Poll of the Day > How many people would actually find men in skimpy armor cool or attractive?

(+) Yeah! (+)

There is the often made complaint (by some) that women in fantasy games often wear impractical clothing, and it's deemed as sexist because the men are often not also wearing impractical clothing that shows off skin or their body, but how many people actually find men walking around in stylistic skimpy clothing cool or attractive?

Not specifically men, I mean both sexes.

The point of the impractical clothing for women in fantasy games is to be appealing yes, but would straight women, for example, find men walking around in stylistic skimpy armor cool or attractive, or would it be a turn off because the man is being emasculated, or made to look weird?

Even in normal society, women walking around in stylistic revealing clothing is generally deemed to be more socially acceptable than men walking around in stylistic revealing clothing. Walking around in stylistic revealing clothing might even have people assume you're trying to express to people that you're gay.
---

I'd like to point out that muscle emphasizing outfits are action staples.
---

It depends on the specific design.

I don't take an issue with skimpy armour unless it clashes with the aesthetic or looks awful. Both are often the case.
---

The main argument - whether you agree with it or not - is that male designs in games (and comic books, which is where this argument often pops up as well) tend to represent male power fantasy while female designs represent sexual objectification. In other words, male characters are who male players want to be, while female characters are who male players want to have sex with.

And to some extent that's true - I play female characters in nearly every game where it's an option, and in a lot of games, whatever outfit choices you're allowed to pick tend to be more sexualized or skimpy. There's plenty of games where that's not the case, though. Whether it's my Saints Row character wearing classy suits or high fashion outfits and showing almost no skin, my Elder Scrolls Online characters wearing stylish robes or sleek armor, my GTA Online character who is usually dressed in a fashionable leather jacket and dress pants, or a Dragon Age character wearing full plate armor that's almost indistinguishable from the male version, a lot of my female characters wind up wearing more than most of my male ones do.

(And in a similar vein, if I'm playing Tomb Raider, I'm far more likely to put Lara in area-appropriate explorer's outfits rather than have her in shorts and a tanktop just for sex appeal.)

That being said, the one reason why I've always disliked the "Would anyone like it if male characters wore skimpy clothes?" idea (or the related "Hey, most guys are objectified as well, just look at how unrealistically muscled up this comic book character is!" argument) when discussing the issue is because it misses the entire point of objectifying the opposite sex. Most WOMEN (and/or gay men) don't find muscled up dudes in g-strings all that sexy. Straight up nakedness as sexualization is more of a thing when you're talking about what straight guys find attractive in women, so it's not really an equalizing effect to just swap it around and talk about how ridiculous a male character looks wearing a chainmail bikini or the like (and ignores characters like Conan or He-Man to some degree anyway).

Like it or not, there IS tons of objectification in games (and media in general). But what I find to be the more important question is whether or not objectification should be considered as inherently bad in the first place. Most of our fiction is rooted in objectification or ideal-projection in some way - humans tend to find that sort of idealistic fantasy to be appealing in ways that pure realism rarely is.


---

I need more bulging codpieces in my life.
---

*reads the PO reply*

Objectification is not inherently bad in and of itself, IMO. There are games, movies, etc. where that is the entire point, after all.
---

Just ditch the armor for the chest entirely and have armor just to protect the feet, knees, and dick.
---

I_Abibde posted...

Objectification is not inherently bad in and of itself, IMO. There are games, movies, etc. where that is the entire point, after all.

I tend to agree, personally.

Then again, I'm also the sort of person who thinks tolerance is good while forced acceptance is terrible, and that inclusivity should mean "provide more options" rather than "cater to the minority while taking the majority for granted", so I definitely tend to fall into classical libertarian social morals across the board.


---

Sure, conan in a loincloth is cooler than him in chain armor.
---

I dont think anyone thinks male characters need to be more revealing, more that female characters having the same armor class wearing a two piece chain bikini having the same armor as a male in full plate armor is stupid

Or the pure absurdity of plate mail with boob cups seen in so many games
---

TigerTycoon posted...

There is the often made complaint (by some) that women in fantasy games often wear impractical clothing, and it's deemed as sexist because the men are often not also wearing impractical clothing that shows off skin or their body, but how many people actually find men walking around in stylistic skimpy clothing cool or attractive?

