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Dead Island PR come up with most appalling idea in history of gaming PR

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  • ToasticusToasticus yeah YEAHRegistered User regular
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    If you think "mutilated section of a woman's body on display" and "naked woman having sex" are in any way interchangeable or even comparable, you have some fundamental (and seriously disturbing) problems.

    Women are not their torsos, and it's not okay to reduce them to being such. That's kind of the whole point here.

  • DrezDrez Registered User regular
    Fawst wrote: »
    I'd argue that you don't have the power to change either thing. You can stand up against those things and voice your dissent, and you can try to promote understanding about it but in the end conflict and sexual attraction are natural instincts in humans. It's hard to fight nature. I'm not saying you can't try because that would be defeatist and stupid. I'm also not saying that it's in man's nature to sexually objectify women, but it IS in their nature to be aroused.

    So then why are you fighting so hard against us trying?

    And nobody is arguing in favor of an erectionless society. But we don't need to be giving people titty torsos to facilitate their erections, either.

    And beyond that, this isn't just misogynistic, it's misandrist too. Who the fuck finds this kind of thing attractive? Assuming the goal here was to appeal to my sexuality to entice me to buy the collector's edition, I don't think these marketing imps understand much more about men than they do about women. The whole thing is offensive on every conceivable level.

    Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
  • SoundsPlushSoundsPlush yup, back. Registered User regular
    Disrupter wrote: »
    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Broadly speaking, people probably don't have a problem with the existence of porn, a domain purposefully comprised of 99% objectification fantasy without all but the flimsiest pretense to anything else, just like people don't have a problem with sexuality or boobs or whatever else you mistake people's offense for. Having those same ideas pervade wider culture and show up everywhere regardless of reason or purpose or anything else is a problem and shapes gender views in all sorts of people who aren't even thinking about porn for a flicker. I mean, the fact that exaggerated and obsessive porn imagery is normal for one gender is pretty fucked up in the first place.
    Fawst wrote: »
    Again, I'm going back to the semantics argument and the etymology of the word, "hatred of women."

    Perhaps you should look at the etymology of gender while you're at it, and the evolution of that term through a few decades of discourse. In the mean time, let's drop the semantics. You never answered my question. Do you think this is sexist or not? You've said it is and it isn't.

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  • FawstFawst The road to awe.Registered User regular
    Drez wrote: »
    Fawst wrote: »
    Drez wrote: »
    So yes people who just sit there not giving a shit are not only a problem, they are THE problem, and maybe they should feel bad about it.

    One of my main annoyances with this line of thinking is that it implies that men/women enjoying the female/male form is a bad thing. I'm not sorry to say that I do indeed enjoy the female form. A lot. There is a chemical reaction in my brain that triggers when I see something that appeals to me. And I'm supposed to feel bad about it? (Now, before it gets weird, let me clarify that I do NOT have that reaction to the statue.)

    What is the endgame? OK, let's get rid of overemphasizing the female and male form (I refuse to accept that this is a one-sided problem, but I'm also not using it as a defense of bad behavior -- before anyone goes off on a tangent) and hypersexualization. Is emphasizing the female and male form OK? Is a little titillation OK? I don't think I understand where the goal line is in this struggle. Someone earlier said "females wearing normal clothes would be a start." It would be. What's the finish?

    I enjoy the female form a great deal. You can enjoy the female form without approving of dismembered titty statues as video game swag.

    Attraction and appreciation does not automatically equal obectification.

    Thank you for saying that, because the impression I'm getting from a lot of people is that the opposite is true. I feel like people would argue that by "ogling," or to a less creepy extent "visually appreciating," the female form, you are ignoring the other things that make up that female (like feelings, etc.) and thus it's misogyny. Now do you see why I hate that word and don't think it applies in all situations? It seems like people would like to think it DOES apply at all times.

  • SoundsPlushSoundsPlush yup, back. Registered User regular
    What bothers me isn't that this statue was a deliberate act of malice perpetrated by cackling game developers who twirled their moustaches and rubbed their hands together in glee at the idea of women being brutally oppressed.

    It's the utter oblivious thoughtlessness towards the fact that people other than 16 year old boys might want to play their game. I've been playing games since I was four years old. I've sunk a few dozen hours into the first Left 4 Dead and I'm a huge Borderlands 2 fan. If they played their cards right, then this is a game that I might check out. But the idea of there being women (or men who are interested in sharing their interests with women) interested in the game doesn't even factor into the radar, because when figuring out the goodies for their collectible edition for fans, they throw in a pair of tits in a box.

    It's an utter disregard for the fact that women play games and might be quite interested in this. It'd be like if for an Avengers game the preorder bonus was a statue of Captain America's torso, pecs, and abs and junk and his clothes ripped away by alien forces because 'that's what the fans want'. Except, it's this Dead Island shit, over and over and over again, that reminds us women that we're not really a factor in the whole making games thing. It's a thousand little things like that - some of them way worse than others. Sarah Kerrigan has biological heels to make sure her ass looks just right. League of Legends characters are spilling out of their clothes. Soul Calibur ads are just Ivy's tits and ass, because that's what the fans want.

    Women are invisible to developers, and we're contending with a culture where I choose gender neutral names for my characters so I don't get rape threats and hit on. I can't use voice chat with random people because I'm opening myself up for harassment, I gotta get a feel for their character first. People I've been having a grand old time with turn around and send me pictures of their dick as soon as they find out I'm a woman. Anita Sarkseesian gets death threats and photoshopped pictures of her beaten and bruised.

    It'd be nice if, out of this entire culture where we're continually invisible at best and shit on at worst, the developers could give us the barest of considerations.

    This is a good post that got BoTP'ed.

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  • DisrupterDisrupter Registered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Disrupter, the post immediately above yours outlines some absolute bare minimum reasons why this is bad:
    [W]hat should at best be a sex shop fetish piece being shipped as a collector's edition bonus in a (mainstream!) game as if it was normal speaks of an incredibly sick culture.

    Well, an argument as to whether or not its appropriate in the main stream is different than whether or not its existence is offensive. Most of the discussion ive seen (admittedly, I have skimmed) seems to imply the product itself is a problem.
    Liking "boobs" over liking attractive women is also somewhat endemic to the problem. You like the part, not the person by this logic. I don't know if that's the case of it is just the rhetoric, but both aren't exactly respectful to women as people.

    Yes, I will admit, I like the physical features of an attractive women independently of my liking that woman. I could absolutely loathe a person but still recognize they have attractive features. I could meet a girl I 100% do not get along with as a person, and still think she has an attractive face, or appealing breasts.

    Also, this thing isnt a person, this thing IS just boobs. I guess its a whole torso, but I have a feeling the majority of the focus is on the boobs, as intended by those who created it.

    There is an argument to be made that such items in culture help perpetuate the idea that woman should just be reduced to those sexualized features. But I find that hard to swallow. Exploiting the sexual fantasies of men does not seem any worse to me than exploiting those violent fantasies in any video game ever.

