Too much of X media is a bad thing because, as we all know perfectly well, the culture a person is exposed to influences their decisions and actions.
Right. But the thoughts in a person's head influence the person. And those are permissible. Because the thought doesn't hurt anyone. The action can hurt someone.
So if particular instances of media (comic books, video games, movies) influence people, why are we censoring / punishing them?
With people, we punish the act, rather than the influence.
But we media we're punishing the influence, rather than the act.
If a guy punches a woman, then we punish him. Just as if a comic book punches a woman, we punish it.
But if a guy thinks about punching a woman, there is no punishment.
And a comic is just an illustrated thought.
So, we can't censor and punish influential thoughts, but we can censor and punish influential thoughts.
We punish and chastise people for having shitty thoughts all the time. The internet is basically devoted to it.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
Of course culture influences people, but higher culture influences them more. Expose a person to a world of culture, and you'll find they can cherry pick the best fruits over the most abundant ones as well as anybody.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
Of course culture influences people, but higher culture influences them more. Expose a person to a world of culture, and you'll find they can cherry pick the best fruits over the most abundant ones as well as anybody.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
Of course culture influences people, but higher culture influences them more. Expose a person to a world of culture, and you'll find they can cherry pick the best fruits over the most abundant ones as well as anybody.
I'm not so sure. I frequently invite my students to join me in the fruits of Plato and Seneca. They usually prefer LOLcats and dancing at raves.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
Of course culture influences people, but higher culture influences them more. Expose a person to a world of culture, and you'll find they can cherry pick the best fruits over the most abundant ones as well as anybody.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
Of course culture influences people, but higher culture influences them more. Expose a person to a world of culture, and you'll find they can cherry pick the best fruits over the most abundant ones as well as anybody.
I'm not so sure. I frequently invite my students to join me in the fruits of Plato and Seneca. They usually prefer LOLcats and dancing at raves.
Why not give them both?
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
Of course culture influences people, but higher culture influences them more. Expose a person to a world of culture, and you'll find they can cherry pick the best fruits over the most abundant ones as well as anybody.
I'm not so sure. I frequently invite my students to join me in the fruits of Plato and Seneca. They usually prefer LOLcats and dancing at raves.
Give them a year or ten. They'll come around.
edit: Dan Ryckert knows the Allegory of the Cave. Keep the faith
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Some thoughts about sexist tropes that I've been thinking about all day, centred around a deep, dark secret or two about me that not even my immediate family knows:
In my younger days, working as a bartender, one of the other bartenders tended to leave her Harlequin romance novels lying around the bar. I love reading, and I'm willing to give just about anything from any genre a try, and I read at least a dozen of those things. The tropes there ended up annoying the heck out of me, and when I no longer had semi-abandoned books left sitting around within reach for me to snag and read on the bus home, I didn't bother reading much more of the genre.
The women tended to be described as plain, many of them had a child already of various ages, and they tended towards early to mid thirties. They tended not to have much higher education, or if they did they were underemployed. The men tended to be handsome, successful globe trotters, who could have had any women in the room with a crook of their fingers. They had busy professional lives, and a tendency towards having experienced personal tragedy in their past that had scarred them and made it difficult for them to get close to people. The Plain Jane protagonist would melt the heart of the brooding guy, and after some almost tragedy she'd teach him to love and he'd whisk her out of her mundane life of drudgery.
In later years, it's been hard not to notice those tropes elsewhere, in some more mainstream romance stories. Twilight embraces those tropes pretty hard, and to a somewhat lesser degree so does Outlander. Disney movies have tended through the years to have Handsome Princes, who fulfil the important requirements of i) being handsome, and ii) having an excellent annual income. Having limited exposure to the romance genre, my impression is that the ideal man from a romance novel is tall, handsome, and successful. The frequency that those tropes appeared made the genre feel too formulaic, and it was a genre that didn't interest me enough to go looking for the good books that broke away from the standard tropes of the formula.
About two years ago, I read a post on Jezebel that opened up the romance genre to me. It turns out that while I don't care too much for most romance novels, lesbian romance novels are right up my alley (that's my deep, dark secret; I apologize for how mundane and underwhelming it is). I love happily-ever-after stories, and romance novels tend to provide them. And more to the point of this thread: standard gender roles break down in homosexual romance. When the standard gender roles break down, it permits more freedom for the tropes around the genre to be subverted or embraced or rejected as the storyteller pleases. It's fascinating seeing standard romantic tropes - not just Harlequin romance tropes, but broader ones as well - appear in various ways and forms within lesbian romance novels.
By removing the gendered expectations and tropes regarding men, lesbian romance novels allow for more diverse and interesting women than the standard straight romance novels that I've read.
Shadowhope on
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
Serial romance are the worst of the genre. I used to work in a bookstore and read voraciously during those years, which meant being able to identify with what a customer would be looking for in a book if asked for a recommendation.
But the serial romance novels are all written according to strict formula. The (mostly women) who read them aren't interested in surprising twists, deep narratives, interesting characterization, or thought-provoking stories. They are there for one reason and one reason only: comfort.
And there's nothing wrong with comfort! There is nothing deep or intellectual about playing a FPS deathmatch. It's brainless and good stress relief. However, if that was the full extent of my media consumption, I would consider myself pretty mentally malnourished. Part of the reason I enjoy watching The Wire or reading scientific journals or even playing a puzzle game like Braid is because it mentally engages me. It's a whetstone for my brain. Obviously once in a while I'll go watch Die Hard and shut my brain off for a while, and that's fine too, but it's not the only movie I watch.
I'm trying to type this out without sounding judgmental towards people who do only watch rom coms or stupid action movies or only read terrible mass-produced romance novels and I'm probably failing.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
Of course culture influences people, but higher culture influences them more. Expose a person to a world of culture, and you'll find they can cherry pick the best fruits over the most abundant ones as well as anybody.
I was replying to programjunkie.
But the problem with your claim, regardless of veracity, is that the awful, terrible culture vastly out numbers the good and is what most people are exposed to.
Serial romance are the worst of the genre. I used to work in a bookstore and read voraciously during those years, which meant being able to identify with what a customer would be looking for in a book if asked for a recommendation.
