Quote Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy View Post
Hyper-sexualization of female characters offers males eye-candy and the hyper-masculinization of male characters offers idealized wish-fulfillment of the self.
This completely falls apart because there are more than plenty of female gamers who find sexy/attractive female characters to be just as empowering to them as a buff barbarian would be to men, as well as the hyper-masculinity can (and is) just as attractive to huge swathes of women. Look at romance novels, one of the largest selling genre of books, often catered exclusively to women, you'll find their covers adorned with buff half naked men (often with a woman fawning over them), yet their demographic isn't "hetero-male gamers".