    It seems as though our culture would like to point at stuff like film and TV and make jokes about how you can show 100 guys getting shot with a PG13 rating, but one nipple makes it rated R. But then we turn around and have a similar reaction in gaming.

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  • GrouchGrouch Registered User regular
    @MordaRazgrom - I don't (and didn't) think our opinions really diverged that much in terms of how best to interpret art. I also understand your hesitation to call this particular thing art--it can seem to elevate it to a status it may not deserve. I tend to view art as a pretty expansive category, though, and one that does not provide any shield against criticism. The sculpt is bad art, in pretty much every sense of the term.
    Fawst wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Fawst wrote: »
    Fawst wrote: »
    I care more about the witch hunt aspect to it than I do about the stupid statue, to be honest. And to continue being honest, I wanted someone crusading just as hard in the opposite direction to discuss it with, but they were too busy acting like they had a mandate from god to cast aside any attacks on their opinion.

    These are your words. You're starting to come across as less you being passionate about this and more just trolling at this point. :|

    You're right, and for that I AM sorry. I've been pulled so far away from my original point that it's getting cloudy. I'm trying to defend myself on a number of fronts for things that I am absolutely not guilty of and it's hard to keep focus in a situation like that.

    Taking it back to that core argument of the witch hunt, I feel like the word "misogyny" is the new "pornography." It's an ugly word that gets tossed around far too freely. The whole concept of "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" comes to mind. And this idea that people need to change the way things are, it's noble. It truly is. I don't disagree with it. I roll my eyes when I see things like a fantasy game where the woman is wearing a metal bikini that exposes her vital organs. I rolled my eyes at the large breasts on this statue. What I don't like is the derogatory nature of being called a misogynist because I don't think it IS misogyny. Again, words have definitions for a reason. I've been accused of arguing semantics, but if we abuse words without any regard for what they mean, why bother defining anything? Australia's major dictionary publisher recently just changed the definition to mean a "prejudice" against women instead of "hatred." I don't think even THAT definition applies here. Moreover, I think changing a definition that has been in existence for as long as that one has is asinine.

    This IS on me, however. I get that. But I'm so vehemently opposed to words being used incorrectly that it drives me crazy when I see stuff like this. Thus, the "witch hunt" comment. I feel like the anger that has been generated is justified but it's being miscategorized. People object to my objection, tempers flare, wit gets bandied about and then we reach this point.

    I'll say this much: I find it terribly curious that people here are so ready to stamp out misogyny that they want to boycott this game entirely, but violence in any form (which games CLEARLY glorify) are A-OK to purchase in general. But I shouldn't really make that point because as others have already pointed out "that's different."

    Well first:
    Misogyny (pron.: /mɪˈsɒdʒɪni/) is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women.[1][2] Misogyny has been characterised as a prominent feature of the mythologies of the ancient world as well as various religions. In addition, many influential Western philosophers have been described as misogynistic.[1] The male counterpart of misogyny is misandry, the hatred or dislike of men; the antonym of misogyny is philogyny, the love or fondness of women.

    I really don't want to go down this path again, but I'm a sucker. I've already explained that I don't believe that the existence of one proves the existence of the other. Meaning, in this case, with that above definition in mind, (taking the two items from that list that are the most applicable in this instance) violence against and sexual objectification of women does not mean that it is inherently hateful. Again, I'm going back to the semantics argument and the etymology of the word, "hatred of women." Taken in context, my defense is as follows:

    - The violence is (presumably) caused by zombies. Zombies do not hate. They just want to eat.
    - The sexuality is childish as can be, as I've pointed out MANY times. But contextually, it's a woman's body from a beach resort where every female has the same bust size (THAT is ridiculous, and yes, I see how it's "part of the problem") and she's wearing a bikini because beach. No hatred again.

    Now, the reasoning behind MAKING the statue? I can't prove that those idiots do or do not hate women but I'd guess that they don't.

    Hopefully this is not seen as idiotic, trolling, hateful or misogynistic (by anyone, not pointing fingers at you). It's an argument.
    Enc wrote: »
    Second, as previously mentioned violence in and of itself can serve many purposes. Violence against any population for the sheer purpose of violence is dumb. However, in most video games the concept of violence is the concept of conflict, of being faced with a challenge and overcoming it (often) with some sort of measured character growth for having done so (by statistics, points, plot, etc). The purpose of violence in video games is to present an essential challege and address it. This can be done well or horribly over the top depending upon context.

    The context of this statue is mutilating the corpse of a woman and then draping it's sexual organs in an objectifying. There is no conflict, purpose, progression or growth.

    I can understand your frustration, and in response to @UncleSporky I can understand the concept of being passive as not necessarily being complicit with crime. But context is also key here. If I am sitting in my home in the US I likely have little to no power to effectively take action to stop a warlord in Rawanda. However, pretty much anywhere there are women I have power to not treat them like a piece of meat to be oggled and to take action to ensure I and those around me also respect women.

    You do have power to change perceptions of gender here, so it's a false equivalency.

    I'd argue that you don't have the power to change either thing. You can stand up against those things and voice your dissent, and you can try to promote understanding about it but in the end conflict and sexual attraction are natural instincts in humans. It's hard to fight nature. I'm not saying you can't try because that would be defeatist and stupid. I'm also not saying that it's in man's nature to sexually objectify women, but it IS in their nature to be aroused visually. My point really was, by way of example, along the lines of "Black Ops 2 is one of the best selling games of the past year and no one really seems to care that it's a sad commentary on our nature as humans." And I was being snide about it, I'll admit that. ;)

    I hope you can at least acknowledge that you're insisting on something of an idiosyncratic understanding of misogyny there.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    edited January 2013
    Fawst wrote: »
    I really don't want to go down this path again, but I'm a sucker. I've already explained that I don't believe that the existence of one proves the existence of the other. Meaning, in this case, with that above definition in mind, (taking the two items from that list that are the most applicable in this instance) violence against and sexual objectification of women does not mean that it is inherently hateful. Again, I'm going back to the semantics argument and the etymology of the word, "hatred of women." Taken in context, my defense is as follows:

    - The violence is (presumably) caused by zombies. Zombies do not hate. They just want to eat.
    - The sexuality is childish as can be, as I've pointed out MANY times. But contextually, it's a woman's body from a beach resort where every female has the same bust size (THAT is ridiculous, and yes, I see how it's "part of the problem") and she's wearing a bikini because beach. No hatred again.

    Now, the reasoning behind MAKING the statue? I can't prove that those idiots do or do not hate women but I'd guess that they don't.

    Hopefully this is not seen as idiotic, trolling, hateful or misogynistic (by anyone, not pointing fingers at you). It's an argument.

