I am outraged.Appalled, even.
I have mentioned previously that I like videogames. I am geek. It is a fairly widely accepted fact that women in games are portrayed, by and large, pretty poorly - here, Wikipedia lists all of FIVE female video game protagonists, two of which I have never heard of (possibly my bad, I'm not a RABID gamer), out of a list of hundreds, if not thousands, of mainstream video games. In addition it links to some pretty horrendous games that actually exist. I'm not going to go into all the things I've found here because it would make this entire post very, very long. Longer than it's already going to be.
I recently got Skyrim for the PC in order to activate some of the mods available. If you don't know what modding is, then basically, it's usually user-created changes to game-play. This can range from anything to simply changing the colour of an in-game outfit, to actually fiddling about with some of the games codes in order to insert new characters/animations/locations etc. I really enjoy Skyrim, and one of the improvements on its predecessors (Morrowind, Oblivion etc.) that I particularly liked was the fact that female armours actually look like they are made for a female, as opposed to being so intrinsically similar, if not the same as, male armour, that when fully covered, you might as well have not been given to the option to choose a gender in the first place.
That said, I do like my lady armours to be....well, ladylike. Feminine. There is nothing wrong with being a strong, yet womanly woman. Skyrim could have afforded their ladies a bit more femininity in this regard. I think the most womanly item of clothing you can wear which isn't a sack is the "Tavern Outfit", which errs on the side of wenchy, flashing a fair bit of both leg and boob. Such a fashion faux pas.
So I thought I'd have a browse of some of the pickings of the modding community. Surely, I think to myself, there are some womanly armours which have just the right amount of modesty, coupled with just the right amount of sexuality?
What greeted me was a virtual barrage of pornographic images. Such as this one. (Totally, completely, and utterly NSFW, just to let you know.)
That, up there, is second on the list when it comes to female mods in Skyrim (The "Calientes Female Body Mod Big Bottom Edition" is the first). Basically, all it does is allow you to change the size of your female character's breasts, and then remove every single item of her clothing in order to choose whether her foof is "bushy", "light", "trimmed" or "shaved". Kudos to the guy....he's managed to successfully recreate a 3D modelling of ladyparts. No really, good job - I guess he must be a real stud to know what one looks like...oh wait, did I hear "porn"?
Yeah, that's probably more likely. Seeing as that's probably the only way some guy thinks it's normal for a woman to be wandering around heavily armed with no clothes on. At all.
On top of this, there is a barrage of mods made specifically to go hand in hand with the one outlined above. Needless to say a lot of those are fairly ridiculous as well. This one doesn't have nearly the support I'd expect for adventuring in....
I know that gaming is still a male dominated arena, and of course, I can just choose not to download those mods, but the mere fact that they exist upsets me - why the necessity to create anatomically disproportionate women in order to denude them? What upsets me more is that the two top body mods for a game otherwise unblemished by stupid, overt sexualisation of either gender, are ones designed specifically to allow certain gamers to get their daily game and porn fix in one handy location as opposed to having to split their entire day into two separate activities. (On a related side note, you can actually get male nudes as well, but as far as I can tell, far less frequently and far less ludicrously proportioned, which makes the whole thing still seem all-too one-sided for my liking.)
On top of the harmless naturism, there are the slightly more sinister/degrading-to-women mods as well, such as the mod that allows you to have sex with the NPCs, the mod that incorporates physics, of the...um...."butt" variety, apparently....which causes bums and boobs to jiggle. I say "jiggle", but it's more of a sway, or undulation (I can only assume that the creator has been watching "jiggling" in super slow motion to make his/her date with him/herself last that little bit longer). There are mods that allow you to insert strip clubs into the game, surprise surprise, no male strippers, just big bouncy girl ones.
Again, of course, the game creators themselves cannot be blamed for the content uploaded on these forums, as they are all user-generated - and a lot of hard graft goes into them as well, which, even from these naked pictures I've shared you can see. And of course, there are a lot of beautifully rendered, gorgeous mods - eye colour mods, mods that define and feminise the face, mods that give your character enviable, L'Oreal style locks, mods that program a feminine walk, even mods that take the nudey ones and use them to create sexy yet slightly more practical female armours, so despite myself, I downloaded the female body mod. But I avoided the close up shots of foof.
However, it brought to the forefront of my mind all the times I've despaired about the way that women are simultaneously portrayed and catered for in video games. You tend to have one of the following problems:
- Your female character is effectively just an animation of a man, except with boobs (such as Hero in the Fable series, and more popularly documented, FemShep from Mass Effect - quick note, I will be adding an article devoted to the study of the FemShep later, so don't burn me for trashing her inability to successfully pull off a dress)
- She's so wet she's practically a fish - think Aerie from Baldur's Gate, Aeris from FFVII, and our favourite, Princess Peach of Mario Bros. fame - "oh no I've been kidnapped, AGAIN! Where's a strong, manly plumber when you need one!?" *swoon*
- She's naked and she got boobies.
The first is, I agree, the lesser of the three evils - but, call me fussy, it's too equal. More than "equal", it just smacks a fair bit of laziness and a clear, apparent "can't be arsed to program a female walk to go with this female mesh" attitude. The other two, I would venture, cater pretty much to boys - either the emulation of saving a poor needy damsel in distress without a shred of common sense to STAY AWAY FROM THE GIANT BOWSER, or the ability to see a scantily clad woman running around doing absolutely everything you want them two by fiddling with a knob (two knobs on a controller....catering to some deep metaphoric need?)
This matter is one that I can go on and on and ON about, but I shall leave it there for today - I am happy that there is a medium through which frustrated gamers can take the criticism of many and act upon it, whether by providing a lovely little lady-run, or a new eye colour, but the fact that so many of these downloads are actually categorised (or that there even IS this category) as "adult", and comprised of completely naked, unrealistic female forms, is just a bit saddening, really.
(These guys have definitely got it right though. Have a watch.)
I'm off to see whether "butt physics" applies to me.
Hairwire
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