It's been said that dudes wouldn't want to play a male viera because it'd be weird to be a rabbit guy/they're erp bait/they'd end up hunted for their limbs so that lalafell can make keychains out of them, but just recently one of my brothers started playing the game--a built guy who works on a farm and usually plays FPS (he used to play FF games prior to XIII, however)--and right out the gate he chose to play a miqo'te guy because "that guy looks cool." That's it. No weird ulterior motive, he just looked at this cat boy and was like "rad." I'd imagine a whole bunch of other people might react similarly to viera men. Ignoring the bunny ears entirely when choosing to play one because "that guy looks cool. He looks like he'd roundhouse kick someone in the face while simultaneously firing an arrow at an enemy, who would then explode while a pan flute backed by metal plays in the background."

Granted he's used to FF protagonists being on the more "softly handsome" side of things and his favorite character of all time is Cloud I mean he wrote fanfiction journal entries about going on adventures with him in the first grade bless him but I really don't think there'd be anything offputting about male viera unless they, you know, looked like kids which I don't think would be a thing since "hmm maybe elezen-like" to paraphrase(savage) is what was said.

(Also--I am a girl who really, really, really wants to play a male viera. Not for any weird reasons, just because I like viera and have had poor experiences playing female avatars. (I also just really like rabbits!))