    If you are looking in a very focused, in-universe lens in which this statue is an actual torso lying upon a beach with the head and arms having been eaten by actual zombies which are totally impartial to their selection of consumption and that this event just happened with no orchestration or programming by the game developers... then yes. Ok. In that context finding a corpse that looked this this statue might make sense.

    However, looking at the actual context: that a video game company that makes a game filled with women of this breast size is creating a statue to sell that is lacking head and arms as both a shock and sexualized statue for something to put on their desk beside their computer, presumably for enjoyment and sexual arousal... then how can you possibly say it is respectful or healthy?

    I think possibly a major difference in perspectives here might be your focus upon in-game realities as isolated from the actual argument. There is no Dead Island or woman lounging on the beach in a bikini doomed to be eaten by zombies. There is only the game and the statue... and those who chose to make the creative decisions to create such an object.
    Fawst wrote: »
    I'd argue that you don't have the power to change either thing. You can stand up against those things and voice your dissent, and you can try to promote understanding about it but in the end conflict and sexual attraction are natural instincts in humans. It's hard to fight nature. I'm not saying you can't try because that would be defeatist and stupid. I'm also not saying that it's in man's nature to sexually objectify women, but it IS in their nature to be aroused visually. My point really was, by way of example, along the lines of "Black Ops 2 is one of the best selling games of the past year and no one really seems to care that it's a sad commentary on our nature as humans." And I was being snide about it, I'll admit that. ;)

    You have the power to change your own actions from being passive and accepting to active and correcting. Unless you are saying that you, yourself lack any sort of agency in your own actions. Everyone has choices of what they can do. Don't conflat change with success, but don't just sit back and say you have no ability to respect women because you are aroused by them. Women are aroused by men as often as vice versa yet somehow they typically manage to keep from becoming staring hounds a-la a Tex Avery cartoon. Take some responsibility and do likewise.

    @oneangrypossum and @kias have already pointed out that fixations on specific body parts are less about biology and more about cultural focus, their arguments are better than I can write and I would encourage you to reread them.

    Enc on
  • DelphinidaesDelphinidaes FFXIV: Delphi Kisaragi Registered User regular
    What bothers me isn't that this statue was a deliberate act of malice perpetrated by cackling game developers who twirled their moustaches and rubbed their hands together in glee at the idea of women being brutally oppressed.

    It's the utter oblivious thoughtlessness towards the fact that people other than 16 year old boys might want to play their game. I've been playing games since I was four years old. I've sunk a few dozen hours into the first Left 4 Dead and I'm a huge Borderlands 2 fan. If they played their cards right, then this is a game that I might check out. But the idea of there being women (or men who are interested in sharing their interests with women) interested in the game doesn't even factor into the radar, because when figuring out the goodies for their collectible edition for fans, they throw in a pair of tits in a box.

    It's an utter disregard for the fact that women play games and might be quite interested in this. It'd be like if for an Avengers game the preorder bonus was a statue of Captain America's torso, pecs, and abs and junk and his clothes ripped away by alien forces because 'that's what the fans want'. Except, it's this Dead Island shit, over and over and over again, that reminds us women that we're not really a factor in the whole making games thing. It's a thousand little things like that - some of them way worse than others. Sarah Kerrigan has biological heels to make sure her ass looks just right. League of Legends characters are spilling out of their clothes. Soul Calibur ads are just Ivy's tits and ass, because that's what the fans want.

    Women are invisible to developers, and we're contending with a culture where I choose gender neutral names for my characters so I don't get rape threats and hit on. I can't use voice chat with random people because I'm opening myself up for harassment, I gotta get a feel for their character first. People I've been having a grand old time with turn around and send me pictures of their dick as soon as they find out I'm a woman. Anita Sarkseesian gets death threats and photoshopped pictures of her beaten and bruised.

    It'd be nice if, out of this entire culture where we're continually invisible at best and shit on at worst, the developers could give us the barest of considerations.

    Well said, however do you think this is something that has been static or is slowly changing for the better?

    I agree with pretty much everything you said with the caveat that I have noticed that there seems to be more considerations towards this exact issue than their used to be and more and more developers are taking this exact issue into account. (albeit at a snail's pace)

    I'm not dismissing this issue but I do think it is steadily getting better, despite giant steps back like this statue.

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  • MordaRazgromMordaRazgrom Морда Разгром Ruling the Taffer KingdomRegistered User regular
    I talk to much so you wouldn't think it, but I'm mostly a lurker. I have two little girls I'm raising and issues like this have certainly piqued my interest lately. I love the conversations, and I must say that I do enjoy reading posts from people who aren't "true believers" and the arguments. We get things done by arguing, we expand our knowledge by arguing. If we could be less callous then it would be wonderful, but, you know, personality is what it is and people will sling poop everywhere whether they mean to or not.

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  • BastableBastable Registered User regular
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    I like boobs too, I've paid for boobs both real and on film. I've had boobs for free both real and on film. I like pictures of women having sex with boobs attached. I like pictures of naked women with their tit's out. Some of it is awful and i delete and never watch it again, one porn film where it gets too real and the professional porn star starts crying can't go on, don't like that shit. Or pedofile porn or girls taking equines. Don't like that stuff existence does not validate it.

    You know what I've never had for free or wanted to pay for. Cutting up a girl so all that remains is her tits. Because my dear little goose that is fucking something else.

    Tell me how many porn film exist in your collection were dismembered torsos are being fucked or caressed. Perhaps you enjoy art exhibits made up out of dismembered girls in your basement or with a group of like minded psychopaths. Do you charge for viewing your dismembered girl collection, because apparently this is profitable.

    Way to miss the point.

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  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    Most women creating pornography are taking personal agency to perform in a sexual fashion. They are choosing to do so and embrace their sexuality, which is acceptable. Stripping a person from the sexual organs is not healthy. Creating a disembodied torso void of head and limb as a sexual fetishized object and marketing tool is also not healthy.

    Liking "boobs" over liking attractive women is also somewhat endemic to the problem. You like the part, not the person by this logic. I don't know if that's the case of it is just the rhetoric, but both aren't exactly respectful to women as people.

    I'm confused about why a statue of a torso is particularly unhealthy. Like, I get that it's gross because it's gory; gross + sexy =/= sexy. That's pretty straight-forward. But out of context of the gore, what's wrong with a torso statue? I'm trying but I'm not seeing what differentiates a statue of a female torso from a statue of a male torso or a bust of either gender or a statue of any other partial body. Would it be less problematic if the statue had a head? If not, what differentiates it from the Venus de Milo in terms of content, other than that this one has a top on? Honestly if they'd gone with a statue that had a zombie face and hacked off arms as a Venus parody I'd have thought the thing was pretty clever.

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  • Dark Raven XDark Raven X Laugh hard, run fast, be kindRegistered User regular
    Wow.

    To go from the first Dead Island trailer; the reverse zombie girl's death, to this?

    Gotta assume the entire PR department was in fact consumed and replaced by zombies.

    Maybe they got the wrong impression and thought people loved that trailer because violence is fucking awesome so lets put some more of that into the new one's marketing?

