Remove Gender-Lock From Gear / Glamour Please

[Awha]

A dress made with a feminine aproach wouldnt be the same as a dress made with a masculine aproach. I won't call a man who wears a female dress manly (if you talk about looks alone).

Let us be real all this focus on what clothing is considered masculine or feminine is not really masculine behavior, or if we are going based off classic gender norms when was being self conscious about ones attire ever considered manly or masculine? I get what you are saying regarding the look of the attire, but a lot of people are way to trapped up in this whole tying masculine or feminine labels onto clothing. Which is silly at this point. I do not think the clothing defines the person, so yeah if I saw Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson wearing a pink tutu, by no means would I think that man is feminine at all.

[Packetdancer]

Comparing exposed breasts to men wearing skin covering cloth is more revealing about you than the system, my friend :P

Okay, I admit this has always struck me as a little bit strange. Women can absolutely find a man's exposed chest to be sexually attractive—I would not be surprised if a topless pin-up poster of G'raha Tia would be a very popular item in some corners of the playerbase—and yet no one objects to men being shirtless in things. But for some reason, women having their chest exposed is 'morally wrong'.

(I mean, after a certain size or in certain situations, women having their chest exposed is potentially uncomfortable; there's a reason things like sports bras exist. But if we're talking about what's socially acceptable and what's not, that isn't relevant. After all, it's not like "would this outfit be comfortable for someone actually doing these things" has been a driving factor in gear design for this game. Or superhero comics. Or the bulk of Western visual media.)

Now, I have no desire to wander around topless either in reality (see previous 'sports bras exist for a reason') or in-game, and given the various content rating systems of the world that govern video games, I can see why Square Enix would really not want to allow such a thing. But it's those content rating systems themselves that puzzle me.

Because taken in a broader cultural sense, it always seems a little weird to me that in many modern cultures we are totally okay with showing blood and violence (including death!) on prime-time television, and a shirtless man is totally okay... but as soon as a woman takes their bra off it's "OH GOD, THINK OF THE CHILDREN! WE MUST NOT CORRUPT THEIR INNOCENT MINDS! THE EVIL LADY-NIPPLES WILL BRAINWASH THEM!" or something, and before you can blink the show is consigned to HBO or a timeslot after 9pm or whatever.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[LisSquid]

...

For real!!

However, I just always think it's funny that the comparison to something culture has deemed pornographic (I personally do not subscribe to that thinking, just so we're clear) to men wearing feminine clothing.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I'm less interested in "masculine vs feminine" and more in "these two options are very different and I like that one better".

[MilkieTea]

IRL, defined gender roles have been skewed; not destroyed. If you think wearing a dress as a male does not make you less of a man, you have a skewed PoV as to what defines one. If you are confused or in opposition to that, I invite you to look up the word "masculinity". The best case scenario for a man wearing a dress thinking it doesn't make him less of a man is, "It doesn't help." because you will immediately be associated with femininity. Dresses, kind of have that effect. Just ask anyone who dreamed of being a Disney princess as a child if they were wanting to be a man.

Anywho, your post was at least entertaining. I mean in one clause you use real life as a reason to not have restrictions, yet in the next clause you use real life to remind people they are playing a video game. It's been some time since I've seen such a dismissive post and attitude, and that's saying something.

People pay real money to play this game, dude. Money that most of us have to work for. At jobs that during these days we are damn fortunate to have. The people who design this game and the gear also have real lives. They have families, bills, and other obligations and adult responsibilities. A lot of what they would like to do is sacrificed so players like you can come here and bemoan because some of the thoughts within the thread don't match your own.

If you want to use reality as a basis for your arguments, then at least try to be real.

Oh, wow, wearing a dress as a male removes your primary, secondary characteristics? Or impacts how you personally identify with your gender? Or does it just make bigots uncomfortable to see, and make bigots view you as less than a male? Because if it doesn't impact the first two, then I don't really care about the second. Those same bigots argued against afabs wearing pants in the 1800s-1960s. I'd assume, since one normally wouldn't argue that wearing pants makes an afab or fem-presenting person less feminine, that you're not arguing that?

[StriderShinryu]

I'm less interested in "masculine vs feminine" and more in "these two options are very different and I like that one better".

So much this.

Expressing gender via clothing choice is absolutely a deeply held concern for some people, and there clearly are many people who feel certain types of clothing are expressly tied to certain gender expressions.