But the serial romance novels are all written according to strict formula. The (mostly women) who read them aren't interested in surprising twists, deep narratives, interesting characterization, or thought-provoking stories. They are there for one reason and one reason only: comfort.
And there's nothing wrong with comfort! There is nothing deep or intellectual about playing a FPS deathmatch. It's brainless and good stress relief. However, if that was the full extent of my media consumption, I would consider myself pretty mentally malnourished. Part of the reason I enjoy watching The Wire or reading scientific journals or even playing a puzzle game like Braid is because it mentally engages me. It's a whetstone for my brain. Obviously once in a while I'll go watch Die Hard and shut my brain off for a while, and that's fine too, but it's not the only movie I watch.
I'm trying to type this out without sounding judgmental towards people who do only watch rom coms or stupid action movies or only read terrible mass-produced romance novels and I'm probably failing.
I don't disagree at all - the vast majority of the straight romance novels I've read have had the underlying message of 'you might be plain and a bit overweight and going nowhere in life, but somewheres there's a handsome, rich guy who'll fall head over heels for you and take you away from it all (and he's even great with your kids)!' As sexist ideas go, it's barely more complex than 'you're mostly a nice guy, so you deserve a smoking hot babe as your adoring girlfriend.' For all that, to some extent because of all that, I think that the ideas expressed in romance novels and romance movies, are really worthwhile thinking about in any generalized discussion of sexism in fiction.
Common romance trope can represent both a degree of both empowerment (for example, being past thirty and not model thin, but still capable of being sexy and desirable) and also significant internalized misogyny (the woman is typically the social/financial inferior of the man, and it's by snagging the ideal guy that the woman's life improves). Romance novels become a lot more interesting when you look at them from a feminist perspective and unpack the tropes and biases the books are built around as you go.
Shadowhope on
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
Of course culture influences people, but higher culture influences them more. Expose a person to a world of culture, and you'll find they can cherry pick the best fruits over the most abundant ones as well as anybody.
I was replying to programjunkie.
But the problem with your claim, regardless of veracity, is that the awful, terrible culture vastly out numbers the good and is what most people are exposed to.
Which is what a lot of us are concerned about.
Can you give an example of a society that declined because it had too much freedom of expression, or media access?
When media is overwhelmingly loaded with X to the point that's it's harming people's lives it's a problem.
But the media is not harming people's lives.
Only if you believe people are not influenced by the culture they're surrounded by and media they consume.
Why isn't the media's influence like the person's desire?
It's ok to desire X. Bringing about X in the world might be problematic, though.
Portrayals of X in media seem to be just like the desire: A kind of inert wanting.
If the answer is "influence" then, well, a person's desire influences them, too. So, the desire for bad things is bad.
Why are desire, and portrayals of desire, treated differently?
Sam desires victimized women: Great.
Sam victimizes women: Not Great.
Sam makes a comic about victimizing women: Not Great.
Why is the external display of the desire, in a form of media, not permissible, if the desire, itself, is permissible?
None of this is relevant. Please stop changing the subject.
Too much of X media is a bad thing because, as we all know perfectly well, the culture a person is exposed to influences their decisions and actions. If you want to claim otherwise, go wild. But it's disingenuous to argue as if anyone posting here is upset at the idea of any single comic book. It's the over whelming trend in comics, movies, video games, etc. that people find unsettling.
It's you who is changing the subject Quid - namely what exactly "There's nothing wrong with having some particular preference" entails given that it appears that in practice people do indeed have a problem with people's preferences.
The question about whether too much of particular media is a bad thing, which as you contend it may well be, is separate to the original exchange between _J_ and KingOfMadCows.
I sent this in a PM to an undisclosed awesome person who wanted to discuss some of these things in private with me, but I feel this comic is relevant to the discourse here as well:
+11
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Apparently a new person will be drawing her later this year, here's a comparison of styles.
Sigh.
I feel bad for the Wonder Woman on the right. Her back must be killing her.
It's not as bad as Tifa from FFVII but it's getting there.
This is gross.
The critique of ample bosoms for nothing other than size is so bonkers I can't even.
Then you completely misunderstood what my point was.
The critique wasn't of large boobs but of the body proportions. As they're drawn, the Wonder Woman on the right has an extremely tiny waist and very large breasts in comparison. Her torso literally does not look like it can handle the weight without tons of pain. The Wonder Woman on the left is drawn with far more realistic and less injurious proportions.
My post wasn't boob-shaming. It was intended to encourage less unrealistic drawings of women (hello Tifa) because doing so potentially feeds into an "ideal" body image which many women attempt to emulate through unhealthy means such as anorexia or bulemia.
EDIT: I see some have already cleared it up for me, thanks guys.
If so, then I will cop to having misread you - though I feel I should clarify that it reads almost exactly the same as any other "big boobs therefore bad" post on its surface. Further compounded by the fact that Wonder Woman traditionally is among the strongest entities within the DC universe, certainly the strongest female and for supernatural reasons - a concern with regard to her bodily proportions on purely biomechanical grounds seems a little odd.
I will still maintain that it's an incomplete argumeent.
Apparently a new person will be drawing her later this year, here's a comparison of styles.
Sigh.
I feel bad for the Wonder Woman on the right. Her back must be killing her.
It's not as bad as Tifa from FFVII but it's getting there.
This is gross.
The critique of ample bosoms for nothing other than size is so bonkers I can't even.
Then you completely misunderstood what my point was.
The critique wasn't of large boobs but of the body proportions. As they're drawn, the Wonder Woman on the right has an extremely tiny waist and very large breasts in comparison. Her torso literally does not look like it can handle the weight without tons of pain. The Wonder Woman on the left is drawn with far more realistic and less injurious proportions.
My post wasn't boob-shaming. It was intended to encourage less unrealistic drawings of women (hello Tifa) because doing so potentially feeds into an "ideal" body image which many women attempt to emulate through unhealthy means such as anorexia or bulemia.
EDIT: I see some have already cleared it up for me, thanks guys.
If so, then I will cop to having misread you - though I feel I should clarify that it reads almost exactly the same as any other "big boobs therefore bad" post on its surface. Further compounded by the fact that Wonder Woman traditionally is among the strongest entities within the DC universe, certainly the strongest female and for supernatural reasons - a concern with regard to her bodily proportions on purely biomechanical grounds seems a little odd.