    Oh brilliant
  • DisrupterDisrupter Registered User regular
    Toasticus wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    If you think "mutilated section of a woman's body on display" and "naked woman having sex" are in any way interchangeable or even comparable, you have some fundamental (and seriously disturbing) problems.

    Women are not their torsos, and it's not okay to reduce them to being such. That's kind of the whole point here.

    If you think "naked woman having sex" is all porn is, you are mistaken. What people do and do not find sexually attractive really shouldn't be the point. I do not find this sexually attractive, I find it squeemish. But I also find furries to be weird and gross me out. I also would look away from two men kissing. What i personally find attractive doesn't matter.

    Women are not their torsos. But I don't see a problem with only focusing on said torso for your personal sexual gratification. Now if all you focus on during your interaction with said person is your own personal sexual gratification, then there becomes a problem. But I don't see this torso statue causing men to be confused and to stop having meaningful interaction with women outside of those of a sexual nature.

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  • FawstFawst The road to awe.Registered User regular
    So then why are you fighting so hard against us trying?

    I'm not!!! Oh man, how many times do I have to point out that I think that people are calling it misogyny when I disagree with that and think that's the wrong word! FUCK, I am NOT repeating myself on this ever again!

  • Dread Pirate ArbuthnotDread Pirate Arbuthnot OMG WRIGGLY T O X O P L A S M O S I SRegistered User regular
    What bothers me isn't that this statue was a deliberate act of malice perpetrated by cackling game developers who twirled their moustaches and rubbed their hands together in glee at the idea of women being brutally oppressed.

    It's the utter oblivious thoughtlessness towards the fact that people other than 16 year old boys might want to play their game. I've been playing games since I was four years old. I've sunk a few dozen hours into the first Left 4 Dead and I'm a huge Borderlands 2 fan. If they played their cards right, then this is a game that I might check out. But the idea of there being women (or men who are interested in sharing their interests with women) interested in the game doesn't even factor into the radar, because when figuring out the goodies for their collectible edition for fans, they throw in a pair of tits in a box.

    It's an utter disregard for the fact that women play games and might be quite interested in this. It'd be like if for an Avengers game the preorder bonus was a statue of Captain America's torso, pecs, and abs and junk and his clothes ripped away by alien forces because 'that's what the fans want'. Except, it's this Dead Island shit, over and over and over again, that reminds us women that we're not really a factor in the whole making games thing. It's a thousand little things like that - some of them way worse than others. Sarah Kerrigan has biological heels to make sure her ass looks just right. League of Legends characters are spilling out of their clothes. Soul Calibur ads are just Ivy's tits and ass, because that's what the fans want.

    Women are invisible to developers, and we're contending with a culture where I choose gender neutral names for my characters so I don't get rape threats and hit on. I can't use voice chat with random people because I'm opening myself up for harassment, I gotta get a feel for their character first. People I've been having a grand old time with turn around and send me pictures of their dick as soon as they find out I'm a woman. Anita Sarkseesian gets death threats and photoshopped pictures of her beaten and bruised.

    It'd be nice if, out of this entire culture where we're continually invisible at best and shit on at worst, the developers could give us the barest of considerations.

    Well said, however do you think this is something that has been static or is slowly changing for the better?

    I agree with pretty much everything you said with the caveat that I have noticed that there seems to be more considerations towards this exact issue than their used to be and more and more developers are taking this exact issue into account. (albeit at a snail's pace)

    I'm not dismissing this issue but I do think it is steadily getting better, despite giant steps back like this statue.

    From my perspective it's hard to measure progress against my 12 year history of playing games, just because the Internet has thrown a giant monkey wrench into it. I remember being a kid and playing video games, and it was just a thing. No one really cared, and I talked to other kids about it, and all we had to say was how much we liked Ocarina of Time or whether Yoshi really existed in Super Mario 64, shit like that.

    Then THE INTERNET happened, and things got drastically worse very fast.

    I do think it's getting better. The developers of the most recent Halo game have been banning people for crossing the line on gender. On a whim I accepted an invite to a guild in the Secret World and their guild note of the day was a reminder not to use 'rape' or 'gay' to mean 'defeated' or 'lame'. That was really nice. I can log onto the Penny Arcade Vent and play League with some people from the board. That's nice too. Bioware is a developer that seems to work hard on gender and sexuality and tries to get it right.

    There are bastions away from this shit in gaming, otherwise I wouldn't play. It's getting better. It's just frustrating getting there.

  • DelphinidaesDelphinidaes FFXIV: Delphi Kisaragi Registered User regular
    Wow.

    To go from the first Dead Island trailer; the reverse zombie girl's death, to this?

    Gotta assume the entire PR department was in fact consumed and replaced by zombies.

    Maybe they got the wrong impression and thought people loved that trailer because violence is fucking awesome so lets put some more of that into the new one's marketing?

    To be fair I really doubt the people in charge of making the trailer cinematic were the same people who designed a limited release statue only to be sent to the UK and Australian market Collector's editions. There may be some guy who greenlights it that overlaps between the two but we really have no idea how much overlap there was, if any.

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  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    So when I first saw that...thing, I though "well it's dumb but I don't see the sexism"

    After reading a good portion of the thread, I can now say that I do indeed see the sexism.

    Thank you for making me a better human being. Yeah Progress!

  • DrezDrez Registered User regular
    Disrupter wrote: »
    Toasticus wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    If you think "mutilated section of a woman's body on display" and "naked woman having sex" are in any way interchangeable or even comparable, you have some fundamental (and seriously disturbing) problems.

    Women are not their torsos, and it's not okay to reduce them to being such. That's kind of the whole point here.

    If you think "naked woman having sex" is all porn is, you are mistaken. What people do and do not find sexually attractive really shouldn't be the point. I do not find this sexually attractive, I find it squeemish. But I also find furries to be weird and gross me out. I also would look away from two men kissing. What i personally find attractive doesn't matter.

    Women are not their torsos. But I don't see a problem with only focusing on said torso for your personal sexual gratification. Now if all you focus on during your interaction with said person is your own personal sexual gratification, then there becomes a problem. But I don't see this torso statue causing men to be confused and to stop having meaningful interaction with women outside of those of a sexual nature.

    Fuck porn. This has nothing to do with porn.

    This is a literal reduction of the image of a woman to a pair or tits. The product in question is tits and only tits.

    That is the problem here.

    Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
  • Squidget0Squidget0 Registered User regular
    This statue is just atrociously bad marketing. I'm amazed that the same company that made the original Dead Island trailer would make this. I'm normally pretty sympathetic to the idea of targeting ads towards specific groups, but I have no idea who the target for this is supposed to be.

  • GrouchGrouch Registered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    Most women creating pornography are taking personal agency to perform in a sexual fashion. They are choosing to do so and embrace their sexuality, which is acceptable. Stripping a person from the sexual organs is not healthy. Creating a disembodied torso void of head and limb as a sexual fetishized object and marketing tool is also not healthy.

