause serious circulation issues and/or, with prolonged use, deformation. Sports bras or special binders are the healthier, preferred option for keeping one’s boobs in place.

Answering publicly so we can get the word out about the binding problem.

~Ozzie

more info RE: chest binding

November 3, 2014

I’d always thought that Angemon was shirtless, and the only thing he was wearing aside from the helmet was a loincloth and boots, but I can see now that he is basically wearing a vacuum-sealed morphsuit in addition. I’d personally argue that Angewomon’s outfit was never intended to represent armor in any case(though I’m not sure what it WAS supposed to represent) oh, and at least Ophanimon’s evil form(Falldown mode) doesn’t have the belly window though if it directly translates it might have

the metal directly on skin problem

RE: Angewomon’s bingo description

Yes, that’s exactly how it looks to me. Thank you for understanding that!

We got some replies from readers who didn’t seem to notice that there’s skin-colored part of Angemon’s face visible, which suggest he’s wearing a skin-tight white bodysuit all over.

I’d even be willing to reconsider, if not for Angewomon, whose design is obviously inspired by his. She definitely wears a strapless one-legged costume with random parts cut out to show her skin. Even her transformation sequence confirms:

So, considering Angemon is her male equivalent, same principle applies: the white stuff is skin-tight clothing, not the character’s skin.

TL;DR: Angemon is not shirtless.

As for her clothes not representing armor, we got that point covered here. As long as she fights looking like that, it counts as a bingo material 😉
Also, she’s wearing a helmet, so at least that part is supposed to imply protection.

And yeah, it’s kind of weird that the evil version of Ophanimon (Angewomon’s ultimate form) is the only fully-covered one. What a bizarre exception.

~Ozzie

November 1, 2014April 23, 2018

August 21, 2014

karniz replied to your post “have you seen the armor for characters on Diablo III, and if so, what’s your opinion on them?

Why do you guys just look at concept/promo art and not actual in-game armors? The actual armor within DIII is very well designed and not as sexualized as the samples you show. I feel it’s a disservice to your viewers that you don’t do more research..

Oh wow, you’re telling me that the promotional material Blizzard creates to market Diablo 3 are completely misleading and non-representative of the game… and not only has nobody mentioned this before but somehow it’s my fault?

Wow, I better look into that right away. Thankfully there’s always YouTube to provide us with Let’s Play videos so I can take screenshots that look slightly off since the live footage is always in motion and was never intended for still frames!

I bet the the in game models look completely different. I bet they’re huge and so detailed that you’d be a fool to look at anything but what the actual in game play looks like. It’d be ridiculous to propose that Diablo figures are displayed, by default, so tiny that you can’t make out any real detail beyond basic colours and silhouette right!?

Oh… well never mind! The first thing you do when you start one of these games is create a character. Obviously the Barbarian models in character creation will be completely different to those used in promotion and the ones that someone made gifs (from gameplay) of!

(Full size)

Oh wow… what a co-incidence! Oh well, there’s always the Demon Hunter right? It’d be ridiculous to think that they’d use that stupid stance where she poses one leg in front of the other, sacrificing her balance to flaunt her hips! Or have her arms posed to both look like a she’s trying to be an action movie star and draw attention to her boobs. That’d never…

(Full size)

Wait a minute… does this game actually have all the problems previous suggested? Is it possible I just use promotional art and cleaned up gifs because they are easier to read and communicates clearer?

Is it possible that this kind of rampant double standard and objectification of women is so common in gaming that many people just assume it’s justified and normal? And that it’s long overdue people called it out and didn’t just forgive games because there were a few good examples in it if you looked? Or even games where it’s mostly good with some outrageously bad items used in marketing?

Outrageous! Someone should start a blog about this kind of thing… they could even like, make some sort of checkbox game to help illustrate the point!

– wincenworks

July 15, 2014

Hi there! So I’ve been researching female armors lately, and I’d like your help to clarify something if possible. Is the classical woebegone “boobplate” totally unfeasible/impractical in reality, or is it just unnecessary but still functional? What I’m having in mind here isn’t the ice-cream-scoops one with a cleavage but rather one solid steel piece over the chest, like a B-cup armor instead of the A-cup unisex one. Thank you!

There’s been a lot of discussion on how functional boobplate is (barring the most extreme cases of dangerous cleavage), the biggest consensus seems to be that creating breastplate that fits the form of boobs adds unnecessary work for the armorer and no noticeable benefits to the wearer (but lots of potential problems).

As for “unisex” armor being A-cup… it’s really not true. Most of standard combat-ready breastplates include a lot of place for chests of most sizes, especially because there’s lots of padding required unbeneath, which may act as additional binding to the breasts.

For more details, go into boobplate tag, especially posts tagged also as acticle.

~Ozzie