Quote Originally Posted by Shlup View Post
You acknowledge that "men and women ARE treated differently," you acknowledge that "gender disparities between the treatment of fictional characters negatively impacts society" but tell me I'm putting words in your mouth after you've said repeatedly that you don't care, as long as they're fictional and it's happening to both genders. The genders are not treated equally, it negatively impacts society, but you "don't see a problem."

Maybe you could just clarify what it is that you don't care about then.
When, in a specific game and/or series, I feel the genders are sexualised and/or not sexualised to a reasonably equal degree (gender-wise), no, I don't care. If, such as in a game like Dead or Alive, we see it blatantly one-sided, I think it's bad. Doesn't mean I'm going to lose my trout, but I feel these games go too far. They're entitled to make these games and like yourself, I'm entitled to not buy them, but hey, whatever. Still, I can see the appeal of these games to people who are seeking titilation without the use of outright porn. I won't kick up a stink about it, but I'm happy to state my opinion on any particular game and/or series if I have one and feel like putting it out there. FF just happens to be a series close to my heart and if I feel people are overreacting, I'm just as happy - if not even happier, due to the series being something I'm fond of - to express my opinion on it.

I'll also note that when I feel they go too far, I still express an opinion against Final Fantasy - such as in the case of Fran, which I personally felt was ridiculous. But some people - interestingly often female - like that, so I wasn't going to make a huge fuss.

I would also appreciate you giving me a handful examples of sexualized male characters. We can limit it to Final Fantasy since you've declared the series "fair and equal."
Gladiolus. Tidus. Barret. Snow. Gadolt. Kuja (although personally I imagine that the majority of girls are more likely to find other characters sexier than Kuja, like Basch, because girls tend to prefer the feather to the whole damned chicken, which I personally agree with but hey, if you like the codpiece, power to you).

Keep in mind these objective facts: The oldest [human] female character is Lulu at 22 and oldest male is Strago at 70. At least 23FFIV Cid (54), Yang (35), Tellah (60), Edward (24), Fusoya (?), Edge (26), Galuf (60), Locke (25), Edgar (27), Sabin (27), Cyan (50), Strago (70), Setzer (27), Barrett (35), Vincent (27), Steiner (33), Amarant (26), Auron (35), Wakka (23), Basch (36), Sazh (40) playable male characters are older than 22-year-old Lulu; not counting temporarily playable characters over 22 (Laguna, Kiros, Ward, Seymour), characters of unknown age other than obviously elderly Fusoya (Shadow and Gogo), and non-humans 25-year-old Kimahri and 46-year-old Red.
I've acknowledged already that the age thing is something they can work on.

There are no non-humanoid female characters.
Freya. Unless you mean non-humanoid in a more loose term, in which case there's probably only been one non-humanoid ever, Red XIII. All the rest have two arms, two legs, a vertical torso, a neck, a head, etc.

To my knowledge, no male characters pose in a way designed specifically to expose their secondary sex characterstics.
It's a bit unfair as males don't have boobs or any kind of "secondary sex characteristics" I can think of according to society. We've just got the genitalia, which to my knowledge isn't exaggerated in either gender beyond that seen in Kuja.

Before you delve into your many examples of sexualized males
BUT I ALREADY DID THIS Dangit, Shlup! Let me reply to your post as I read it more often! xD

I want to point out that I feel like a major issue here may be people thinking "sexy" and "sexualized" are synonyms. They're not. Leonardo DiCaprio is always sexy no matter what he's doing or wearing. A sexy person/character is "sexually interesting or exciting," or desirable.

According to the American Psychological Association, a person is sexualized when:
-a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or sexual behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics;
In this case, 90% of the claims for both sides can probably be thrown out. Damned near everyone has value beyond physical appearance in the Final Fantasy series. And we haven't even seen FFXV yet but I'm pretty confident that Cindy (wish they kept it as Cidney) will have more relevance than her sexual appeal.
-a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy;
I don't quite understand this bit. >_<;
[quote]-a person is sexually objectified—that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making; and/or[/quote
See two bits up - I'm pretty confident that Cindy is not going to be a whore and I'm pretty sure most FF characters, if not all of them, can have the same said about them. Perhaps a few exceptions such as dancers in FFV and people you encounter within honeybee inn.
-sexuality (def: expression of sexual receptivity or interest especially when excessive ) is inappropriately imposed upon a person.
...Aeris? >_>; But kidding aside, again, I don't think we can say much of this for anyone. Has sex ever actually been a thing in FF? Personally speaking, I think sexualised should include "being dressed inappropriately for ones role for the sake of gaining sexual appeal via physical attraction." If one of the above was meant to equate to that, it goes back to "is it sexy, is it relevant for what they do" and we're back to what we've been discussing earlier.

So, please, if you would give me some examples of male Final Fantasy characters who are sexualized, it would help us get on the same page. Also I want you to honestly ask yourself when you look at a male character's exposed skin whether you feel that skin is being exposed in order to be tantalizing to females/homos or whether it's meant to emphasize that they are physically powerful.
I'm troubled here because every single guy I can think of that is supposed to be sexually attractive appears to be muscular (and therefore powerful) because that is what is deemed to be sexy according to most females. So I could tell you Gladiolus, and you could say "No, he's strong, that's a power thing." And I don't know where to go from there because it's down to how you personally want to interpret it. The guy legitimately looks like a male model, to me at least.

Really, I think before we can go much further, you need to send me examples of sexualised males (...probably better to do so via PM or something) so I can get a better understanding of your interpretation of what they should look like. I've grown up being told (by females) that male wrestlers in tiny pants was not something they found attractive, but I'm getting the impression that this is what you mean by sexualised, because I'm unsure what else it could be.