    Liking "boobs" over liking attractive women is also somewhat endemic to the problem. You like the part, not the person by this logic. I don't know if that's the case of it is just the rhetoric, but both aren't exactly respectful to women as people.

    I'm confused about why a statue of a torso is particularly unhealthy. Like, I get that it's gross because it's gory; gross + sexy =/= sexy. That's pretty straight-forward. But out of context of the gore, what's wrong with a torso statue? I'm trying but I'm not seeing what differentiates a statue of a female torso from a statue of a male torso or a bust of either gender or a statue of any other partial body. Would it be less problematic if the statue had a head? If not, what differentiates it from the Venus de Milo in terms of content, other than that this one has a top on? Honestly if they'd gone with a statue that had a zombie face and hacked off arms as a Venus parody I'd have thought the thing was pretty clever.

    A torso sculpture is not necessarily problematic on its own. A torso sculpture of a mutilated corpse that has features to arouse lust and disgust simultaneously and in roughly equal measures, on the other hand...

    That said, if this sculpture had a head with a relatively intact face, it might not be quite so bad. (It would still be pretty bad.)

  • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    Fawst wrote: »
    So then why are you fighting so hard against us trying?

    I'm not!!! Oh man, how many times do I have to point out that I think that people are calling it misogyny when I disagree with that and think that's the wrong word! FUCK, I am NOT repeating myself on this ever again!

    we get you think that

    we've pointed out that you're wrong; objectification is the biggest part of misogyny

    you continue to insist that it is only ONE THING, the conscious hatred of women.

    it is not

    your semantics argument is tired and repeatedly disproven. find another tact or give up.

  • SoundsPlushSoundsPlush yup, back. Registered User regular
    Fawst wrote: »
    So then why are you fighting so hard against us trying?

    I'm not!!! Oh man, how many times do I have to point out that I think that people are calling it misogyny when I disagree with that and think that's the wrong word! FUCK, I am NOT repeating myself on this ever again!

    That was Drez's quote, not mine. Mine is the one where I ask you to leave the irrelevant word choice argument aside and say whether you think this is sexist or not.

    s7Imn5J.png
  • FawstFawst The road to awe.Registered User regular
    Fawst wrote: »
    Again, I'm going back to the semantics argument and the etymology of the word, "hatred of women."

    Perhaps you should look at the etymology of gender while you're at it, and the evolution of that term through a few decades of discourse. In the mean time, let's drop the semantics. You never answered my question. Do you think this is sexist or not? You've said it is and it isn't.

    I checked, the only instance I can find of myself calling it sexist is one in which I then recanted by saying "I don't think 'sexist' is even the right word" or something along those lines. I called it childish after that. Did I call it sexist elsewhere? I'm no stranger to contradicting myself, I'll admit that. But to answer your question, no, I don't find it sexist. I do find it childish and immature.

    Look, I'm going to put this out there because there's a ton of confusion on my stance: I AGREE THAT IT IS STUPID. I agree that it's a foolish move on their part. I see how people could be offended by it, but I myself am not, nor do I begrudge anyone else their offense. I don't want to own one. I think it makes gamers look pathetic because to the lame outsider, they're going to see it and say "It's related to games, that OBVIOUSLY means that all gamers like this sick sort of thing!" I see how it continues a tradition of stupidly glorifying sex in a bad way, across ALL mediums.

    And now that I've written that, the more I think about it, I find that it's pretty cool that the game industry, one which is looked down upon in general, is the most vocal and active when it comes to this "movement" (outside of feminism, of course). Wouldn't that be a great thing if gamers led that charge and were able to pull something off?

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Fawst wrote: »
    Thank you for saying that, because the impression I'm getting from a lot of people is that the opposite is true. I feel like people would argue that by "ogling," or to a less creepy extent "visually appreciating," the female form, you are ignoring the other things that make up that female (like feelings, etc.) and thus it's misogyny. Now do you see why I hate that word and don't think it applies in all situations? It seems like people would like to think it DOES apply at all times.

    Thinking someone is attractive, even thinking that they have one or two physical attractive features, is not bad. Considering that person to be summed up or reduced to only those attractive features is absolutely bad. This is not a difficult concept.
    Disrupter wrote: »
    There is an argument to be made that such items in culture help perpetuate the idea that woman should just be reduced to those sexualized features. But I find that hard to swallow. Exploiting the sexual fantasies of men does not seem any worse to me than exploiting those violent fantasies in any video game ever.

    It seems as though our culture would like to point at stuff like film and TV and make jokes about how you can show 100 guys getting shot with a PG13 rating, but one nipple makes it rated R. But then we turn around and have a similar reaction in gaming.

    Again, this is a false equivalence. We are not talking about the issues that are or are not inherant with violence in video games or media. We are talking about how it is wrong to objectify women because they are actual individual persons who are no different than you or I. Nor are we saying it is bad to find people attractive even if you don't like those people. That's natural also. Some of the most attractive people of any gender are some of the most terrible, that doesn't make them any less attractive.

    That doesn't mean it is OK to take a symbol of female sexuality and divorce it from the rest of the person. I'm not talking about personality, but the understanding that a female partner and female sexuality is an equal partner in self control of it's own actions and decisions.

  • DisrupterDisrupter Registered User regular
    Drez wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    Toasticus wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    If you think "mutilated section of a woman's body on display" and "naked woman having sex" are in any way interchangeable or even comparable, you have some fundamental (and seriously disturbing) problems.

    Women are not their torsos, and it's not okay to reduce them to being such. That's kind of the whole point here.

    If you think "naked woman having sex" is all porn is, you are mistaken. What people do and do not find sexually attractive really shouldn't be the point. I do not find this sexually attractive, I find it squeemish. But I also find furries to be weird and gross me out. I also would look away from two men kissing. What i personally find attractive doesn't matter.

    Women are not their torsos. But I don't see a problem with only focusing on said torso for your personal sexual gratification. Now if all you focus on during your interaction with said person is your own personal sexual gratification, then there becomes a problem. But I don't see this torso statue causing men to be confused and to stop having meaningful interaction with women outside of those of a sexual nature.

    Fuck porn. This has nothing to do with porn.

    This is a literal reduction of the image of a woman to a pair or tits. The product in question is tits and only tits.

    That is the problem here.
    Why is it a problem to focus on the physical attributes you find attractive to fulfill sexual desires? And I don't agree this has nothing to do with porn, until you can explain why porn is completely unrelated, I will still draw the comparisons, because to me, they are very similar things.

    616610-1.png
  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Grouch wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    Most women creating pornography are taking personal agency to perform in a sexual fashion. They are choosing to do so and embrace their sexuality, which is acceptable. Stripping a person from the sexual organs is not healthy. Creating a disembodied torso void of head and limb as a sexual fetishized object and marketing tool is also not healthy.

