Quote Originally Posted by Joven View Post
It's not a loaded question because it's something that's been around pretty much forever. Men get shamed for looking at a porn magazine yet women can read smutty romance novels that are just verbal pornography, which objectify both men and women, and it's perfectly acceptable (think 50 Shades of Gray). Women objectify themselves by reading books like that, but for some reason it's only bad if they believe men are doing it to them. On top of that it's an assumption that just because something is appealing that it's being objectified. It's entirely possible to admire and be attracted to something and not objectify it. As I've said before women are traditionally viewed as elegant and graceful, but somewhere down the line, somehow, it became a problem to appreciate that elegance and grace.
I only say it's loaded because it is incredibly nuanced and therefore to voice for any reason automatically becomes a personal attack to some. Simply the nature of the question and I accepted it the moment I hit post.

But I understand what you mean.
Also, understand that I agree with you here. If you go back to my original post you'll see that I stated that if the content isn't meant primarily for sexual purposes (romance novels, smut, certain steam games amirite lol) then the imbalance of our eyecandy can cause conversations like this. I have no issue with content purpose primarily for those purposes. I as well as I have no issue with appealing male and female alike. I adore them both. From my trash Zenos to our majestic Titania to the harrowed Tsukiyomi are some of my most favorite storylines and character designs.

I also agree that yes, it's without question that women can be beautiful without objectification. But herein lies the issue. Developers hold a hand in character design here. In how they express female and male concepts and also in what they give us in term of customisation can speak volumes. As a game designer I can see this. As another post said, developers design women and give us the ability to customise female characters to a much broader level of expression. This we cannot doubt and there is nothing wrong with this broad scope. But if we turn that perspective onto male personas, there is a limitation in expression from the view of developer design. As many have already said, there is something missing with our male counterparts. A lacking.

This is also not about the traditional view of women or men. If I'm not wrong, most are are here speaking about eyecandy. I have no qualms about either of them to be honest though.