But is this actually what's going on or are you just dropping buzzwords? How many kids do you know playing these games? Have you gotten their feedback? Maybe that's how you interpret it due to some darker and subconscious reason? There are many questions to ask here.
None of these points ring off to me. It's a lot of strong verbiage but in the end your idea of "creepy" and what not are subjective and up for your interpretation. I can't even begin to address the second point when it's clear that's how you see the games through your eyes.
Right, which brings us to full, collective understanding of the initial purpose of the thread.
Namely, in a community that's heavily dominated by men, to serve as a place for women to explain to those men why they criticize sexualized character designs in video games. Because the way that many women (and some men) see these games in their eyes differs on a fundamental level from how a subset of straight men (and some women) who are the target of the sexual pandering in those games see them. And the OP understood that and felt it might be useful to shine a light on why she, specifically, took issue with the content.
Many women (and men) have since used the thread as a means to talk about what makes THEM uncomfortable about said games and gives them reason to feel the need to criticize them.
For the record, I fall into the target audience for that kind of pandering myself, so I actually
don't (at least at first blush) see the games that way when they toss a sexualized woman at me. First I see a hot woman, then my brain jerks back and reminds me of the deeper societal implications with regard to the REASON the camera just slow panned up her ass to make sure I got a nice, full view.
Personally, I can disassociate from it, enjoy it for what it is, and then critique it later. Some people can't. You will find that other gay women and straight men and others attracted to women have described a similar phenomenon, if you head back in the thread a ways.
This thread has
become a thread about debate, as it often has a way of doing in cycles, but that's not what the initial purpose was. Rather, it was a platform from which Persephone could say "This is how I see these games through my eyes, just so you have some context next time you see me say bad things about them."
That people
so very badly wanted to tell her she was wrong and we wound up here two months later is another story entirely.