    Liking "boobs" over liking attractive women is also somewhat endemic to the problem. You like the part, not the person by this logic. I don't know if that's the case of it is just the rhetoric, but both aren't exactly respectful to women as people.

    I'm confused about why a statue of a torso is particularly unhealthy. Like, I get that it's gross because it's gory; gross + sexy =/= sexy. That's pretty straight-forward. But out of context of the gore, what's wrong with a torso statue? I'm trying but I'm not seeing what differentiates a statue of a female torso from a statue of a male torso or a bust of either gender or a statue of any other partial body. Would it be less problematic if the statue had a head? If not, what differentiates it from the Venus de Milo in terms of content, other than that this one has a top on? Honestly if they'd gone with a statue that had a zombie face and hacked off arms as a Venus parody I'd have thought the thing was pretty clever.

    A torso sculpture is not necessarily problematic on its own. A torso sculpture of a mutilated corpse that has features to arouse lust and disgust simultaneously and in roughly equal measures, on the other hand...

    That said, if this sculpture had a head with a relatively intact face, it might not be quite so bad. (It would still be pretty bad.)

    I mean, I'm not saying it's not bad. It is fucking terrible. I got the impression that Enc was saying that any torso-only statue was bad, which I didn't understand.

    I still think zombie face + no arms would have made it go from creepy-horrible to clever.

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • DrezDrez Registered User regular
    edited January 2013
    Fawst wrote: »
    Drez wrote:
    So then why are you fighting so hard against us trying?

    I'm not!!! Oh man, how many times do I have to point out that I think that people are calling it misogyny when I disagree with that and think that's the wrong word! FUCK, I am NOT repeating myself on this ever again!

    Good, because it absolutely is the right word.

    Thank god nobody used the term rape culture, which is the appropriate term for the culture being discussed here. I think you would have blown a gasket then.

    Of course, that is the correct term, too.

    Also, that was my post, not SoundsPlush.

    Drez on
    Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
  • DrezDrez Registered User regular
    edited January 2013
    edit: double postitration

    Drez on
    Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
  • ToasticusToasticus yeah YEAHRegistered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    Most women creating pornography are taking personal agency to perform in a sexual fashion. They are choosing to do so and embrace their sexuality, which is acceptable. Stripping a person from the sexual organs is not healthy. Creating a disembodied torso void of head and limb as a sexual fetishized object and marketing tool is also not healthy.

    Liking "boobs" over liking attractive women is also somewhat endemic to the problem. You like the part, not the person by this logic. I don't know if that's the case of it is just the rhetoric, but both aren't exactly respectful to women as people.

    I'm confused about why a statue of a torso is particularly unhealthy. Like, I get that it's gross because it's gory; gross + sexy =/= sexy. That's pretty straight-forward. But out of context of the gore, what's wrong with a torso statue? I'm trying but I'm not seeing what differentiates a statue of a female torso from a statue of a male torso or a bust of either gender or a statue of any other partial body. Would it be less problematic if the statue had a head? If not, what differentiates it from the Venus de Milo in terms of content, other than that this one has a top on? Honestly if they'd gone with a statue that had a zombie face and hacked off arms as a Venus parody I'd have thought the thing was pretty clever.

    The gore in and of itself is not what makes it gross. It is only gory in the respect that parts of the body have been hacked off. But what remains perfectly preserved? The sexual bits. That's no accident.

    Fundamentally, this does not look like a torso mutilated by zombies. It looks like a particularly sick and misogynistic axe-murderer's wet dream -- a woman reduced to the only parts that the murderer cared about.

    If it was a full bust (with head and an arm or two) of a "sexy bikini zombie girl" that would establish an entirely different context and relegate it to being just another bit of kitsch in the overpopulated pile of objectifying crap we have in our culture. But this... this is on a whole other level.

  • ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited January 2013
    Drez wrote: »
    Fuck porn. This has nothing to do with porn.

    This is a literal reduction of the image of a woman to a pair or tits. The product in question is tits and only tits.

    That is the problem here.

    Agreed.

    (Most) porn still involves individuals. They may be subserviant, used as playthings to be discarded, but at the end of the day it is a person. A person who (hopefully) willingly agreed to each and every act and was not in any way forced or coerced into anything they didn't, even if that includes appearing to be forced or coerced into doing things they don't want to do.

    This "statue" is objectification, it is reducing 'the good parts' of a stereotypically sexy female physique (round T&A, otherwise fairly slender) to a literal object.

    One (should and hopefully does) involve a person with agency of their own, whether we see it on camera or not. The other is (to me) a vile and confusing attempt to mix in 'heh, gore' with 'heh, boobies' and build a mix controversy and appeal. I don't buy many physical games anymore due to the magic of steam, but give me the right collector's edition perks/items (Mass Effect 3, I'm looking at you lovingly) and I'll drop $100 on your little bits of swag.

    This is not only actively making me not want the CE, but questioning any further interest in the series in general, which is a shame because flawed as it was, I did play through the whole thing and felt there were aspects that were fairly well done, and much of the rest did show some promise.

    I am but one person, and I can express my displeasure here on the forums, in social media if I feel so inclined, and with my wallet by waiting for a solid Steam sale or skipping the game entirely. Maybe they'll make good on this (doubtful), maybe those PA Forumers who do get it anyway will report back that it is a masterpiece of atmosphere and action, but even then I suspect I'll be hard pressed to find enough fucks to give to contribute to even the tiniest sense that game quality can excuse some truly bafflingly bad marketing.

    Forar on
    First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Grouch wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    Most women creating pornography are taking personal agency to perform in a sexual fashion. They are choosing to do so and embrace their sexuality, which is acceptable. Stripping a person from the sexual organs is not healthy. Creating a disembodied torso void of head and limb as a sexual fetishized object and marketing tool is also not healthy.

    Liking "boobs" over liking attractive women is also somewhat endemic to the problem. You like the part, not the person by this logic. I don't know if that's the case of it is just the rhetoric, but both aren't exactly respectful to women as people.

    I'm confused about why a statue of a torso is particularly unhealthy. Like, I get that it's gross because it's gory; gross + sexy =/= sexy. That's pretty straight-forward. But out of context of the gore, what's wrong with a torso statue? I'm trying but I'm not seeing what differentiates a statue of a female torso from a statue of a male torso or a bust of either gender or a statue of any other partial body. Would it be less problematic if the statue had a head? If not, what differentiates it from the Venus de Milo in terms of content, other than that this one has a top on? Honestly if they'd gone with a statue that had a zombie face and hacked off arms as a Venus parody I'd have thought the thing was pretty clever.

    A torso sculpture is not necessarily problematic on its own. A torso sculpture of a mutilated corpse that has features to arouse lust and disgust simultaneously and in roughly equal measures, on the other hand...

    That said, if this sculpture had a head with a relatively intact face, it might not be quite so bad. (It would still be pretty bad.)