I will still maintain that it's an incomplete argumeent.
I don't know what I can do to convince you that large chest size does not bother me other than to tell you that my feelings lie in quite the opposite direction.
My concern isn't purely biomechanical, though. It's in potential harm to real-life girls trying to live up to an (impossible, as a real-life contortionist proved) ideal by punishing their own bodies.
Also the art on the right is just bad, it's unrealistic and doesn't look as good as the left. It does a disservice to the character to put her in the same old contorted boobs and ass pose. The character on the left also has an ample bosom (I could link more cliff chiang art if you like) but it's presented differently, and on top of an actual realistic rib cage.
Also the art on the right is just bad, it's unrealistic and doesn't look as good as the left. It does a disservice to the character to put her in the same old contorted boobs and ass pose. The character on the left also has an ample bosom (I could link more cliff chiang art if you like) but it's presented differently, and on top of an actual realistic rib cage.
Yeah, they look the same size but placed on a normally-proportioned body it's difficult to tell that. Sort of like how it's tougher to tell how tall someone is when they're sitting, I guess?
0
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Apparently a new person will be drawing her later this year, here's a comparison of styles.
Sigh.
I feel bad for the Wonder Woman on the right. Her back must be killing her.
It's not as bad as Tifa from FFVII but it's getting there.
This is gross.
The critique of ample bosoms for nothing other than size is so bonkers I can't even.
Then you completely misunderstood what my point was.
The critique wasn't of large boobs but of the body proportions. As they're drawn, the Wonder Woman on the right has an extremely tiny waist and very large breasts in comparison. Her torso literally does not look like it can handle the weight without tons of pain. The Wonder Woman on the left is drawn with far more realistic and less injurious proportions.
My post wasn't boob-shaming. It was intended to encourage less unrealistic drawings of women (hello Tifa) because doing so potentially feeds into an "ideal" body image which many women attempt to emulate through unhealthy means such as anorexia or bulemia.
EDIT: I see some have already cleared it up for me, thanks guys.
If so, then I will cop to having misread you - though I feel I should clarify that it reads almost exactly the same as any other "big boobs therefore bad" post on its surface. Further compounded by the fact that Wonder Woman traditionally is among the strongest entities within the DC universe, certainly the strongest female and for supernatural reasons - a concern with regard to her bodily proportions on purely biomechanical grounds seems a little odd.
I will still maintain that it's an incomplete argumeent.
I don't know what I can do to convince you that large chest size does not bother me other than to tell you that my feelings lie in quite the opposite direction.
My concern isn't purely biomechanical, though. It's in potential harm to real-life girls trying to live up to an (impossible, as a real-life contortionist proved) ideal by punishing their own bodies.
Apparently a new person will be drawing her later this year, here's a comparison of styles.
Sigh.
I feel bad for the Wonder Woman on the right. Her back must be killing her.
It's not as bad as Tifa from FFVII but it's getting there.
This is gross.
The critique of ample bosoms for nothing other than size is so bonkers I can't even.
Then you completely misunderstood what my point was.
The critique wasn't of large boobs but of the body proportions. As they're drawn, the Wonder Woman on the right has an extremely tiny waist and very large breasts in comparison. Her torso literally does not look like it can handle the weight without tons of pain. The Wonder Woman on the left is drawn with far more realistic and less injurious proportions.
My post wasn't boob-shaming. It was intended to encourage less unrealistic drawings of women (hello Tifa) because doing so potentially feeds into an "ideal" body image which many women attempt to emulate through unhealthy means such as anorexia or bulemia.
EDIT: I see some have already cleared it up for me, thanks guys.
If so, then I will cop to having misread you - though I feel I should clarify that it reads almost exactly the same as any other "big boobs therefore bad" post on its surface. Further compounded by the fact that Wonder Woman traditionally is among the strongest entities within the DC universe, certainly the strongest female and for supernatural reasons - a concern with regard to her bodily proportions on purely biomechanical grounds seems a little odd.
I will still maintain that it's an incomplete argumeent.
I don't know what I can do to convince you that large chest size does not bother me other than to tell you that my feelings lie in quite the opposite direction.
My concern isn't purely biomechanical, though. It's in potential harm to real-life girls trying to live up to an (impossible, as a real-life contortionist proved) ideal by punishing their own bodies.
That's doubly not what you expressed though.
oh my god, he has clarified his point. do you want to engage with that or just keep saying he said something else?
+3
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Also the art on the right is just bad, it's unrealistic and doesn't look as good as the left. It does a disservice to the character to put her in the same old contorted boobs and ass pose. The character on the left also has an ample bosom (I could link more cliff chiang art if you like) but it's presented differently, and on top of an actual realistic rib cage.
While true, doesn't actually follow from the original comments.
Also the art on the right is just bad, it's unrealistic and doesn't look as good as the left. It does a disservice to the character to put her in the same old contorted boobs and ass pose. The character on the left also has an ample bosom (I could link more cliff chiang art if you like) but it's presented differently, and on top of an actual realistic rib cage.
While true, doesn't actually follow from the original comments.
What about the new ones, where I told you explicitly what I meant?
I sent this in a PM to an undisclosed awesome person who wanted to discuss some of these things in private with me, but I feel this comic is relevant to the discourse here as well:
See, I see this comic and assume the message is "artists should stop making female characters look like sexualized ideals because it makes women uncomfortable", but I can't help but wonder why the message couldn't be "artists should make both male and female characters sexually idealized for the enjoyment of everyone, and men who feel icky because the female gaze is being catered to for a change need to get over it".
However, I also think the definition of what is portrayed as "beautiful" in all media should be drastically expanded so that more people can feel confident in how they look.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
I think fictional works are vanishingly immeasurable in impact compared to cultural values transmitted through other channels, like parents, peers, community leaders, religion, etc.
When media is overwhelmingly loaded with X to the point that's it's harming people's lives it's a problem.
But the media is not harming people's lives.
Only if you believe people are not influenced by the culture they're surrounded by and media they consume.