What about the impractical, sexually-objectifying clothing women choose to wear IRL, though? Keep in mind that high heels are a thing. I've known women who fractured a bone when they fell after their heel caught in something and they still wear the things.

Otherwise there's the general trend where fantasy characters very rarely wear helmets, which is flat-out stupid considering that the head is one of the most important areas to protect. However, audiences like seeing characters' faces so it often gets a free pass. I guess the moral is that people are pretty selective when it comes to complaining about impractical choices, including having pretty weak-looking, tiny women fight in the first place.

TigerTycoon posted...

The point of the impractical clothing for women in fantasy games is to be appealing yes, but would straight women, for example, find men walking around in stylistic skimpy armor cool or attractive, or would it be a turn off because the man is being emasculated, or made to look weird?

idk, Kuja in FF9 had goofy-looking, skimpy armor yet his effeminate appearance looked alright. In general, an effeminate appearance works pretty well for some kinds of male villains because it gives them a different look while making them harder for viewers to personally identify with.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The main argument - whether you agree with it or not - is that male designs in games (and comic books, which is where this argument often pops up as well) tend to represent male power fantasy while female designs represent sexual objectification. In other words, male characters are who male players want to be, while female characters are who male players want to have sex with.

Which also reflects a real-world trend, given that women tend towards skimpier clothing whereas men do not. Fiction is doing little more than acknowledging and playing up existing trends.
---

Mead posted...

I dont think anyone thinks male characters need to be more revealing, more that female characters having the same armor class wearing a two piece chain bikini having the same armor as a male in full plate armor is stupid

To be fair, in a lot of cases where that comes up, you're talking about magical fantasy worlds where people bend the rules of reality on a regular basis. So "That's not realistic!" can easily cease to be a meaningful complaint.

When you're talking about a world where simply putting on a cloak, a pair of bracers, or a ring can give you a stronger armor class than someone wearing full steel plate armor, the amount of actual physical coverage becomes almost meaningless. Conversely, when you're talking about worlds where simply drinking an herbal tonic (which aren't even necessarily technically magical) can instantly heal any and all wounds up to and including actual physical impalement or third-degree burns), you've long since given up any pretense that real-world mechanics should somehow trump fantasy style and convenience.

But honestly, "realism" has always been the bane of fantasy in general. It's a large part of why the more people start looking at comic book stories under a lens of realism, the shittier those comic book stories tend to become (ultimately leading to things like my oft-mentioned disdain for "Eye Punches from the Punch Dimension").



Zeus posted...

Which also reflects a real-world trend, given that women tend towards skimpier clothing whereas men do not. Fiction is doing little more than acknowledging and playing up existing trends.

To be fair, it depends on the culture in question (both geographically and historically) - there are any number of places where women's clothing is default far more concealing by design than anything men wear.

That being said, just in terms of pure realism, there IS ample evidence to suggest that, in most of the historical cultures where gender equality was somewhat of a thing and women were as likely to be militant as men (which usually crops up in nomadic horse cultures, which is also the historical root of the entire concept of "Amazons" in the first place), the prevailing trend seems to be towards unisex styles that are almost indistinguishable between men and women.

Modern military falls into this to some degree (ie, female soldiers aren't wearing standard issue halter tops and shorts as much as the same style of fatigues as men wear), but it goes all the way back to ancient steppe nomads, where women were equally capable of combat because horses and bows act as significant equalizers of physical strength.

(As a short aside, one of the things that Greeks mentioned in ancient writings when referring to the abnormality of Amazon warrior women is that the Amazons tended to wear MORE clothing than corresponding Greek male warriors, who preferred a more exposed style of dress as emblematic of masculinity - ie, the Greeks were basically wearing short dresses and no underwear while the Amazons were wearing trousers. In fact, the Greeks explicitly claimed that the Amazons invented trousers - which might actually be true, because pants become something of a necessity when you're riding horses as a way of life).


---

Level 99 armor is actually just a metal tube.

It's iron man's secret weapon, it makes him completely invincible. The military had done experiments but decided a soldier's life was not worth 50 boss raids.
---

This topic reminds me of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMphshKSQxU" data-time="

Form fitting and skimpy fantasy armour is a bugbear of mine.

