The video game industry has been criticized for many things, from encouraging violence to increasing apathy within the population, but the most criticized thing within the industry has generally been the portrayal of women. The claims often revolve around women always being portrayed as damsels in distress to be saved by the male hero or as being oversexualized and existing only as an object of sexual desire. There is a lot of debate surrounding the sexualization of women in video games and this is a very complex topic with many different aspects to it. In order to honor this, and to give this issue the proper treatment it deserves, I intend to examine this over the next couple of weeks. This week I will focus on exploring the common arguments defending this portrayal and seeing if they hold any water.

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The first argument used when defending the sexualization of women in video games is generally the claim that these games are primarily targeted towards a (straight) male audience and thus are using these characters in order to have something to use in the promotional material that would attract the attention of said men. Obviously, the first thing one may be tempted to respond with is claiming that women play video games as well. On the face of it, this is a true statement. Men do not makeup 100 percent of gamers and actually, contrary to popular belief, women makeup almost half of the total number of gamers and interestingly enough more adult women play games than teenage boys. However, this statement, while true, does not paint a clear enough picture. When breaking it down by genre, the games played by women, tend to be the less problematic ones per se. The three most popular genres for women are match 3, family/farming simulators and casual puzzle games. Which is interesting as these genres don’t generally get criticized for this. When looking at most of the other categories, which are generally the types of games played by so-called “true gamers,” the player base is significantly more male. Therefore, in the eyes of a game company, who is really only interested in making as much money as humanly possible, using the “male gaze” to sell more games is justified as they know that men are more likely to buy their product anyways. However, it should be noted that female characters are much less sexualized in recent years than in the past, which may be in response to a combination of a rise in female gamers and a cultural shift that sees the objectification of women as less acceptable.

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In addition, to the first main argument, another argument presented is that games sexualize men as well, often framed to claim that those making the initial criticism are hypocritical. The short answer to this, is simply that, the context of the portrayals of the male characters is different. Hypermasculinized portrayals of men are simply not viewed as sexual in the same ways that hyper feminized depictions of women are. Furthermore, the poses and gestures of female characters are often significantly more suggestive than those of male characters, thus giving off the impression of one being a sexual object while the other is not.

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To look at that argument through another lens though, it is true. Men are sexualized in certain games, just not in the same way women are. In video games, women are often seen as objects of sexual desire. Men, on the other hand, are often on the other side of that desire. Male sexualization is not one of being an object as much as it is a power fantasy. Characters like Kratos, from the popular God of War franchise, can often have sex with numerous women throughout his adventures under the player’s control. The point is that the character allows the primarily male players to almost live vicariously through the character on the screen.

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As shown the two main arguments are not simply both incorrect, nor are they both correct. One is largely justified, although it should be noted that just because something is marketable doesn’t make it ethical. The other, on the other hand, is true but lacks a key context that makes the claim inaccurate and thus weakening its usability as an argument. In addition, claiming that something else is just as wrong, or worse, doesn’t mitigate the original problem. Obviously, there is a lot more to talk about surrounding sexualization in video games and I hope you join me next week as I look at a very specific example of female sexuality in action.