I think accepting this uncritically is unwise. The Comics Code, Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, playing Metal music backwards to worship Satan, Jack Thompson's crusade against violent video games, etc. have all been proved to be a ridiculous farce, so ridiculous that believing in it undermines your overall credibility as a person, let alone older ideas like arresting people for blasphemy (well, in non-shitty countries), or banning teaching evolution, and the like.
I think these are particularly extreme examples that obscure the point debated. One can think there are problematic correlations between violent or sexist images and violent or sexist behavior (or at least lacking sensitivity to the same) without sliding all the way to Jack Thompson territory.
I think it's a very slippery slide to be on indeed. I don't think it is uncharitable to call it baseless speculation.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
I think fictional works are vanishingly immeasurable in impact compared to cultural values transmitted through other channels, like parents, peers, community leaders, religion, etc.
When media is overwhelmingly loaded with X to the point that's it's harming people's lives it's a problem.
But the media is not harming people's lives.
Only if you believe people are not influenced by the culture they're surrounded by and media they consume.
I think accepting this uncritically is unwise. The Comics Code, Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, playing Metal music backwards to worship Satan, Jack Thompson's crusade against violent video games, etc. have all been proved to be a ridiculous farce, so ridiculous that believing in it undermines your overall credibility as a person, let alone older ideas like arresting people for blasphemy (well, in non-shitty countries), or banning teaching evolution, and the like.
I think these are particularly extreme examples that obscure the point debated. One can think there are problematic correlations between violent or sexist images and violent or sexist behavior (or at least lacking sensitivity to the same) without sliding all the way to Jack Thompson territory.
I think it's a very slippery slide to be on indeed. I don't think it is uncharitable to call it baseless speculation.
Do you think anorexia would exist in the numbers it does without today's media portrayal of women?
I sent this in a PM to an undisclosed awesome person who wanted to discuss some of these things in private with me, but I feel this comic is relevant to the discourse here as well:
I think that dude comic artists are probably not going to be very good judges of what 'women' find attractive. Neither is anyone else, really, because it's a wide spectrum. Same for men. The Batman in that comic isn't remotely attractive to me, but I guess some people might like it? Good for them if so!
Exaggerations like you see in comics/fantasy present an interesting case, because they tend to take the more subtle stereotypes we all express and push them as far as possible. So women become hyper sexy/attractive, men become hyper muscled/violent, corporations become hyper-evil, ect. It can certainly be an interesting window into some of society's underlying prejudices and expectations.
But when I read anything by the people 'against' it, they mostly seem to be just as invested in the stereotypes. Someone who gets angry over combat high heels is still taking it as a given that the most important thing about the female character is her appearance, they're just using a different criteria to judge her appearance. Note that almost anyone in a fantasy game/comic is going to be dressed ridiculously for what they're doing, but the argument is always about the women, because they're the ones who's appearance is everything. That combat high heels are something that bothers you suggests that you're still viewing the female character primarily in terms of her appearance, while they judge male characters on their actions. You don't see a lot of angry posts about how the lack of realism shown by Spider Man's combat spandex. So the underlying message is the same on both sides (a woman's appearance is always what matters), its just framed as a two-sided issue.
And really, if doe-eyed Batman is your thing, it isn't hard to find content in a similar style. Just google "Cute Anime Boy" and take your time looking through the 15 million results. I have a hard time believing the source of the discontent here is a lack of creative content. There are comics in all kinds of styles and with all kinds of authors at your finger-tips, right now. Many artists would kill to have 1/50th the pageviews of the latest outrage blog post about combat high heels. So how much of this is a legitimate shortage of diverse art, and how much is fueled by the desire people have for self-righteous anger and superiority?
I sent this in a PM to an undisclosed awesome person who wanted to discuss some of these things in private with me, but I feel this comic is relevant to the discourse here as well:
See, I see this comic and assume the message is "artists should stop making female characters look like sexualized ideals because it makes women uncomfortable", but I can't help but wonder why the message couldn't be "artists should make both male and female characters sexually idealized for the enjoyment of everyone, and men who feel icky because the female gaze is being catered to for a change need to get over it".
However, I also think the definition of what is portrayed as "beautiful" in all media should be drastically expanded so that more people can feel confident in how they look.
The problem isn't as much any one particular character being sexualized. It's that the sexualization of women in media is so overwhelmingly prevalent.
It's not saying that no female character should ever be sexualized. The problem is that it's so common that it's almost expected that female characters 'have' to have a look that appeals to men. The trend sends a very troubling message to the female audience that their worth is largely wrapped up in how attractive they are, regardless of other qualities they have as a person.
It's not the specific example, it's the trend that those examples demonstrate. Don't miss the forest for the trees.
Comics are a purely visual media. If one can't judge the artwork then that cuts off 90% of useful debate.
Also, most of these complaints come from the fact that almost all are of male fantasies, wether of power or sex. Of course that's going to involve how women's bodies are depicted and a discussion thereof.
It's you who is changing the subject Quid - namely what exactly "There's nothing wrong with having some particular preference" entails given that it appears that in practice people do indeed have a problem with people's preferences.
The question about whether too much of particular media is a bad thing, which as you contend it may well be, is separate to the original exchange between _J_ and KingOfMadCows.
Nope, J wanted to know why it's a problem to have X media.
I explained why. If it's excessive and is harming people, it's generally considered bad. He wanted to talk about specific instances but I'm not interested.
You do not think people are influenced by the ideas their culture teaches them?
Of course culture influences people, but higher culture influences them more. Expose a person to a world of culture, and you'll find they can cherry pick the best fruits over the most abundant ones as well as anybody.
I was replying to programjunkie.
But the problem with your claim, regardless of veracity, is that the awful, terrible culture vastly out numbers the good and is what most people are exposed to.
Which is what a lot of us are concerned about.
Can you give an example of a society that declined because it had too much freedom of expression, or media access?
Who said declined?
The options aren't Rome on fire or Utopia.
A society can have problems that are reinforced by its culture. Or are you going to contend that people's decisions and views aren't formed in large part by the culture they grow up and live in?
I sent this in a PM to an undisclosed awesome person who wanted to discuss some of these things in private with me, but I feel this comic is relevant to the discourse here as well:
I think that dude comic artists are probably not going to be very good judges of what 'women' find attractive. Neither is anyone else, really, because it's a wide spectrum. Same for men. The Batman in that comic isn't remotely attractive to me, but I guess some people might like it? Good for them if so!