That boob plate you have is literally directing blows to your sternum, one of the places you really dont want armour to direct blows!

And dont get me started on bikini mail!

I like the way things like dragon age and dark souls does armour.
---

I didnt mention realism @ParanoidObsessive

I clearly said stupid
---

Once feminists are done swooping in and telling the mostly male dominated video game population they have to stop looking at half naked women, I guess they're just going to leave. I'm quite sure they're not going to be buying any games in this time.

They are only here to bitch and whine about things that sell. They don't buy anything themselves besides probably tattoos and hair dyes and nose rings etc.
---

Mead posted...

I didnt mention realism @ParanoidObsessive

I clearly said stupid

Yes, but the only thing that potentially makes it stupid IS the realism (or the lack thereof).

When you take things like actual material, coverage, and concepts like boob-chestplates channeling blows directly in towards the heart out of the equation, it doesn't really matter WHAT armor looks like. You can just as easily have someone wearing spandex outfits that can deflect bullets and lasers or survive crushing damage from getting hit by a meteorite.


---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

my Elder Scrolls Online characters

Why do I find it hard to believe that you play an MMO, let alone the Elder Scrolls one?
---

TigerTycoon posted...

The point of the impractical clothing for women in fantasy games is to be appealing

The point of armor is to be protective. People aren't asking to see silly skimpy amor on men, just to have practical armor on women
---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Mead posted...

I didnt mention realism @ParanoidObsessive

I clearly said stupid

Yes, but the only thing that potentially makes it stupid IS the realism (or the lack thereof).

When you take things like actual material, coverage, and concepts like boob-chestplates channeling blows directly in towards the heart out of the equation, it doesn't really matter WHAT armor looks like. You can just as easily have someone wearing spandex outfits that can deflect bullets and lasers or survive crushing damage from getting hit by a meteorite.

No
---

Zareth posted...

Why do I find it hard to believe that you play an MMO, let alone the Elder Scrolls one?

Probably because I've ranted about how MMO mechanics are terrible and how I hate online multiplayer in general.

But I do have characters in ESO and GTAO. Though I do tend to play them as glorified single-player games, with an occasional foray with people I'm friends with IRL once every few months or so when we can actually manage to get online around the same time (something that gets harder and harder when you're dealing with older people who have families and social responsibilities).

To be fair, I haven't played either in months at this point.


---

Mead posted...

No

Yes.


---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

To be fair, it depends on the culture in question (both geographically and historically) - there are any number of places where women's clothing is default far more concealing by design than anything men wear.

But those aren't the cultures making the fiction. A culture's fiction will generally reflect the norms and taboos of that culture. Broadly speaking, most overly conservative cultures tend to produce far less fiction, either because they're more restrictive concerning art or just a less advanced nation.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Modern military falls into this to some degree (ie, female soldiers aren't wearing standard issue halter tops and shorts as much as the same style of fatigues as men wear),

Although if they were, it might ironically offer them greater protection since male soldiers might delay in shooting >_>

DrYuya posted...

Once feminists are done swooping in and telling the mostly male dominated video game population they have to stop looking at half naked women, I guess they're just going to leave. I'm quite sure they're not going to be buying any games in this time.

They are only here to bitch and whine about things that sell. They don't buy anything themselves besides probably tattoos and hair dyes and nose rings etc.

They are a nomadic lot, flitting from one arena to another and only staying long enough to make something far worse.
---

Urien from SFIII is still one of my favorite designs in a fighting game.

I'm not one of those whackos who think that sex should be like this publicly celebrated thing and that wild orgies should be the norm, but I lean more towards the side of people needing to be alright with skin showing. This is 2018, not the 1800s.

Might not be too different from the number of people that find women in skimpy armor attractive.
.
---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

bows act as significant equalizers of physical strength.

A longbow has a significant amount of draw weight, and that requires a strong arm to be able to pull the bow back enough to make use of it. The stronger the drawing arm, the more force behind the arrow. While I've never drawn a non-compound bow before, I bet a longbow with 100 lb. draw weight would give me some difficulties, and I can carry my end of most major appliances.
---

Longbow aren't normal bows though. They're pretty exclusive to the British isles.
---

But yeah, in real life? "Skimpy" armor basically came in two flavors.

