Just how sexist is nudity in gaming?
Last week, I wrote about The Godfather II game, which features topless women. I argued that the nudity was unnecessary and gratuitous.
After reading through the story, some readers debated whether in-game nudity objectifies women. Both sides make a compelling argument.
One reader, "CrimsonCantab", said "female nudity...is unneeded and degrading to women. Pornography is shown to have many negative side effects, like reduced fidelity in marriage. There's already too much of it on the Internet, and I find it harder and harder to be a gamer when games are headed in the same direction."
"Renegade Knight," on the other hand, wrote that "the problem isn't the nudity so much as the reaction to it. Clearly, it's a problem for some people."
"Infinitely" responded that "(Don) made a good point that (the game) is using (the female body) to sell copies of a game. That alone should be a reason to decry it. There's nothing wrong with nudity, but this is objectification of women. You don't see any nude guys in video games, do you?"
The latest in the Grand Theft Auto series, Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned, shows a man fully nude. That said, the majority of games with nudity show only women nude (here's a full list).
DarkerRaul wrote in the comments that, "While I don't necessarily agree that nudity in any form is pornography, I do think that the context of the scene is pornographic, if the player 'was greeted by a woman offering me sexual favors.' That is disgusting and offensive," the commenter wrote. "And while female nudity does not degrade women, this scene certainly would degrade women, whether the character was nude or not."
Is it, then, the game's actions rather than the mere nudity that objectifies women? One reader, "raywkirk," sees no harm in at least the former.
"What a bunch of prudes! And, what about men? You never hear anything about men being degraded by nudity," he wrote. "In Britain, it's not unusual to see topless women on bus posters and television. What is the harm in it? I don't get it."
Maybe you don't either. Or perhaps you do. Either way, let us know in the poll to the right and in the comments below.
Is nudity in gaming sexist? Tell us what you think.
Check out Don's Digital Home podcast, Twitter stream, and FriendFeed.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
However it is true that there is more of a trend towards female nudity in gaming and that is simply down to the demographic. Likelihood is as female gamers increase even further in numbers from the huge representation they already present, games will shift in their construction as well and heck, you might just start seeing more male nudity.
LOL. It is quite obvious from Seaspray's use of the word "worse" that his opinion is most definitely negative. Me thinks you might share his view, hence the poor attempt at defending his comment, hmmmm?
Surely there is an advisory on the cover of the game. If you are offended don't play it AND if you decide to play the game and don't like it, SUCK IT UP !!!
[CNET editors' note: Prohibited content deleted.]
we accept it in books, magazines, movies, etc.
Why is he singling out games. It is just another media. Let the market decide whether people buy it or not.
If that's the case and it sounds reasonable. We all objectivefy everone we ever meet at some point if not all the time. Sounds like a non issue.
Does Playboy objectivy the bunnies or the doofs reading it? Or do feminists see it as objectifying because they can't get past the bunny or the doof perception meaning they are perhaps even more of the problem than what they are complaining about?
Objectification is not at all related to the reaction of certain parties, it is about the person doing the objectification, by that, it is that person making another as an object, reducing their value from being a human being, to simply being some piece of meat to be f*cked. This is FAR too commonly done against women and games are as guilty of this as other forms of media. The problem with this, even when in context (and i'll get to that in a moment), is that it perpetuates the perception of value: a woman is only worth as much as her T&A. A woman is only worth her value as a provider of sex. This is not constructive for women regardless of whether you or someone else finds it offensive.
Context is a legitimate argument - in that, the nudity might be part of the narrative to make the story more immersive. This is rarely the case in games but often the 'excuse'. Even still, the nudity remains dispproportionately female nudity and the true rationale is disproportionately to sell the game using sex and thus making the value of the woman only based on sex.
Rarely do we see female leads and when we do have a female lead in a game she is sexed up - we do not see the equivalent exploitation of male characters. Even the npc's in a game, if they are female, they are wearing freakin' bikinis even when they are a dragon slayer or something. Why the hell would it be "in context" for the male to be clad in head to toe armour and the female to wear a chain mail bikini? There is NO rationale for the low cut tops and leggy outfits beyond exploitation and objectification of women.
It is also not about the sexual context. No it doesn't matter if the topless chick approaches the player and wants sex or not - she's topless as a purely exploitative measure to sell games. Her value has been reduced from whatever a male npc could be to just 'topless chick'. Why can't she just be an npc? Why must she be the 'topless chick'??
Too long men have exploited women and just passed it off with a range of weak excuses, including but not limited to trying to tarnish the idea of a feminist, as if being someone who cares about women having the same basic rights to respect as a human being is such a terrible thing. The word has been so heavily degraded that women who believe in female rights refuse to acknowledge themselves as a feminist, or if they voice an opinion are offended when someone calls them one.
It is not prudish to want women to be treated as human beings on an equal footing to men. It is not just my 'interpretation of objectification' that determines my desire to be seen as more than just a fleshy sack of orifices for a man to have sex with.