Exaggerations like you see in comics/fantasy present an interesting case, because they tend to take the more subtle stereotypes we all express and push them as far as possible. So women become hyper sexy/attractive, men become hyper muscled/violent, corporations become hyper-evil, ect. It can certainly be an interesting window into some of society's underlying prejudices and expectations.
But when I read anything by the people 'against' it, they mostly seem to be just as invested in the stereotypes. Someone who gets angry over combat high heels is still taking it as a given that the most important thing about the female character is her appearance, they're just using a different criteria to judge her appearance. Note that almost anyone in a fantasy game/comic is going to be dressed ridiculously for what they're doing, but the argument is always about the women, because they're the ones who's appearance is everything. That combat high heels are something that bothers you suggests that you're still viewing the female character primarily in terms of her appearance, while they judge male characters on their actions. You don't see a lot of angry posts about how the lack of realism shown by Spider Man's combat spandex. So the underlying message is the same on both sides (a woman's appearance is always what matters), its just framed as a two-sided issue.
And really, if doe-eyed Batman is your thing, it isn't hard to find content in a similar style. Just google "Cute Anime Boy" and take your time looking through the 15 million results. I have a hard time believing the source of the discontent here is a lack of creative content. There are comics in all kinds of styles and with all kinds of authors at your finger-tips, right now. Many artists would kill to have 1/50th the pageviews of the latest outrage blog post about combat high heels. So how much of this is a legitimate shortage of diverse art, and how much is fueled by the desire people have for self-righteous anger and superiority?
Well, if we are going purely by personal preference, I don't think the hyper-sexualized imagery of women is attractive at all either, so it seems analogous to me.
Apparently a new person will be drawing her later this year, here's a comparison of styles.
Sigh.
I feel bad for the Wonder Woman on the right. Her back must be killing her.
It's not as bad as Tifa from FFVII but it's getting there.
This is gross.
The critique of ample bosoms for nothing other than size is so bonkers I can't even.
Then you completely misunderstood what my point was.
The critique wasn't of large boobs but of the body proportions. As they're drawn, the Wonder Woman on the right has an extremely tiny waist and very large breasts in comparison. Her torso literally does not look like it can handle the weight without tons of pain. The Wonder Woman on the left is drawn with far more realistic and less injurious proportions.
My post wasn't boob-shaming. It was intended to encourage less unrealistic drawings of women (hello Tifa) because doing so potentially feeds into an "ideal" body image which many women attempt to emulate through unhealthy means such as anorexia or bulemia.
EDIT: I see some have already cleared it up for me, thanks guys.
If so, then I will cop to having misread you - though I feel I should clarify that it reads almost exactly the same as any other "big boobs therefore bad" post on its surface. Further compounded by the fact that Wonder Woman traditionally is among the strongest entities within the DC universe, certainly the strongest female and for supernatural reasons - a concern with regard to her bodily proportions on purely biomechanical grounds seems a little odd.
I will still maintain that it's an incomplete argumeent.
I don't know what I can do to convince you that large chest size does not bother me other than to tell you that my feelings lie in quite the opposite direction.
My concern isn't purely biomechanical, though. It's in potential harm to real-life girls trying to live up to an (impossible, as a real-life contortionist proved) ideal by punishing their own bodies.
That's doubly not what you expressed though.
I would like for you to quote the exact part where josh specifically said her boobs are too big and that alone is the problem.
I think fictional works are vanishingly immeasurable in impact compared to cultural values transmitted through other channels, like parents, peers, community leaders, religion, etc.
And where do those people get their values from? Have they been passing the exact same values down from generation to generation? Obviously not. People pull there norms from all facets of culture, the media they consume included. And if that media says it's okay for Bond to force himself on a woman because that's what she really wants, and no one tells their kids otherwise, why should those kids assume any differently?
Again, X trait is Yist when applied overwhelmingly to specific groups over others. Some traits may be a problem in themselves or good in themselves but that is not the issue.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Apparently a new person will be drawing her later this year, here's a comparison of styles.
Sigh.
I feel bad for the Wonder Woman on the right. Her back must be killing her.
It's not as bad as Tifa from FFVII but it's getting there.
This is gross.
The critique of ample bosoms for nothing other than size is so bonkers I can't even.
Then you completely misunderstood what my point was.
The critique wasn't of large boobs but of the body proportions. As they're drawn, the Wonder Woman on the right has an extremely tiny waist and very large breasts in comparison. Her torso literally does not look like it can handle the weight without tons of pain. The Wonder Woman on the left is drawn with far more realistic and less injurious proportions.
My post wasn't boob-shaming. It was intended to encourage less unrealistic drawings of women (hello Tifa) because doing so potentially feeds into an "ideal" body image which many women attempt to emulate through unhealthy means such as anorexia or bulemia.
EDIT: I see some have already cleared it up for me, thanks guys.
If so, then I will cop to having misread you - though I feel I should clarify that it reads almost exactly the same as any other "big boobs therefore bad" post on its surface. Further compounded by the fact that Wonder Woman traditionally is among the strongest entities within the DC universe, certainly the strongest female and for supernatural reasons - a concern with regard to her bodily proportions on purely biomechanical grounds seems a little odd.
I will still maintain that it's an incomplete argumeent.
I don't know what I can do to convince you that large chest size does not bother me other than to tell you that my feelings lie in quite the opposite direction.
My concern isn't purely biomechanical, though. It's in potential harm to real-life girls trying to live up to an (impossible, as a real-life contortionist proved) ideal by punishing their own bodies.
That's doubly not what you expressed though.
I would like for you to quote the exact part where josh specifically said her boobs are too big and that alone is the problem.
I don't think anything I said requires josh to have expressed anything of the sort.
The only concerns he expressed where biomechanical - literally only referencing a character known for a large bust and the concerns about the backpain*. As such the other concerns were not expressed.
* I am not opposed to doing a Gricean analysis of this, but the logic of communication is something that is likely outside the scope of the thread.
Comics are a purely visual media. If one can't judge the artwork then that cuts off 90% of useful debate.