    I mean, I'm not saying it's not bad. It is fucking terrible. I got the impression that Enc was saying that any torso-only statue was bad, which I didn't understand.

    I still think zombie face + no arms would have made it go from creepy-horrible to clever.

    Nonsense, that's not what I'm saying at all. Again, context is important. If someone is doing a study of a female torso as a sculpture for the context of accurately or artistically depicting that region of the body, that's acceptable. Almost all art students do this at some point, and it is needed to learn and is useful to do. In many cases the art can be evocative of questions or whatnot. That is very different from making a mauled torso for the purpose of sexual/shock marketing. One is respectful, one isn't. Performatively these are similar actions, but intent, implementation, and purpose are staggeringly different.

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    darleysam wrote: »
    As has been said many times, it is literally, in the most correct usage of the word, reducing women down to a pair of ginormous tits. They are unrealistically proportioned norks, completely unscathed despite the horrendous things that have happened to the rest of their owner. They're not in any way a normal, human pair of breasts, which would go in any way to making this even slightly more reasonable. They are the supposed male ideal of what a woman needs to be packing. It is an idealised male fantasy.

    I've seen this type of sentiment in this thread multiple times and was just going to ignore it, but this quote right here compelled me to respond. My cousin and her best friend both have breasts larger than the ones depicted by the statue, and the repeated claims that they are freakishly enormous seems insensitive. In fact, I fairly often run into comments like this that claim that female attributes that are conventionally considered attractive are either freakish or supposedly impossible in real life. It seems like some kind of bizarre form of sexism to me (on a related note, take the phrase "real women have curves"; what does that imply about petite women?).

  • GrouchGrouch Registered User regular
    Grouch wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    I don't get the outrage. I like boobs.

    Has anyone who is "outraged" by this never once watched porn?

    To me this is the equivilent of porn. Its not something I would celebrate out in the open. And obviously I don't find the concept of a torso torn apart to be exciting to me personally, but that's not the point. The point is, I've looked at porn, how is this any worse than that? Men like sexy women, this is something that can be used for profit. Unless you are going to rally against the existence of far more sexualized dipictions of women, I don't understand why the outrage exists here.

    Now if all of you also agree porn shouldnt exist, then OK, you have a consistant argument. I will disagree, but at least you are not being a hypocrite.

    That being said, I personally think this thing is dumb and cant imagine the person who would enjoy it. I would absolutely raise an eyebrow and judge the person who has it, but thats because I'm a judgemental dickhole who would be overly critical of my associates hobbies and interests. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with the statue.

    Most women creating pornography are taking personal agency to perform in a sexual fashion. They are choosing to do so and embrace their sexuality, which is acceptable. Stripping a person from the sexual organs is not healthy. Creating a disembodied torso void of head and limb as a sexual fetishized object and marketing tool is also not healthy.

    Liking "boobs" over liking attractive women is also somewhat endemic to the problem. You like the part, not the person by this logic. I don't know if that's the case of it is just the rhetoric, but both aren't exactly respectful to women as people.

    I'm confused about why a statue of a torso is particularly unhealthy. Like, I get that it's gross because it's gory; gross + sexy =/= sexy. That's pretty straight-forward. But out of context of the gore, what's wrong with a torso statue? I'm trying but I'm not seeing what differentiates a statue of a female torso from a statue of a male torso or a bust of either gender or a statue of any other partial body. Would it be less problematic if the statue had a head? If not, what differentiates it from the Venus de Milo in terms of content, other than that this one has a top on? Honestly if they'd gone with a statue that had a zombie face and hacked off arms as a Venus parody I'd have thought the thing was pretty clever.

    A torso sculpture is not necessarily problematic on its own. A torso sculpture of a mutilated corpse that has features to arouse lust and disgust simultaneously and in roughly equal measures, on the other hand...

    That said, if this sculpture had a head with a relatively intact face, it might not be quite so bad. (It would still be pretty bad.)

    I mean, I'm not saying it's not bad. It is fucking terrible. I got the impression that Enc was saying that any torso-only statue was bad, which I didn't understand.

    I still think zombie face + no arms would have made it go from creepy-horrible to clever.

    I think a big part of the problem is the way the sculpture has been done up to make it look like it has been violently reduced to a big-breasted torso. A straight-up big-breasted torso sculpture without the gore might be problematically prurient, but the issue is probably not quite the same.

    As far as the general comparison to pieces of classical sculpture, I think I mentioned earlier in the thread that most of the classical sculptures that are missing head and limbs are typically that way by accident. Venus had arms at one point, and all that. In fact, the most common form of partial-body sculpture was (and likely remains) the bust, which focuses on the head and maybe includes a bit of shoulder and upper chest.

  • SoundsPlushSoundsPlush yup, back. Registered User regular
    edited January 2013
    Fawst wrote: »
    I checked, the only instance I can find of myself calling it sexist is one in which I then recanted by saying "I don't think 'sexist' is even the right word" or something along those lines. I called it childish after that. Did I call it sexist elsewhere? I'm no stranger to contradicting myself, I'll admit that. But to answer your question, no, I don't find it sexist. I do find it childish and immature.

    I was referring to this and this post. Your later saying sexist wasn't the right word is the one I was referring to for the "isn't" part. So okay, I've got your standing opinion. Do you disagree that this statue is a sexual objectification of a woman?

    SoundsPlush on
    s7Imn5J.png
  • FawstFawst The road to awe.Registered User regular
    @SoundsPlush I don't know how you got quoted before. I was directly replying to Drez so I don't know how your name got there.
    Drez wrote: »
    Fawst wrote: »
    Drez wrote:
    So then why are you fighting so hard against us trying?

    I'm not!!! Oh man, how many times do I have to point out that I think that people are calling it misogyny when I disagree with that and think that's the wrong word! FUCK, I am NOT repeating myself on this ever again!

    Good, because it absolutely is the right word.

    Thank god nobody used the term rape culture, which is the appropriate term for the culture being discussed here. I think you would have blown a gasket then.

    Of course, that is the correct term, too.

    Also, that was my post, not SoundsPlush.

    Holy shit, now a ZOMBIE VICTIM is a RAPE VICTIM?! Yeah, my head might have exploded had more people been using that term. There's no fucking victim blaming going on here; no one said that torso got what it deserved because it was in a skimpy bikini.

    And I meant that I wasn't going to explain my point again, not that I wouldn't defend it. In all of this, no one has really countered my argument against calling this misogyny. It's just "welll, that's the right word!" I've pointed out how hatred is not explicitly present and been met with nothing but silence. Stop telling me I'm wrong or else tell me HOW I'm wrong without just saying I am.

    I still agree with the core "wrongness" of it all.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    darleysam wrote: »
    As has been said many times, it is literally, in the most correct usage of the word, reducing women down to a pair of ginormous tits. They are unrealistically proportioned norks, completely unscathed despite the horrendous things that have happened to the rest of their owner. They're not in any way a normal, human pair of breasts, which would go in any way to making this even slightly more reasonable. They are the supposed male ideal of what a woman needs to be packing. It is an idealised male fantasy.

