Will Final Fantasy XV's Cid be a Lady?

[chionos]

Also, I think part of the issue with this one is that they took a precedent and changed it in a sexual way because the gender changed. Cid was USUALLY an older, not super attractive guy. Now because Cid is a woman, she's suddenly overly sexy and aged down like 20 years. I know I would personally be reacting differently if they made most of the male Cid's young and sexy and then made a female Cid that way. It would be like "Well, yeah, that's Cid."

This is the crux of the issue, clearly (and I'm not sure how so many people can't see it), though I am definitely of the opinion that the fact there's not a clearly defined definition for "sexy" or "sexualized" means we can't really get anywhere resembling an agreement.

Because while I believe Cidney is certainly a sexualized character (and unnecessarily so) and is evidence of sexism in video games (or in this case specifically the Final Fantasy franchise), those who think that males in Final Fantasy aren't sexualized are blind or straight up lying to themselves.

I also think that anyone who ignores the differences between what the average female finds sexy or sexual in a male character and what the average male finds sexy or sexual in a female character will never understand the truth about the situation and furthermore will never be able to change anything.

Comparing revealed skin percentage doesn't work. Comparing female chest bulge to male crotch bulge doesn't work.

Again, I'm pretty comfortable saying that Cidney is a sexualized character because that outfit is just ridiculous. This has nothing whatsoever to do with any other Final Fantasy character. That's where this discussion breaks down. There are sexualized male and female Final Fantasy characters. There are non-sexualized male and female Final Fantasy characters. None of that changes a single thing regarding what's been done with Cidney.

I think it's neat that Cid's been gender-flipped, but I also think this is kind of a lame way to go about it. Non-playable and nothing to do with the story? I'm disappointed. I also do not like the eye color. Sadly, everything about the character is leaving me kind of meh.

And also as for Penelo, I personally find her one of the more attractive FF characters, and while I would say her clothing isn't the most modest (I mean you'd have to be sewn in to that thing its so tight) it certainly isn't one of the more revealing anyways. Which also makes me wonder why sometimes we can't just make characters sexy without showing off everything. Or maybe different types of sexy. Not saying it never happens, again, just talking about the general.

As you said, it does happen. There are different types of sexy all over Final Fantasy. Balthier is a great example. For all that physically attractive is a relative state, the other elements of attraction are even more relative or even arbitrary.

But there are ways to do that without making them walking sex objects.

That's where Cidney seems (from what we know so far, which is, to be fair, less than we should before we started speculating, but oh well) to be different from other FF characters. Distinct from other sexualized FF characters like Lulu, who was overtly sex-objectified, but also had a full personality apart from her "boobexual" moments (bending over after battle, etc.) Again, maybe Cidney will have more of a personality than is implied by her role as a non-playable character that has nothing to do with the story. As it stands, she may well end up being the most sexist version of a character in FF's history. And then again, she might not. I really hope Cid's first foray in a female shell turns out to be deeper than it looks, though.