Also, most of these complaints come from the fact that almost all are of male fantasies, wether of power or sex. Of course that's going to involve how women's bodies are depicted and a discussion thereof.
I'm not really one for language policing, but I do want to note how the language you're using there, in particular the concept of a 'male' fantasy (as if there were only one) reinforces the idea that traditional gender roles are right and correct. After all, all men must really want to be burly violent powerhouses, right? This is the kind of thing that I mean when I say that I don't see much difference between the two sides of this coin.
Also, what do you mean by most? Most of what? I'm not a huge comics reader I admit, but very few of the comics that I've taken the time to read (mostly online) have involved stereotypical power fantasies, mostly because I don't really seek out that kind of thing. That's probably what you'd get if you bought a DC superhero comic, but you know that's what you'd get from a DC comic when you buy it. So why do you care if you aren't interested? Because it was in the news? There's a world of art and artists out there if you look, and I have trouble taking seriously the idea that, in this day and age, there is some kind of art shortage and people just can't find any content that appeals to them.
When media is overwhelmingly loaded with X to the point that's it's harming people's lives it's a problem.
But the media is not harming people's lives.
Only if you believe people are not influenced by the culture they're surrounded by and media they consume.
I think accepting this uncritically is unwise. The Comics Code, Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, playing Metal music backwards to worship Satan, Jack Thompson's crusade against violent video games, etc. have all been proved to be a ridiculous farce, so ridiculous that believing in it undermines your overall credibility as a person, let alone older ideas like arresting people for blasphemy (well, in non-shitty countries), or banning teaching evolution, and the like.
I think these are particularly extreme examples that obscure the point debated. One can think there are problematic correlations between violent or sexist images and violent or sexist behavior (or at least lacking sensitivity to the same) without sliding all the way to Jack Thompson territory.
Disagree. I think this is the sort of thing people say in order to get away with both having and eating a particular cake.
Sexist Imagery -> Sexism.
I don't like Sexist Imagery.
So, let's be concerned about it.
Apparently a new person will be drawing her later this year, here's a comparison of styles.
Sigh.
I feel bad for the Wonder Woman on the right. Her back must be killing her.
It's not as bad as Tifa from FFVII but it's getting there.
This is gross.
The critique of ample bosoms for nothing other than size is so bonkers I can't even.
Then you completely misunderstood what my point was.
The critique wasn't of large boobs but of the body proportions. As they're drawn, the Wonder Woman on the right has an extremely tiny waist and very large breasts in comparison. Her torso literally does not look like it can handle the weight without tons of pain. The Wonder Woman on the left is drawn with far more realistic and less injurious proportions.
My post wasn't boob-shaming. It was intended to encourage less unrealistic drawings of women (hello Tifa) because doing so potentially feeds into an "ideal" body image which many women attempt to emulate through unhealthy means such as anorexia or bulemia.
EDIT: I see some have already cleared it up for me, thanks guys.
If so, then I will cop to having misread you - though I feel I should clarify that it reads almost exactly the same as any other "big boobs therefore bad" post on its surface. Further compounded by the fact that Wonder Woman traditionally is among the strongest entities within the DC universe, certainly the strongest female and for supernatural reasons - a concern with regard to her bodily proportions on purely biomechanical grounds seems a little odd.
I will still maintain that it's an incomplete argumeent.
I don't know what I can do to convince you that large chest size does not bother me other than to tell you that my feelings lie in quite the opposite direction.
My concern isn't purely biomechanical, though. It's in potential harm to real-life girls trying to live up to an (impossible, as a real-life contortionist proved) ideal by punishing their own bodies.
That's doubly not what you expressed though.
I would like for you to quote the exact part where josh specifically said her boobs are too big and that alone is the problem.
I don't think anything I said requires josh to have expressed anything of the sort.
The only concerns he expressed where biomechanical - literally only referencing a character known for a large bust and the concerns about the backpain*. As such the other concerns were not expressed.
* I am not opposed to doing a Gricean analysis of this, but the logic of communication is something that is likely outside the scope of the thread.
The other concerns were implicit and obvious if you read the remainder of my opinions on the topic of misogynistic tropes. Like, for instance, the OP, where I explicitly state that I'm against the objectification of women. Or any number of other posts I've made that I know you've read on these forums which detail my character and how I would never shame a woman for having a large bust size.
However, the one post you quoted, when taken completely in a vacuum, could be misinterpreted, which is why I took the time to respond to your concern and clarify my position. So it's more than a little odd to me that you keep returning to the misunderstanding and not giving me the benefit of the doubt after I made it clear that your concern was unwarranted and inaccurate.
That's the last I'll say on that.
joshofalltrades on
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
When media is overwhelmingly loaded with X to the point that's it's harming people's lives it's a problem.
But the media is not harming people's lives.
Only if you believe people are not influenced by the culture they're surrounded by and media they consume.
I think accepting this uncritically is unwise. The Comics Code, Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, playing Metal music backwards to worship Satan, Jack Thompson's crusade against violent video games, etc. have all been proved to be a ridiculous farce, so ridiculous that believing in it undermines your overall credibility as a person, let alone older ideas like arresting people for blasphemy (well, in non-shitty countries), or banning teaching evolution, and the like.
I think these are particularly extreme examples that obscure the point debated. One can think there are problematic correlations between violent or sexist images and violent or sexist behavior (or at least lacking sensitivity to the same) without sliding all the way to Jack Thompson territory.
Disagree. I think this is the sort of thing people say in order to get away with both having and eating a particular cake.
Sexist Imagery -> Sexism.
I don't like Sexist Imagery.
So, let's be concerned about it.
Posts
We punish and chastise people for having shitty thoughts all the time. The internet is basically devoted to it.
Of course culture influences people, but higher culture influences them more. Expose a person to a world of culture, and you'll find they can cherry pick the best fruits over the most abundant ones as well as anybody.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Citation needed.
I'm not so sure. I frequently invite my students to join me in the fruits of Plato and Seneca. They usually prefer LOLcats and dancing at raves.
Here's an infographic, though I'm still looking for actual literature
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Why not give them both?
