Oh, look, another thread claiming that Guild Wars 2 forces women to "look like prostitutes". I get that this is a somewhat subjective thing, but I can't be the only one who actually thinks Guild Wars 2 is fairly progressive in this regard. I'm saying this as a feminist, and someone who finds oversexualization a real problem. But some perspective, please.

Is there plenty of sexy or revealing armor? Yes. But a few points need to be made here:

• Both male and female characters are offered a lot of choice. The choice is not made for us female players whether or not we have to wear skimpy armor or dress like we are going to church. We get to decide, and get plenty of variety and levels of skimpiness with which to find a comfortable niche. People arguing both for skimpy armors and for covered up armor miss this point. We ought to be able to decide for ourselves, not have the zealots or the prudes decide for us. 
• Plenty of women, myself included, actually want to dress our characters in skimpy armor. That's why it's nice that there's a variety, and why it's often just as insulting for players to complain about "oversexualization".
• Sexiness isn't sexualization, or even oversexualization. There's a nuance here that is missed 99% of the time by people on both sides of the argument. This is oversexualization: basing character and armor design off of what is sexually appealing, with no regard for what female players will feel comfortable in, no regard for even basic realism. Oversexualization is designing things to be sexy at the level of pornography, for the express purpose of titilation or appeal to deprived young men. Etc etc. Sexy, looking good, etc, are not "oversexualization". Many women enjoy looking good or looking sexy, just as men do. 

 in the tera examples i think the stance is as sexual as anything else - it frankly screams 'f me'.  

im personally hoping for some 'skimpy' male armor so i can amek a barbarian looking character without having to leave off some pieces of gear.

I take it that this is a reaction to this other thread, claiming GW2 to "oversexulize" females. I personally agree with you, in that GW2 offers players a great deal of choice, from skimpy to fully-covered and for both male and females. And no one can talk about oversexualized females until they've seen Tera or Reqieum (is that game dead yet?).

Originally posted by Master10K

I take it that this is a reaction to this other thread, claiming GW2 to "oversexulize" females. I personally agree with you, in that GW2 offers players a great deal of choice, from skimpy to fully-covered and for both male and females. And no one can talk about oversexualized females until they've seen Tera or Reqieum (is that game dead yet?).

yep!

your point is very valid, but gw2 is great even when not juxtaposed against Tera.  i personally love skimpy 90% naked outfits on my female characters but what i love more is a game where someone who doesn't like what i like can still be happy.

I am not one to really notice this stuff I guess, but you are right, the armor does look a little more realistic and modest. Unfortunately, I am sure we will still have millions of men running around as women characters.

@tokini: I've actually played TERA, and you're correct that the stance is itself pretty insulting. The animations of the female characters in the game are oversexualized--tilting their backsides up towards the camera, bending over unrealistically, running "sexily", etc. 

@Master10K Yeah, this is largely a post written from annoyance with the other thread, but also from over a year of reading threads like it. It's frustrating, both as an anthro/social studies student and a feminist, to see how quickly an uninformed person makes a lazy or half thought-out statement about the game being oversexualized (one of my "favorites" was one on GW2GURU, where a male player complained that all of the female characters looked like sluts) and immediately people jump in to bash serious/thoughtful critique of female sexualization in videogames, which those posts never really are. It makes it harder for those of us who actually pay attention to this sort of thing to be taken seriously, basically, because there's so many lazy wolf-criers. /vent

That said, I'm accutely aware of how easy it is to manipulate people's opinions with headlines, and so I'm not particularily motivated to help bump a thread about how oversexualized the game supposedly is and just end up making people think that a significant amount of people agree with the sentiment.

Originally posted by colddog04

It's not really just about what YOUR character looks like, right? For those that think the outfits are too skimpy, they have to look around at a bunch of whores (in their mind) all the time.

So while yes, you can find conservative clothing in the game, the vast majority (as this flawless poll tells us) are going to be wearing sexy time outfits because they like them.

This post from the other thread just shows one of the kinds of attitude that is problematic here, and it's not just the "pro-sexualization" side. 

The idea that a female player shouldn't be able to wear skimpy armor because other people don't want to see it is worrying, at best. It's considered a problem for players to wear "offensive" skimpy armor that makes the fans of non-skimpy armor feel unhappy, but that argument never seems to work in reverse. Why is it not considered just as much of an issue that players who like skimpy armor themselves have to see everyone else in church wear?

One type of clothing is naturally considered to be "offensive" because it historically has been, rather than both extremes being considered potentially annoying. The Western cultural equivalent of a burka is no better than lingerie.

So the idea of "less skimpy armor please, I don't want to have to look at that"--the idea that female players should not be able to wear skimpy armor--is just moving into dangerous territory.

The sluttyness of the clothes is racially specific in TERA.  Female Elf and Castanic are all basically strippers/hookers but Aman females not as much.

GW2's style in general is to basically give you actual clothes.

Originally posted by MattVid

I am not one to really notice this stuff I guess, but you are right, the armor does look a little more realistic and modest. Unfortunately, I am sure we will still have millions of men running around as women characters.