    I've seen this type of sentiment in this thread multiple times and was just going to ignore it, but this quote right here compelled me to respond. My cousin and her best friend both have breasts larger than the ones depicted by the statue, and the repeated claims that they are freakishly enormous seems insensitive. In fact, I fairly often run into comments like this that claim that female attributes that are conventionally considered attractive are either freakish or supposedly impossible in real life. It seems like some kind of bizarre form of sexism to me (on a related note, take the phrase "real women have curves"; what does that imply about petite women?).

    There is nothing wrong with having any body type. There is something wrong with a company specifically choosing only one body type to present as what is supposed to be typified as female.

    Here is a fun experiment: look at the variance in how most games present men. Are they young or old? Fat or thin? Do they have strange jaws or goofy grins or giant rippling muscles? Now look at the women: is there anywhere near the same variance in builds as men? Typically it is less than half of the possible variances are possible.

  • LovelyLovely Registered User regular
    Bastable wrote: »
    Fawst wrote: »
    Bastable wrote: »
    Fawst wrote: »
    Lovely wrote: »
    Fawst wrote: »
    I find it amusing that you had to explain to a woman why something was offensive toward women. I explained in pretty decent detail what the statue was to my wife and her response was "so it's mangled corpse from a game about mangled corpses? That makes sense." I'm curious how many of the people from this thread are females and are offended by this, since so far the anecdotal evidence is pointing towards men making a bigger deal out of it than women.

    Oh just be quiet already. Since you're such in love with personal story's and people in your own circle, then I'll tell you mine.

    I am female.

    I saw the statue and I was immediately offended.

    Am I a zombie/gore fan? Not at all, hate the stuff, but normally I'm not offended by zombie games and the like because, whatever, I don't care. Just not for me.

    As many, many, people have told you it's an insulting example of the glorification of violence against women in media and kinda insulting to gamers in general. (Boobs and gore! WOO!)


    And that's not all! My online gaming friends who are female are ALSO offended. CRAZY RIGHT? Gee, we just must be influenced by our male betters or something.

    Give me a break.

    I'm going to give you a double response. The first will be sane and rational, the second will be just as abrasive as yours was to me. I'll let you choose your own adventure here:

    Rational:
    I'm not in love with personal stories or my own circle (well I am when it comes to my circle, but that's to be expected). Thank you for telling me your take on it. I said I was curious and I truly am. When I made that statement, it was coming from a place where I have no knowledge of the gender breakdown of the posters in here and it was assumed that the majority were male. Seeing as we had a lot of male anger going on in here, the anecdotal evidence regarding females was interesting since it was contradictory. So, I wanted to see how it compared with actual opinions in here. I don't think it's crazy at all that your female online friends were also offended. It just proves that some people feel one way and others feel another.

    Abrasive:
    Girl, slow your role. You don't know me! If you're not a zombie or gore fan and it's not FOR YOU, then why do you even CARE? Damn! And if you were influenced by your male betters, you wouldn't be offended!
    Totally written in jest. I don't know why you're so mad at me personally for being curious about the demographic breakdown of offended vs. not, especially among women since that's what we've been talking about, but OK. I will agree that the whole "Boobs, woo!!!" thing is ridiculous, but that's true of just about all marketing. Sex sells, but it doesn't make it not ridiculous.

    Epically condescending, but you manage to make it worse by tamping it down with a layer of "totes jokes" and combo'ing it with "only asking questions."
    Bravo for being a utterly odious goose.

    The truly sad part of this is that you obviously don't consider her original condescending response to me to be a bad thing, only mine. Meanwhile, I wasn't being condescending, I was being honest.

    Yeah sure a person points out that a misogynistic item is misogynistic in her view and the view of her friends, she's the real misogynist. . . but totes jokes. . .

    Your replies are not sad, not disappointing. Your replies and world view are abhorrent.

    I should probably point out at this point that I totally WAS being condescending, because I felt it was condescending to believe that no women were reading the thread. Since that is now sorted out, I'm fine to just let THAT particular point go.

    sig.gif
  • GrouchGrouch Registered User regular
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    darleysam wrote: »
    As has been said many times, it is literally, in the most correct usage of the word, reducing women down to a pair of ginormous tits. They are unrealistically proportioned norks, completely unscathed despite the horrendous things that have happened to the rest of their owner. They're not in any way a normal, human pair of breasts, which would go in any way to making this even slightly more reasonable. They are the supposed male ideal of what a woman needs to be packing. It is an idealised male fantasy.

    I've seen this type of sentiment in this thread multiple times and was just going to ignore it, but this quote right here compelled me to respond. My cousin and her best friend both have breasts larger than the ones depicted by the statue, and the repeated claims that they are freakishly enormous seems insensitive. In fact, I fairly often run into comments like this that claim that female attributes that are conventionally considered attractive are either freakish or supposedly impossible in real life. It seems like some kind of bizarre form of sexism to me (on a related note, take the phrase "real women have curves"; what does that imply about petite women?).

    It's not just a matter of size. It's size, shape, proportion, and more. The large, apparently gravity-defying hemispheres on the sculpture's chest are pretty specifically idealized.

  • OneAngryPossumOneAngryPossum Registered User regular
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    darleysam wrote: »
    As has been said many times, it is literally, in the most correct usage of the word, reducing women down to a pair of ginormous tits. They are unrealistically proportioned norks, completely unscathed despite the horrendous things that have happened to the rest of their owner. They're not in any way a normal, human pair of breasts, which would go in any way to making this even slightly more reasonable. They are the supposed male ideal of what a woman needs to be packing. It is an idealised male fantasy.

    I've seen this type of sentiment in this thread multiple times and was just going to ignore it, but this quote right here compelled me to respond. My cousin and her best friend both have breasts larger than the ones depicted by the statue, and the repeated claims that they are freakishly enormous seems insensitive. In fact, I fairly often run into comments like this that claim that female attributes that are conventionally considered attractive are either freakish or supposedly impossible in real life. It seems like some kind of bizarre form of sexism to me (on a related note, take the phrase "real women have curves"; what does that imply about petite women?).

    You're not wrong, and 'ginormous' is certainly hyperbole. A more correct way to frame it might be to point out that this seemingly athletic woman has been reduced to a blood covered torso with breasts that are seemingly designed by inexperienced men or implant lovers.

    But yes, it's unfortunate for women who actually fall into that percentage of small-frame/large-breasts because they are basically fetishized by half of the population. When you want to figh back against that, it's easy to slip into laziness and suggest that it's fantastical pandering rather than pandering to a fantasy. And in no case should those women who happen to fit that body type be made to feel bad or ostracized for it.

    Regardless, this is more disgusting in its message than in its anatomical particulars.

This discussion has been closed.