Give them a year or ten. They'll come around.
edit: Dan Ryckert knows the Allegory of the Cave. Keep the faith
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
In my younger days, working as a bartender, one of the other bartenders tended to leave her Harlequin romance novels lying around the bar. I love reading, and I'm willing to give just about anything from any genre a try, and I read at least a dozen of those things. The tropes there ended up annoying the heck out of me, and when I no longer had semi-abandoned books left sitting around within reach for me to snag and read on the bus home, I didn't bother reading much more of the genre.
The women tended to be described as plain, many of them had a child already of various ages, and they tended towards early to mid thirties. They tended not to have much higher education, or if they did they were underemployed. The men tended to be handsome, successful globe trotters, who could have had any women in the room with a crook of their fingers. They had busy professional lives, and a tendency towards having experienced personal tragedy in their past that had scarred them and made it difficult for them to get close to people. The Plain Jane protagonist would melt the heart of the brooding guy, and after some almost tragedy she'd teach him to love and he'd whisk her out of her mundane life of drudgery.
In later years, it's been hard not to notice those tropes elsewhere, in some more mainstream romance stories. Twilight embraces those tropes pretty hard, and to a somewhat lesser degree so does Outlander. Disney movies have tended through the years to have Handsome Princes, who fulfil the important requirements of i) being handsome, and ii) having an excellent annual income. Having limited exposure to the romance genre, my impression is that the ideal man from a romance novel is tall, handsome, and successful. The frequency that those tropes appeared made the genre feel too formulaic, and it was a genre that didn't interest me enough to go looking for the good books that broke away from the standard tropes of the formula.
About two years ago, I read a post on Jezebel that opened up the romance genre to me. It turns out that while I don't care too much for most romance novels, lesbian romance novels are right up my alley (that's my deep, dark secret; I apologize for how mundane and underwhelming it is). I love happily-ever-after stories, and romance novels tend to provide them. And more to the point of this thread: standard gender roles break down in homosexual romance. When the standard gender roles break down, it permits more freedom for the tropes around the genre to be subverted or embraced or rejected as the storyteller pleases. It's fascinating seeing standard romantic tropes - not just Harlequin romance tropes, but broader ones as well - appear in various ways and forms within lesbian romance novels.
By removing the gendered expectations and tropes regarding men, lesbian romance novels allow for more diverse and interesting women than the standard straight romance novels that I've read.
But the serial romance novels are all written according to strict formula. The (mostly women) who read them aren't interested in surprising twists, deep narratives, interesting characterization, or thought-provoking stories. They are there for one reason and one reason only: comfort.
And there's nothing wrong with comfort! There is nothing deep or intellectual about playing a FPS deathmatch. It's brainless and good stress relief. However, if that was the full extent of my media consumption, I would consider myself pretty mentally malnourished. Part of the reason I enjoy watching The Wire or reading scientific journals or even playing a puzzle game like Braid is because it mentally engages me. It's a whetstone for my brain. Obviously once in a while I'll go watch Die Hard and shut my brain off for a while, and that's fine too, but it's not the only movie I watch.
I'm trying to type this out without sounding judgmental towards people who do only watch rom coms or stupid action movies or only read terrible mass-produced romance novels and I'm probably failing.
I was replying to programjunkie.
But the problem with your claim, regardless of veracity, is that the awful, terrible culture vastly out numbers the good and is what most people are exposed to.
Which is what a lot of us are concerned about.
I don't disagree at all - the vast majority of the straight romance novels I've read have had the underlying message of 'you might be plain and a bit overweight and going nowhere in life, but somewheres there's a handsome, rich guy who'll fall head over heels for you and take you away from it all (and he's even great with your kids)!' As sexist ideas go, it's barely more complex than 'you're mostly a nice guy, so you deserve a smoking hot babe as your adoring girlfriend.' For all that, to some extent because of all that, I think that the ideas expressed in romance novels and romance movies, are really worthwhile thinking about in any generalized discussion of sexism in fiction.
Common romance trope can represent both a degree of both empowerment (for example, being past thirty and not model thin, but still capable of being sexy and desirable) and also significant internalized misogyny (the woman is typically the social/financial inferior of the man, and it's by snagging the ideal guy that the woman's life improves). Romance novels become a lot more interesting when you look at them from a feminist perspective and unpack the tropes and biases the books are built around as you go.
Can you give an example of a society that declined because it had too much freedom of expression, or media access?
I'd watch that, assuming it didn't use the opportunity to drop a bunch of campy gay stereotypes for the people expecting them.
It's you who is changing the subject Quid - namely what exactly "There's nothing wrong with having some particular preference" entails given that it appears that in practice people do indeed have a problem with people's preferences.
The question about whether too much of particular media is a bad thing, which as you contend it may well be, is separate to the original exchange between _J_ and KingOfMadCows.
If so, then I will cop to having misread you - though I feel I should clarify that it reads almost exactly the same as any other "big boobs therefore bad" post on its surface. Further compounded by the fact that Wonder Woman traditionally is among the strongest entities within the DC universe, certainly the strongest female and for supernatural reasons - a concern with regard to her bodily proportions on purely biomechanical grounds seems a little odd.
I will still maintain that it's an incomplete argumeent.
I don't know what I can do to convince you that large chest size does not bother me other than to tell you that my feelings lie in quite the opposite direction.
My concern isn't purely biomechanical, though. It's in potential harm to real-life girls trying to live up to an (impossible, as a real-life contortionist proved) ideal by punishing their own bodies.
Yeah, they look the same size but placed on a normally-proportioned body it's difficult to tell that. Sort of like how it's tougher to tell how tall someone is when they're sitting, I guess?
oh my god, he has clarified his point. do you want to engage with that or just keep saying he said something else?
While true, doesn't actually follow from the original comments.
What about the new ones, where I told you explicitly what I meant?
See, I see this comic and assume the message is "artists should stop making female characters look like sexualized ideals because it makes women uncomfortable", but I can't help but wonder why the message couldn't be "artists should make both male and female characters sexually idealized for the enjoyment of everyone, and men who feel icky because the female gaze is being catered to for a change need to get over it".
However, I also think the definition of what is portrayed as "beautiful" in all media should be drastically expanded so that more people can feel confident in how they look.
I think fictional works are vanishingly immeasurable in impact compared to cultural values transmitted through other channels, like parents, peers, community leaders, religion, etc.