Either our cultural norms are behind the times or totally off base with our expectations; either way, you can see boobs in video games and pg-13 movies alike
Exploitation isn't ok just because you slap on a age limitation. Exploitation shapes the perception people have. So when women are routinely exploited and objectified this becomes seen as "normal" and "acceptable". It becomes "normal" for a woman to be valued only based on her desirability as a sexual object.
And as I've said earlier, the contextual arguement rarely if ever applies to games. Women are always unnecessarily sexualised and men aren't, even in the PG games.
To say objectification of a category of people is ok as long as you have an 18+ warning on it is ignorant in the extreme and akin to endorsing child pornography as long as you put a label on the cover. Or saying racism is ok as long as you warn people before hand. No it isn't. The music industry gets away with the constant exploitation of women (look at a hiphop video clip and the words for 30 seconds and tell me honestly that women aren't being objectified). Games do too - Lara Croft anyone? If that was a bloke he'd be covered head to toe in safety gear appropriate for his tasks, but as a chick she's sexed up.
It is disproportionate and not related to if someone gets offended. Just like rape isn't about if the woman gets "offended" she was violated, it is just plain wrong.
I see it in both the naked women and in the design of strategy games that almost exclusively focus on warfare, fighting, and killing. I love the Civilization series; played all of them on PC and just got an Xbox and CivRev, but I am endlessly frustrated by the insistence of the AI on attacking, attacking, and attacking. There is more to building a culture than beating other cultures up. (Witness our attitude toward Somalia's pirates.)
Thus demonstrating you don't understand the difference between use of nudity and objectification.
Truth is there are women out there who would offer a man in a situation like this sexual favors. Does it tell a good story? Does it tell a story true to it's source (which it really doesn't as dealt with in the last article), or does it gratuitously use a common male fantasy to sell games without any artistic intent? (I consider the artistic value argument to go in meaningless circles. The real question is was there any artistic intent by the creator.) Truth is I think this example to be an example of fairly awful trends in video gaming, but I think it's situational. Nudity in and of itself is completely fine, even sexual content can be very positive. (Anyone seen Shortbus?)
If gaming is ever going to truly grow up out of the pre-conception that they are for kids they are going to have to start treating their content like art, albeit commercial art.
And let's face it. Most gamers of note are 20 something males. "Male Nudity" doesn't sell to the guys who are buying games. When women start buying games in demographically noticeable numbers, and they respond to sexual stimulus in those games aimed at them we'll see some balance on this playing field. Until then it's a money game, not an intentionally sexist game.
Context is an important thing I agree, it can make the difference between objectification and narrative. The female body is beautiful and should not be something of shame. However, it is rarely consturctive in games. Normally, it is continuing the negative perception of the value of women being sex, that is what it is teaching the people playing these games that then go and listen to hip hop and think of women as their 'ho' or '*****'.
Male nudity doesn't sell because of the high level of homophobia. Indeed, male pornography sells stronger to gay men then to women. So no, the gaming industry won't turn around.
On that note, since when did equality mean exploit men and women? I'd rather see us not exploiting or objectifying either...
The perception of nudity is a very cultural thing. Europeans, in general, don't understand America's 'obsession' with violence and Americans, in general, don't understand Europeans 'obsession' with sexuality & nudity.
My question about the article is if your basing the offensive nature of nudity on context, why isn't the context itself offensive? Why not do an article on prostitution & brothels in gaming? That is what is at the core of objectifying women, not nudity. If it was a brothel scene with no nudity and the women were offering sexual favors would it NOT still be objectifying women? Of course it would, and yet GTA is given a passing mention only because of it's male nudity not because of the lap dancing and prostitution.
In the end your nudity argument is null and void unless you're willing to take the argument beyond nudity and into the realm of what really objectifies women. I agree somewhat with your premise, but it needs to be thought out more, this is one of the better subjects you've written on so I'd say keep writing about it an expand to the real issues, not just the perceived issues.
Nudity can objectify but can be beautiful. As can sexuality. Even a brothel etc can be done well as part of a narrative. GTA has not achieved that in the slightest. Nor has any other game i've seen.
Nudity is an issue however, because it is done, for no real reason. There is little contextual or artful arguement for nudity in games, it is done at a purely objectifying level.
"Hey man I know Helghan is your home I just want to open a star bucks on this corner."
I'm not trying to be prudish here, sexuality is a positive thing that should be encouraged. But you aren't encouraging positive perceptions when you show a woman as just a bag of flesh.
As for me I really do not care either way. I really don't get offended by anything. If I see something I don't like I just say, "Wow that's dumb or that's lame, they clearly did that just for shock" but I don't fly off the handle and call my Senator because I just saw a topless women or heard a dirty word.
If I go to an R rated movie or pick up an MA rated video game those are the kinds of things you should be expecting to see. If you don't want to see them then stick with PG-13 movies and T rated games.