And what's wrong with that. In every game I play both male & female characters and I don't see what the big deal is. Heck, my favourite champ in LoL is female and that's purely from a gameplay standpoint... Mostly.

all I can say is thumbs up OP, great visual post and I totally agree. 

Originally posted by gestalt11

The sluttyness of the clothes is racially specific in TERA.  Female Elf and Castanic are all basically strippers/hookers but Aman females not as much.

 

GW2's style in general is to basically give you actual clothes.

Eh, I beg to differ a bit. Aman females still really only having revealing (let's not slut-shame) clothing to choose from, it's just not nearly on the same level as...obviously, Aman women are not really considered sex objects by most people.

I agree, though. Guild Wars 2's style is far less stylized and imo (I'm sure there's plenty of better games in this regard but I don't know of them) one of the more realistic styles.

Originally posted by Master10K

Originally posted by MattVid

I am not one to really notice this stuff I guess, but you are right, the armor does look a little more realistic and modest. Unfortunately, I am sure we will still have millions of men running around as women characters.

And what's wrong with that. In every game I play both male & female characters and I don't see what the big deal is. Heck, my favourite champ in LoL is female and that's purely from a gameplay standpoint... Mostly.

Good point.

I guess (and really as a woman, I'm guessing here--so please let me know if I'm wrong) part of the difference is that when men want a variety which includes skimpy clothing because for them it's nice to look at.

For women, for myself at least, I want a variety which includes skimpy clothing because otherwise it just feels quite literally, stifling.

Edit: Sorry for posting so much guys. I'm bored and have coffee onhand. And love a good discussion. I'll cool it for a bit. :)

Tera definately went overboard with the t&a but who wants to play an ugly female character. Most dudes want there women to be sexy, Most women want to be sexy in the first place.  I am honestly curious if someone wants to make an ugly female character on purpose, seriously curious. Armor is cool but should it make your female character look like the beefy chick from game of thrones, probably not but should the alt be a stripper, I would say no to that as well.

Looks fine. it's a fantasy game. nothing you see or nothing you do should or could be done in the real world. I see nothing wrong with a video game having sexy character outfits be it female or male.

GW2 look's good. not my game but if you want to dress like a hooker you should have the option in armors. same for men. you want look like your flaming go for it. we live in more open times with a tiny amount of closed minded people who are offended at every little thing.

"Prostitute", "slutty", "like a hooker"... Hey, people, your stone age is showing.

Really, those threads are just killing me. I hate to think that a person can look at nicely (meaning very sexy!) dressed woman and think "slut". Can you people using those words in the posts just outright kill yourself? The Future will be grateful for your heroic cleansing of the gene pool.

A defense of 'I am not as bad as this other guy!' never works and is acknowledging the actual fault.

I was hoping ANet would not stoop this low but I guess they have to make it for their playerbase.

Originally posted by DaezAster

Tera definately went overboard with the t&a but who wants to play an ugly female character. Most dudes want there women to be sexy, Most women want to be sexy in the first place.  I am honestly curious if someone wants to make an ugly female character on purpose, seriously curious. Armor is cool but should it make your female character look like the beefy chick from game of thrones, probably not but should the alt be a stripper, I would say no to that as well.

There were posts on the official forums to add options for "ugly" females because all the character options looked very pretty. I guess nobody will ever make a really ugly character but they will still demand the option in the character builder

Originally posted by jpnz

A defense of 'I am not as bad as this other guy!' never works and is acknowledging the actual fault.

I was hoping ANet would not stoop this low but I guess they have to make it for their playerbase.

 

as evidenced by the OP.

the game stands alone.

take out all of the Tera references and the post is still correct, valid, and worthwhile.  i'm not sure if you're grasping at straws here or what.

and what exactly has ANet done? i'm unclear on that second sentence.

Originally posted by Grahor

"Prostitute", "slutty", "like a hooker"... Hey, people, your stone age is showing.

 

Really, those threads are just killing me. I hate to think that a person can look at nicely (meaning very sexy!) dressed woman and think "slut". Can you people using those words in the posts just outright kill yourself? The Future will be grateful for your heroic cleansing of the gene pool.

I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one bothered by it. At the same time, I imagine a lot of the people using the phrases aren't actually intending any insult by it, but maybe that's just me being optimistic.

Originally posted by jpnz

A defense of 'I am not as bad as this other guy!' never works and is acknowledging the actual fault.

I was hoping ANet would not stoop this low but I guess they have to make it for their playerbase.

 

So, let me get this straight. Inclusion of any revealing armor, even though many women  want their characters to wear revealing armor, and still providing a great deal of (if not more) non-revealing armors is...still stooping low.

Why? Can you please explain to me why it's bad to provide some variety for people who wish to wear revealing armors, in addition to those who don't? 

As someone else said, Guild Wars 2 doesn't need to be compared to other video games to be considered not-oversexualizing. It simply isn't oversexualizing in the first place.

Originally posted by Poison_Adele

as a feminist

tl;dr

However, just from glancing at the contents of this thread, I can see it's filled with entitled feminist ranting, propaganda and buzzwords. No thanks.