Earlier this week, Anthony Burch took on the subject of ''sexy'' video game characters, specifically female ones, in his video rant. 119 comments and one very good video response from atheistium later, I am now weighing in and picking apart the subject's dead, beaten corpse too.

While there have been several times in the past when I would not have agreed with various small things Rev Ant has covered in his sort-of-weekly ranting, I've never felt compelled to even comment before, as overall I think he's mostly on the money. This time however, I simply could not disagree more with not only the points he was trying to make, but even with how he was trying to make them.


Somewhat dubious disclaimer: of course, none of this rant is personal or aimed to annoy/offend. I also apologise for the terrible use of MSPaint further down, but my usual laptop is bricked and this one can offer nothing better.

As it so happens, atheistium's response has already very well covered half of the issue, that of these characters as role models. I don't believe there is anything I could add that she didn't already covered better than I could have done. So for that element of the subject, I simply refer everyone to her response to Ant's rant.


The part that I'm going to talk about is that ever-popular subject,


(in Brian Blessed's voice)
SEX
(ooh-er missus)


I'm going to start by stating outright, I do not believe the use of 'sexy characters' or otherwise using sex to sell games (or anything else) is a 'problem'. You can't really have played many games in the last fifteen years if you did find it disagreeable - sex is everywhere in games. Nearly every video game, film, print media and music video since the 60's has used sex to up their buy rates. To criticise any game for making use of these tactics is to criticise all forms of media and even everyday life, which is where the bulk of my point (heh, 'point'. Like, 'erection'. Heh) is going to be coming from (heh, 'coming'. Like...).



Porn is just as unrealistic as video games





A large part (heh) of Ant's argument was that video games are not ''honest'' about how they use sex, while using porn as an example of ''honest'' exploitation of sexuality to make money. Now, the argument could be made that porn is simply more blatant about it, but the idea that one format can play some kind of honesty card and the other can't is ridiculous.

Ant's point falls apart quite simply at the first hurdle, because porn is not ''honest''. It's not. Anyone who has seen a porn video and has had any contact with another breathing human knows it is not an honest medium. When I go to the doctor for a check-up, my outing does not feature sex with three suspiciously tattooed nurses. Girls who attend Catholic schools are not all 26 with surgically enhanced EE breasts. It's all fantasy. The men are all impossibly ripped with giant penises that bend in all odd ways thanks to cheaply done enhancement surgery; the women all have giant implants, orange fake tans and tramp stamps. Pictures and even videos are airbrushed, photoshopped and heavily edited to produce the most stimulating product with no regard to anything else. It's all engineered to an alleged ideal. If it was actually realistic and ''honest'', porn wouldn't be half the monster industry that it is.

So, you can't use the porn industry against video games as an example of 'sex done right'. The argument simply doesn't hold up, they're both just as fantastical and made-up as each other - or if anything, porn is even more fantastical and deceptive than games are. No video game ever tried to claim that when your neighbour turns 18, she's going to spend her birthday sitting on your face.

This can in fact be applied across all media, or in fact nearly anything. Music videos are airbrushed. Actors and actresses are frequently hired for their looks. You won't see a woman with a broken nose on the front of Vogue. We have clothes, make up, perfume, all designed to make us feel more attractive (and conversely some people avoid those things to be what they feel is attractive - whichever floats your boat). Everyone would like to be more attractive than they are. Games already put us in worlds with dragons, giant robots and even into the lives of our favourite sports and music stars; why can't they let us escape to a more attractive world too?

There's a great moment in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Last Action Hero, where a boy is sucked into the world of the films he watches and is trying to convince the characters that what they think is their world is actually a fantasy film world. He tells Arnold that they must be in a fictional film world because everyone around them is beautiful and there are no ugly women - Arnold replies "hey, this is California!". It's a slightly creepy moment to watch now he's running the joint, but it's surprisingly good satire for an Arnie film. The exact same applies to games.



If characters weren't attractive, people wouldn't care about them.





Of course game characters are going to be designed to be attractive. If they weren't, video games wouldn't be as popular as they are. You might as well be taking out the big swords, the aliens and the triple-turbo-charged cars. People don't want to play as someone who leaps from ledge to ledge and looks completely average. People aren't interested in playing a fighting game as "John from across the road". People want either outrageous characters (Yoshimitsu, Kirby), or more often than not they want somewhat more plausible but otherwise completely fantastical, idealised caricatures of people (Lara, Snake, Dante).

When there's a create-a-character feature in games, who makes a slightly short, slightly fat guy with dodgy skin and a cheap haircut? Who makes a flat-chested, stumpy-legged woman with wonky eyes? Nobody. Often, it's not even an option.
A while ago I made 'The Simcastle', which was the first time I had ever tried to make Sims based off of real people, and it really struck me how impossible it was. The Sims allows you to make either very oddly pretty people or actually deformed people - but nothing that would be deemed 'normal' either way. Wrestling games are much the same, female wrestlers can't be created without breast implants and male characters, no matter how obese or skinny you make them, always have well-defined muscles and nearly flawless abs.

And why not? If I could click my fingers, have a magical slider bar appear above my head and move it around to get a flatter and more toned gut, I would. My nose has been broken four times over the last ten years - I could pay money to have it fixed, sure, but there are many more things in life that that money is better spent on.
But in games, it costs nothing to have a perfect nose. It costs nothing to change gender completely, or even species! I can fire up a game and within minutes I'm a grizzly bear that knows kung-fu. I pop in another disc and I'm dodging bullets in the trenches of WWII without any danger of any actual harm coming to me. I change discs again and I'm a leggy, blonde, curvy, busty French opera singer beating up 6'6" 300lb wrestlers. It's brilliant.

This is all part of the reason why some - many, in fact - people do consider video game characters to be role models. They do the things we wish we could, they live in the places we wish we would, they even look how we wish we could. If that's not idol material, what is? People treat rock singers the same, actors, models. People don't consider them and characters to be role models in spite of their attractiveness, if anything they are more likely to see a person or character as a role model and inspiration because of their attractiveness, or at the very least simply regardless of it. After all, nobody aspires to be ugly, just like nobody aspires to be stupid, boring or lonely.



Because I've now ranted for far too long myself and completely lost sight of the point

Does there have to be a reason for all this? Should game makers not be allowed to make characters who are sexually appealing? If they do, should they be forced to put big flashing red text everywhere stating "WARNING: WE ONLY MADE HER THIS WAY TO GIVE YOU AN ERECTION"? Must they explain themselves when they give a character a curvy arse? If they do, are they not also allowed to give that character a personality, or as Rev Ant very strongly implied, is it not possible for that character to have a personality? Are these ideals we should promote, should we perpetuate these fantasies? What's wrong with a little escapism, be it in lifestyle, world, or just looks? Even if a character is designed with zero personality and is only made to turn everyone on, why not? Why impose a label of ''dishonesty'' on a game when it uses a sexually appealing character? Why should sex appeal and character depth be polar opposites? If someone plays a game and they can't, for whatever reason, get past a character's sexuality, who does that say more about, the game developers or the player?

Does anyone still care if Lara has big boobs or not?