Quote Originally Posted by J-Reyno View Post
I didn't call the comment homophobic, I called it sexist. These are two different things, and we're fortunate enough to have google available to educate you. Use it.
In fairness, it's even harder to paint it as sexist. Sexism is prejudice based on gender; SE clearly isn't displaying any prejudices against males, because they ARE introducing a new male. If any prejudice was displayed at all, it was favouring stereotypical muscle-bound males over those dressed as playboy bunnies. That's a lot closer to homophobia than anything.

Be careful criticizing others for their education when you're making mistakes yourself.

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As to the quote in question, yeah, sure, it's possible to interpret that in a negative way. That said, I have two questions for you.

(1) Is it really that surprising to see SE make gender-locked races? It's not like SE doesn't gender-lock gear. It's not like SE didn't take forever and a year to release the bunny suit for male characters. It's not like they haven't made gender-specific appearances for things like dresses.

(2) Do you really, REALLY think that this team is homophobic or sexist? This is a dev team that has created more effeminate males than virtually any Western title on the planet. The male characters are so pretty in this game (on average) that I don't even have an interest in playing one. Every other Hildibrand sequence involves rubbing a near-naked man all over with oil. The gender balance around meaningful storyline NPCs is spectacular, featuring plenty of strong men and women taking the lead in every type of scenario imaginable. Heck, years ago, Squaresoft - before even merging with Enix to become SE - made an entire sequence in FF7 centered around a cross-dressing minigame, with the female characters intentionally poking fun at how uncomfortable Cloud was.

I have a hard time buying the sexism / homophobic arguments. It seems like you're taking a game that in most respects is extremely progressive, and excoriating it the split-second you feel it doesn't live up to the high standards it typically sets. I'm usually loathe to defend SE - I have a lot of complaints with the development team - but in this particular respect, they're doing just fine, in my opinion. And I resent the implication that holding this opinion makes me a sexist.