Why is sex so horrible? It's nature... last I checked, the majority of babies are not born wearing clothes. If a game is rated M, then there should be no issue raised about nudity. You should know what you are getting into when you buy a rated M game. Makes me wonder if the people who prude out of nudity in games also avoid R rated movies in which nudity is portrayed in a much more realistic visual. Why is it that when it's pixeled that the flags get raised?
There are folks chomping at the bit over pixelated privates. Most of them know what they don't like but have never really thought about why it is they don't like it. You know what kind of people you think you don't like but I don't think you have really thought about that any more than they have thought about the topic. Confused yet? If not, good.
Sooooo ... going with the bible interpretation ... then chapter 1 would suggest:
God was the first voyeur?
Sorry, I just have a hard time believing that a perfect being would intentionally make mistakes.
The solution to the whole sex and nudity part is to have it as an option. If you do not want to see some naked chick with her boobies flopping around, go into options and select some sort of parental control to censor it. Not everyone is offended by sex and nudity. It's mainly taught reaction based on the environment you were raised.
Racism is wrong. I'm sure we all agree. But it isn't wrong just because some people get offended by it. If that is why you think racism and sexism are wrong then you need to rethink the entire thing because you've got it all backwards - which probably makes you the worst form of racist/sexist - the ignorant one.
I think it's very weak story telling when nudity is used as a prop. Much like a character who smokes in the movie. Does it enhance the story? Can the point be made without the prop? There have been a few movies lately where these questionable props have been eliminated and I find I enjoy the movie much more and it's way more approachable for all audiences....like the 2 latest James Bond films and Iron Man where you don't need to see nudity to get your point across.
Why do you get to immerse yourself in a game because you are a guy, but I have to settle for bouncing around in an armoured bikini as if my mid-rif and cleavage doesn't need as much armour as yours?
It seems to me that those who say anything means something are the ones that think "anything" means "something." Enter your definitions where they go...
People's assumptions about "meanings" and "opinions" are just personal opinions that illustrate their beliefs and do not reflect on the person doing the action. For example, someone saying nudity objectifies women is saying something about them rather than something about the nude woman...
I would argue that someone who yells a racial slur is saying something about themselves (the speaker) rather than the person spoken about....
Of course, that is just my opinion. Your opinion on naked people is your own and may not reflect my thoughts. Please try to say that YOU think nudity objectifies women so that we know that you objectify women who are nude. If you don't objectify women who are nude, why do you think others do? Please tell me it isn't because they are between the ages of 13 and 24...
I wish you all well...
Your arguement is fatally flawed. People fight for causes they believe in and that in no way suggests they are on the side of those they fight. I agree that someone who yells a racial slur is saying more about themselves than the person they are insulting but that is not even almost related to me commenting that I believe a woman, for no good reason, being depicted nude rather than the same as anyone else in the game, is objectification.
Permit me to explain, using your example. In your example of the racial slur, I am not the person saying the slur, I am the one either being insulted or the one that witnesses said insult. I can make a judegment as to if I think that was racist or not, without myself being racist or not. It is called having a pre-frontal lobe. It isn't relevant if i am offended or not by the slur. The slur was racist whether i was offended or not.
By your logic, you are suggesting then, that women sold into slavery to be sex slaves are not objectified by the slavers or those that knowingly pay the slavers for them - oh no, it is the ones that oppose slavery, they are to blame!
While you continue to believe that objectifying women is about someone being offended or not, then you will continue to do it under the premise that it doesn't offend you and it is clearly everyone else's fault but yours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig_leaf
The Renaissance had many nude pieces created, and all of these are protected and uncensored today. The only thing that "exploits" people are stereotypes. Artist representations (which covers games) are no exception. Sure there are vulgar uses and also more tasteful ones, but most issues come down to an individuals tolerance or interpretation.
As with all art, each game tries to make a statement. That might or might not include nudity. I think women are more often naked than men just because a woman's body is more artist than a mans, or at least in the eyes of the artists in this field. The same exists in movies as well.
I bring this up because, as a female gamer, if I play the game as a man I can undress him down to his skivvies after buffing him up through much celery and strength-training. This is nudity at its finest.
- by pentest April 14, 2009 12:43 PM PDT
- We live in a world where there are feminists who actually think that it sexism and sexual discussions about women are the same thing.
- Reply to this comment
-
-
- by screamapillar May 20, 2009 11:24 PM PDT
- We also live in a world where there are chauvinists who don't understand that these issues overlap. I agree, they are not the same thing, but surely you are not suggesting that they are unrelated and do not impact one another?? You cannot consider sexism without considering the way women are depicted sexually. Women should not have the way they are treated being based on their sexuality or sexual desirability etc etc.
-
-
Showing 1 of 3 pages (115 Comments)Too much bother over nothing at all.
Btw, it is offensive that you attempt to use the word feminist as if it is an insult. You may say that wasn't your intention, but the implication is there, as if 'feminists' are the only ones that in your view wrongly represent this issue. Hence you used emotive terms like 'actually think' and 'bother'. I'm not stating that as an attack, more just as some feedback if you are open to that.