The gaming enthusiast known as seanmalstrom seems to be on a personal crusade to challenge the stereotype of men as the “logical sex.” He does this mostly by 1) being a dude and 2) writing things that make no sense at all.
In a recent post on his blog Malstrom’s Articles News – no, that’s really what it’s called – Mr. Malstrom attempts to rebut a piece by John Walker of the gaming site Rock Paper Shotgun that challenged misogyny in the gaming world.
It’s not much of a rebuttal, but Mr. Malstrom makes a couple of, er, “arguments” that grabbed my attention. At one point he suggests that if game developers stop populating their games with sexy lady characters with giant boobs and long legs, American men will have no way to exercise their God-given right to ogle sexy ladies with giant boobs and long legs.
There is a great question I have yet to hear anyone in the Game Industry answer. If women cannot be depicted fantastical (big boobs, long legs, slaughters armies single-handedly) in fantasy entertainment, where can men go to see fantasy women? Women have their fantasy men from endless soap-operas, romance novels, chick flicks, and such. Are men not allowed to have fantasies in entertainment?
True, that is a question I’ve yet to see anyone in the game industry answer, largely because most of the people in the game industry, whatever their flaws, live in the real world, and in the real world images of sexy ladies with big boobs are not exactly difficult to come by.
Mr. Malstrom goes on to argue that men in the English-speaking world have the greatest need for sexy lady video game characters, because the women they run into on a regular basis in the real world are all fatties. In the Cold War era, politicians warned about a “Missile Gap” with the Russians. Today, apparently, we and the Russians have a Fatty Gap.
In Russia, it is stunning to see alcoholic bums of Russian men with model quality looks Russian women. In the same way, in the United States it is stunning to see wealthy, hardworking, handsome American men with an American woman who looks like a Troglodyte. Of course, this is just a generalization. The point is that the typical American male has a better worldwide value if they stop thinking the local obese women around them are ‘the normal’. They aren’t the normal worldwide.
If anyone needs fantasy depictions, it would be English speaking men who don’t have access to the worldwide standard.
Mr. Malstrom is also bothered by the suggestion that video game makers should try to make female characters more interesting. You know, with personalities and motivations of their own, and stuff like that. To Mr. Malstrom, there’s nothing more interesting about a women than her body.
What makes a woman interesting to men?
The truth is that interesting women needs youth, big boobs, long legs, long hair, and an hourglass figure to be interesting to men. The more women go away from this, the less interesting they become to men. This is why women when inevitably age, they become more and more invisible to men. It is just Nature at work. Ironically, for men the older they get, the more interesting they can become to women as their earning potential goes up. This balances out how most young men are invisible to women when they are younger. After the age of 25, men tend to become the more interesting ones compared to a woman of equal age. This is why mothers always advised their daughters to ‘snag him when he and she are both young’.
Indeed, Mr. Malstrom argues, men who insist that women be depicted as sex objects are doing women a giant favor.
And we should only hope that women wish to be depicted as sex objects for that is how they become love objects as well. No man wants to marry a women they aren’t attracted to. Last I checked, marriage rates were plummeting in the West. Perhaps journalists should strive for ‘positive change’ by suggesting to women to be depicted more as sex objects so they can attract a man for marriage before they get too old. That would truly help women and make men happier as well.
Mr. Malstrom concludes with a stirring call for women to stop being such fat fatties.
It IS tasteless for using women as sex objects to sell games. Why? It is because real life women should be sex objects to begin with. If that were the case, putting them on a game cover wouldn’t be selling the game. This used to be the case decades ago. Since obesity in women have skyrocketed and attractive women have diminished, putting attractive women on game covers definitely attracts men more than it should.
It IS sad that women can’t find themselves sensibly portrayed in the games they play. It is not because the women in the games are ‘too attractive’, it is because the women playing them tend to be ‘too fat’. It is sad for women that they are fat. It is also sad for men. What John Walker should do is to advise women to get in shape and try to look like the depictions of women that men are attracted to. This would be ‘positive change’ we could all get behind.
I hate to burst your bubble, Mr. Malstrom, but I don’t think there was any era of history in which women looked like this.
It’s probably just as well, as Lara here doesn’t seem to have eyelids and her head isn’t properly connected to her neck.
Note: Thanks to Tatjna for pointing me to Mr. Malstrom’s post!
Why? It is because real life women should be sex objects to begin with.
And that’s a failchop smothered in lame sauce.
Bleargh. The twits just don’t get it, do they?