On top of that, though, are just the people who prefer one option over the other in specific cases simply because they feel it just looks better on their character or feels better for their ideal of the job/role at hand. My femiqo main wears everything from long dresses to short skirts to pants. I love the 2B outfit on her but I also really wanted last years Valentione's Day "men's" button down shirt and vest. I love the original Dragoon class armour from level 50 but hate that the fem version has the stupid belly window. Allowing players to use which ever gendered version of an item they choose isn't always anything more than just wanting one option over the other because we like how one looks over the other.

Of course, all that said, it's also pretty silly to assume it's as simple as SE just ticking the "work for both genders" button on the item creation screen. Getting an item to work on all races and all genders properly with all of their possible animations and body variations (even though we don't have many in FF14) is a lot of work, and it's understandable if they can't go back and make every single piece of gear created to this point gender lock free. For items created new and now, however, there really isn't much excuse. It's still a lot of work but it should be part of the work flow, just like making all hats work on Viera and Hrothgar.

[Tsumdere]

Oh, wow, wearing a dress as a male removes your primary, secondary characteristics? Or impacts how you personally identify with your gender? Or does it just make bigots uncomfortable to see, and make bigots view you as less than a male? Because if it doesn't impact the first two, then I don't really care about the second. Those same bigots argued against afabs wearing pants in the 1800s-1960s. I'd assume, since one normally wouldn't argue that wearing pants makes an afab or fem-presenting person less feminine, that you're not arguing that?

As my brother used to say, if you wear a dress your dingdong falls off.

Everyone knows that.

[Theodric]

Branding people to be 'bigots' for not liking a particular style of fashion is a bit strange to me and does little to endear people to whatever point is being made.

[Hycinthus]

I do hope they also allow female characters to wear the topless male gear.
Genderlocked clothing is bad, after all.

It's like that in ESO. Men can wear dresses with cleavages, because there is no gender locking. It's not a big deal. Having said that, you don't see all men suddenly running around with dresses. Everything is such a non-issue and not a big deal. Things become normal.

Everyone above who is complaining about "masculine vs. feminine", just play ESO and tell me if its a big problem or not. We don't need to go into this "what-about-ism" and "slippery slope" scenarios.

Things you mention may happen, but it may not happen. Go to ESO where there's no gender locking. You will barely see 1 out of 100 who are wearing different gender clothes, and again, only in passing. You just saw it for 2 seconds, and poof, they've walked away. That's it. It's totally not a problem at all.

Again, I want to bring up the argument with Jumping. Are you guys annoyed with Jumping or has it become normal? In 2013, in this exact forum, right after the failure of 1.0, the devs decided to implement Jumping.

Implementing Jumping in ARR was so opposed, just search you'll find 20 threads, because it will look like "players will be like rabbits just jumping all over Limsa, and breaking my immersion". What happened now? It's as normal as breathing air, heck, people who were "born" after the Jumping issue did not even know it was ever an issue because in every other MMO, it was like that.

[LisSquid]

It's like that in ESO. Men can wear dresses with cleavages, because there is no gender locking. It's not a big deal. Having said that, you don't see all men suddenly running around with dresses. Everything is such a non-issue and not a big deal. Things become normal.

Everyone above who is complaining about "masculine vs. feminine", just play ESO and tell me if its a big problem or not. We don't need to go into this "what-about-ism" and "slippery slope" scenarios.

Things you mention may happen, but it may not happen. Go to ESO where there's no gender locking. You will barely see 1 out of 100 who are wearing different gender clothes, and again, only in passing. You just saw it for 2 seconds, and poof, they've walked away. That's it. It's totally not a problem at all.

Again, I want to bring up the argument with Jumping. Are you guys annoyed with Jumping or has it become normal? In 2013, in this exact forum, right after the failure of 1.0, the devs decided to implement Jumping.

Implementing Jumping in ARR was so opposed, just search you'll find 20 threads, because it will look like "players will be like rabbits just jumping all over Limsa, and breaking my immersion". What happened now? It's as normal as breathing air, heck, people who were "born" after the Jumping issue did not even know it was ever an issue because in every other MMO, it was like that.

I wouldn't say 1/100, but I will say this is generally agreed upon to be the uniform for my ESO trials guild. (My friend dawning his finest)



It's just self expression. No one lost any glamour options and people can wear whatever they want.