1. Colleseums and other arenas. The crowds are paying to see blood, dammit, so you can't very well just hide it with armor. Plus, lets be honest. Some of those girls in the audience are totally just there to see the half-naked guys sweating and swinging weapons around.

2. Earlier history. Metal is something that humankind has generally been pretty slow to really find and refine for most of human history, and it takes a while for enough iron to get into a nation or empire for them to have enough to be able to make proper full body chain mails and plate mails. Particularly early on, most of it was used for weapons. And you would likely wind up with armor containing only a little metal, and most of its volume being made of cloth, hides, and wood. And frankly, when it comes to that sort of thing, you may as well just prioritize the center and leave the arms and legs fairly bare/with just limited frontal protection so they can move faster, since you won't be able to take a direct hit without injury anyway and its probably better to dodge or get hit with only a glancing blow.

And once you cover up whatever amount you can afford to actually protect, climate may dictate how much skin is showing on the rest of the body.
.
---

I do tbqh...

I wouldn't mind it. But it can go either way for me. As long as it's the same for both. Either both have skimpy armor. Or both have actually armor. It's whatever. It's a game. I like games where they have to clothing options. One for look and one for functionality. You out on clothes for armor. And you are wearing that. And if you want to look different but still have all the benefits of the armor, you can do that. Like dressing everyone like they're going to beach, but have a high armor class. The guys in trunk and girls in bikinis fighting monster. Or sometimes, dress them cool like with sunglasses and awesome non-skimpy clothes while still having the good armor on. Items a video games, anyway. But I would like to see it the same for both... But that could also be because I'm gay. Ladies wearing less is whatever to me. When a guy wear less, I like it. Haha.
---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The main argument - whether you agree with it or not - is that male designs in games (and comic books, which is where this argument often pops up as well) tend to represent male power fantasy while female designs represent sexual objectification. In other words, male characters are who male players want to be, while female characters are who male players want to have sex with.

And to some extent that's true - I play female characters in nearly every game where it's an option, and in a lot of games, whatever outfit choices you're allowed to pick tend to be more sexualized or skimpy. There's plenty of games where that's not the case, though. Whether it's my Saints Row character wearing classy suits or high fashion outfits and showing almost no skin, my Elder Scrolls Online characters wearing stylish robes or sleek armor, my GTA Online character who is usually dressed in a fashionable leather jacket and dress pants, or a Dragon Age character wearing full plate armor that's almost indistinguishable from the male version, a lot of my female characters wind up wearing more than most of my male ones do.

(And in a similar vein, if I'm playing Tomb Raider, I'm far more likely to put Lara in area-appropriate explorer's outfits rather than have her in shorts and a tanktop just for sex appeal.)

That being said, the one reason why I've always disliked the "Would anyone like it if male characters wore skimpy clothes?" idea (or the related "Hey, most guys are objectified as well, just look at how unrealistically muscled up this comic book character is!" argument) when discussing the issue is because it misses the entire point of objectifying the opposite sex. Most WOMEN (and/or gay men) don't find muscled up dudes in g-strings all that sexy. Straight up nakedness as sexualization is more of a thing when you're talking about what straight guys find attractive in women, so it's not really an equalizing effect to just swap it around and talk about how ridiculous a male character looks wearing a chainmail bikini or the like (and ignores characters like Conan or He-Man to some degree anyway).

Like it or not, there IS tons of objectification in games (and media in general). But what I find to be the more important question is whether or not objectification should be considered as inherently bad in the first place. Most of our fiction is rooted in objectification or ideal-projection in some way - humans tend to find that sort of idealistic fantasy to be appealing in ways that pure realism rarely is.

https://imgur.com/dBjjrpS
---

Sephiroth C Ryu posted...

But yeah, in real life? "Skimpy" armor basically came in two flavors.

1. Colleseums and other arenas. The crowds are paying to see blood, dammit, so you can't very well just hide it with armor. Plus, lets be honest. Some of those girls in the audience are totally just there to see the half-naked guys sweating and swinging weapons around.

2. Earlier history. Metal is something that humankind has generally been pretty slow to really find and refine for most of human history, and it takes a while for enough iron to get into a nation or empire for them to have enough to be able to make proper full body chain mails and plate mails. Particularly early on, most of it was used for weapons. And you would likely wind up with armor containing only a little metal, and most of its volume being made of cloth, hides, and wood. And frankly, when it comes to that sort of thing, you may as well just prioritize the center and leave the arms and legs fairly bare/with just limited frontal protection so they can move faster, since you won't be able to take a direct hit without injury anyway and its probably better to dodge or get hit with only a glancing blow.

And once you cover up whatever amount you can afford to actually protect, climate may dictate how much skin is showing on the rest of the body.
.

On point 2 you are talking seriously early, like stone/Bronze Age, full length mail dates back to the 4th century and scale even further back.
---

I wouldn't mind more shirtless guys in video games. Or anything really as long as it looked ok .

I didn't mind urien in street fighter 3 and he basically wore a thong
---

synth_real posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

bows act as significant equalizers of physical strength.

A longbow has a significant amount of draw weight, and that requires a strong arm to be able to pull the bow back enough to make use of it. The stronger the drawing arm, the more force behind the arrow. While I've never drawn a non-compound bow before, I bet a longbow with 100 lb. draw weight would give me some difficulties, and I can carry my end of most major appliances.

tbh, I must have skimmed over that part of PO's post but yeah, proper bow use requires more strength than people believe. A lot of the target shooting you see smaller individuals performing has far less force behind it and would therefore be of less value in combat.

That said, *crossbows* are a solution. You get a lot of power without needing a great amount of strength (well, depending on the loading mechanism)

Blightzkrieg posted...

Longbow aren't normal bows though. They're pretty exclusive to the British isles.

It's kinda true of all bows, though. You need a good amount of physical strength to get the most from them. The advantage for weaker individuals, though, is that it doesn't put you in direct harm from melee attacks.
---

Hardly any of my favorite characters in video games are covered.

https://imgur.com/gFJK9Uv

https://imgur.com/TP9g8y5

https://imgur.com/DGkRHng

https://imgur.com/IvIu9l1

https://imgur.com/cbLh7BB

https://imgur.com/U9qSeDB

https://imgur.com/XeKvSwk

Such armor. Much wow.

Yue Jin's about as much armor as I like on a character: https://imgur.com/R0Q4Kfo

Siegfried's an exception, but even then, I liked his civilian outfit in SB and he benefits mostly from the series narrative and his epic return in SCIII.

Too much clothing is lame and generally, characters tend to look tougher when they reveal more. I'm not talking bikinis and shit like DoA.

I haven't played any of the newer Fire Emblems, but Rinkah's one of my favorite designs to come out of that series(in a time where I have really grown to hate their current designs).

This is seriously a non-issue and people just need to get a grip.
---

LinkPizza posted...

I wouldn't mind it. But it can go either way for me. As long as it's the same for both. Either both have skimpy armor. Or both have actually armor. It's whatever. It's a game. I like games where they have to clothing options. One for look and one for functionality. You out on clothes for armor. And you are wearing that. And if you want to look different but still have all the benefits of the armor, you can do that. Like dressing everyone like they're going to beach, but have a high armor class. The guys in trunk and girls in bikinis fighting monster. Or sometimes, dress them cool like with sunglasses and awesome non-skimpy clothes while still having the good armor on. Items a video games, anyway. But I would like to see it the same for both... But that could also be because I'm gay. Ladies wearing less is whatever to me. When a guy wear less, I like it. Haha.

About the same though I'm just bi with a preference for males.

I do like the idea of being able to wear whatever you want and it still having great defense though. Why I got into the armorer skill in Skyrim. Since there was a armor cap you could pretty much make any armor worth wearing. At least that's how I recall it. It's been awhile
---

Yeah, if you are named Anita Snarkseeeesion.
But anyways, yeah. I find them hot though. In fact me and my bf have a gear fetish anyways so I guess it's just only the minority anywho.

Women arent allowed to have power fantasies about a well proportioned female in skimpy armor? Thats just guys seeing what they want to see and nothing else.

But if its a male in skimpy armor then its not for female viewing its just a guy having a power fantasy.

Jeezus popsicle...all these rules. Probably about time we revert back to stick figures. Well...that may offend feminists even more though...since they have stick up the butt medical conditions and such depictions might be seen as mockery.
---