I will admit that I became ‘more interesting’ to women as I aged, yet curiously, my earning potential hadn’t increased a whit–in fact, it’s technically lower (since as I age, the odds of me moving up to higher positions has decreased). Rather, it’s because I matured enough to pull my head from my own ass and leave all the patriarchal bullshit behind.
I just… I don’t even. This is too funny.
People who argue these things completely miss the point of why people complain about women in gaming in general.
Having sexualized fantasy characters is fine, or it would be if it wasn’t the only/majority representation. That the main issue here; there’s little to no variety.
The tropes games tend to go with also are problematic mostly because of how common they are.
I don’t get why this simple fact is so damn hard to understand.
Variety in representation and respectful handling of controversial issues. That’s apparently too much for these dudebros to comprehend.
Close your eyes, jackass. Or do you have that much of a paucity of imagination?
@Catfish: Yep. No one wants to take away men’s rights to fantasy titties. We just want fantasy titties AND real women to have equal representation.
And yet, women are (obviously) not flinging themselves on this man’s dick. I can’t imagine why!
It takes a special kind of objectification to completely ignore the fact that women may have personalities at all. Even the ‘personality’ he attributes to women is about appearance.
I’m trying to come up with the life experiences that would lead to that conclusion and all I’m coming up with is a human oroboras with the mouth and anus swapped.
… Because Hawkeye and Green Arrow can make all those trick shots only if they stick their tuchuses waaay out there.
THE INTERNET WAS CREATED WHEN HUSTLER AND CAT FANCY GOT TOGETHER AND GAVE AL GORE MONEY, I TELL YOU.
Maybe if he stopped being such a gaping asshole, women would want to be with him.
It’s also a sad, sad state of mind for a person to have if they seriously see no value in a fellow human being beyond their appearance. Even to the point that they find a bunch of pixels more interesting than a living, breathing human with a personality. Especially when he basically admitted that the game character could be as dull as a cardboard slide as long as they have rockin’ tits.
I wonder if this kid had a “misandrist” English teacher, because he can’t write for shit.
Also makes me wonder if he knows any real women at all? Maybe his experiences with women are limited to attempting to converse with a mannequin. That would actually explain a lot.
Is there a constitutional amendment that gives American men the right to “gratuitously oogle some fine-ass titties and legs up like wow without having to consider the humanity of the attached woman” that I missed??? [/snark]
I remember this guy from the 2008 election! He had a giant and insane post about how McCain/Palin would walk to victory. It got picked up by all the usual right-wing outposts. Look it up for a good laugh.
I’m not surprised by the false equivalence, but seriously? The actors on soaps and in movies are actual living humans, not digital spectres created out of biologically impossible fantasy. And even the guys on the covers of romance novels are based on male models. Fabio was an actual person, although the majority of men in the world don’t look like that, he did actually, yanno, exist.
There’s no equivalent fantasy representations of men for women to consume that are the same as the depictions of women in for men in video games. That’s part of the problem. And this kid writing this piece is a perfect example of WHY it’s a problem – utter divorcing of men from reality.
PS – I’m sure the regulars here have seen this already but for the newbies/lurkers, The Hawkeye Project: http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/
CWS, it is missing 13th Amendment. Yes you think it is the one that outlaws slavery but it actually is the one that said this:
Section One: If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain, any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.
Section 2: Any American male has the right to gratuitously oogle some fine-ass titties and legs up like wow without having to consider the humanity of the attached woman.
Section 3: The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Yes it is a generalization because most couples are equal in looks regardless of where they hail from.
This is my new favorite catch phrase, along with “And that’s real.”
Also, princessbonbon, thank you for reminding everyone about the existence of Section 2 of the 13th Amendment. I had totally forgotten about that! 😀
LMAO. The sad thing is he’s not a horny 14-year-old, but an actual figure in gaming communities.
Is this guy seriously arguing that women being fat or otherwise not conventionally attractive is a human rights violation?
You are welcomed. And I just saw one of the weirdest anti-ads ever-apparently the Humane Society is fully funding their pensions and THIS IS A BAD THING!!!ELEVENTY! They also are paying for lawyers because they were sued or something. Oh it is Rick Berman…now that makes sense. Jerkhead he is.
He’s also written a response to a feminist who wrote to him:
Well of course there sugar, here you go:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/doiv/6880330703/
@cloudiah: That is just the opposite of sense O.o It is in fact anti-sense. I sense and anti-sense were in the same paragraph together they’d cancel each other out.