I think it's a very slippery slide to be on indeed. I don't think it is uncharitable to call it baseless speculation.
Do you think anorexia would exist in the numbers it does without today's media portrayal of women?
I think that dude comic artists are probably not going to be very good judges of what 'women' find attractive. Neither is anyone else, really, because it's a wide spectrum. Same for men. The Batman in that comic isn't remotely attractive to me, but I guess some people might like it? Good for them if so!
Exaggerations like you see in comics/fantasy present an interesting case, because they tend to take the more subtle stereotypes we all express and push them as far as possible. So women become hyper sexy/attractive, men become hyper muscled/violent, corporations become hyper-evil, ect. It can certainly be an interesting window into some of society's underlying prejudices and expectations.
But when I read anything by the people 'against' it, they mostly seem to be just as invested in the stereotypes. Someone who gets angry over combat high heels is still taking it as a given that the most important thing about the female character is her appearance, they're just using a different criteria to judge her appearance. Note that almost anyone in a fantasy game/comic is going to be dressed ridiculously for what they're doing, but the argument is always about the women, because they're the ones who's appearance is everything. That combat high heels are something that bothers you suggests that you're still viewing the female character primarily in terms of her appearance, while they judge male characters on their actions. You don't see a lot of angry posts about how the lack of realism shown by Spider Man's combat spandex. So the underlying message is the same on both sides (a woman's appearance is always what matters), its just framed as a two-sided issue.
And really, if doe-eyed Batman is your thing, it isn't hard to find content in a similar style. Just google "Cute Anime Boy" and take your time looking through the 15 million results. I have a hard time believing the source of the discontent here is a lack of creative content. There are comics in all kinds of styles and with all kinds of authors at your finger-tips, right now. Many artists would kill to have 1/50th the pageviews of the latest outrage blog post about combat high heels. So how much of this is a legitimate shortage of diverse art, and how much is fueled by the desire people have for self-righteous anger and superiority?
The problem isn't as much any one particular character being sexualized. It's that the sexualization of women in media is so overwhelmingly prevalent.
It's not saying that no female character should ever be sexualized. The problem is that it's so common that it's almost expected that female characters 'have' to have a look that appeals to men. The trend sends a very troubling message to the female audience that their worth is largely wrapped up in how attractive they are, regardless of other qualities they have as a person.
It's not the specific example, it's the trend that those examples demonstrate. Don't miss the forest for the trees.
Comics are a purely visual media. If one can't judge the artwork then that cuts off 90% of useful debate.
Also, most of these complaints come from the fact that almost all are of male fantasies, wether of power or sex. Of course that's going to involve how women's bodies are depicted and a discussion thereof.
Nope, J wanted to know why it's a problem to have X media.
I explained why. If it's excessive and is harming people, it's generally considered bad. He wanted to talk about specific instances but I'm not interested.
Who said declined?
The options aren't Rome on fire or Utopia.
A society can have problems that are reinforced by its culture. Or are you going to contend that people's decisions and views aren't formed in large part by the culture they grow up and live in?
Well, if we are going purely by personal preference, I don't think the hyper-sexualized imagery of women is attractive at all either, so it seems analogous to me.
I would like for you to quote the exact part where josh specifically said her boobs are too big and that alone is the problem.
And where do those people get their values from? Have they been passing the exact same values down from generation to generation? Obviously not. People pull there norms from all facets of culture, the media they consume included. And if that media says it's okay for Bond to force himself on a woman because that's what she really wants, and no one tells their kids otherwise, why should those kids assume any differently?
---
Again, X trait is Yist when applied overwhelmingly to specific groups over others. Some traits may be a problem in themselves or good in themselves but that is not the issue.
I don't think anything I said requires josh to have expressed anything of the sort.
The only concerns he expressed where biomechanical - literally only referencing a character known for a large bust and the concerns about the backpain*. As such the other concerns were not expressed.
* I am not opposed to doing a Gricean analysis of this, but the logic of communication is something that is likely outside the scope of the thread.
I'm not really one for language policing, but I do want to note how the language you're using there, in particular the concept of a 'male' fantasy (as if there were only one) reinforces the idea that traditional gender roles are right and correct. After all, all men must really want to be burly violent powerhouses, right? This is the kind of thing that I mean when I say that I don't see much difference between the two sides of this coin.
Also, what do you mean by most? Most of what? I'm not a huge comics reader I admit, but very few of the comics that I've taken the time to read (mostly online) have involved stereotypical power fantasies, mostly because I don't really seek out that kind of thing. That's probably what you'd get if you bought a DC superhero comic, but you know that's what you'd get from a DC comic when you buy it. So why do you care if you aren't interested? Because it was in the news? There's a world of art and artists out there if you look, and I have trouble taking seriously the idea that, in this day and age, there is some kind of art shortage and people just can't find any content that appeals to them.
Also, I'm a married Lesbian who veers slightly towards the butch side. Of course I am all about existing gender roles, .
/eye roll
Disagree. I think this is the sort of thing people say in order to get away with both having and eating a particular cake.
Sexist Imagery -> Sexism.
I don't like Sexist Imagery.
So, let's be concerned about it.
Violent Imagery -> Violence
But I like Halo / God of War / Postal / That quest where you torture someone in Wrath of the Lich King
So, engaging in virtual violent acts totally doesn't foster violent tendencies.
I'm saying pick one.
Sexist Imagery causes Sexist acts.
Murder Imagery cause Murder acts.
Either both of those are true, or neither is true.
And we thought Jack Thompson was a silly goose, therefore...
The other concerns were implicit and obvious if you read the remainder of my opinions on the topic of misogynistic tropes. Like, for instance, the OP, where I explicitly state that I'm against the objectification of women. Or any number of other posts I've made that I know you've read on these forums which detail my character and how I would never shame a woman for having a large bust size.
However, the one post you quoted, when taken completely in a vacuum, could be misinterpreted, which is why I took the time to respond to your concern and clarify my position. So it's more than a little odd to me that you keep returning to the misunderstanding and not giving me the benefit of the doubt after I made it clear that your concern was unwarranted and inaccurate.
That's the last I'll say on that.
Um, why? We treat sex and violence differently, as well as the difference between overt and covert displays. (e.g. racism)
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious