Everyone knows how to sexualize female characters in video games.
But how to sexualize male characters and do “fan service” for the female audience?
Everyone knows how to sexualize female characters in video games.
But how to sexualize male characters and do “fan service” for the female audience?
To sexualize men for women, you have to understand women.
To men, attraction is largely visual. So to sexualize a woman for a male audience means making her look attractive, and dressed in a revealing outfit. Swapping the genders doesn’t work. A visually attractive man in a revealing outfit is far more likely to appeal to either gay men sexually, or men generally as a power fantasy. To appeal to women you need a fundimentially different strategy altogether.
Consider erotic literature. Its a genre that is disproportionately popular with women. Its basically anti-porn, no visuals all story. Male characters in these stories are almost always sexualized by women for women. The attraction mostly from their choices and actions than appearance. You need a completely different approach.
Go read some smut. Talk to straight women about who and what they find attractive. You have to learn a lot about women to appeal to them. What they are looking for, and how they are looking for it is entirely different from men.
I guess that’s one of the less-acknowledged reasons why you see more sexualization of women in games. It costs next to nothing in terms of game design. Take any game, slap a scantily clad woman on it and bam, you’ve significantly increased your appeal to male audiences. To do the same for female audiences you have to build the entire game around that requirement.
It is almost impossible to avoid romance novels at the library. There are always multiple men, they are always attractive and mysterious in some way, and if it gets down and dirty it gets really dirty.
Interesting. I have had a fair bit of experience with romance novels, and the ‘dirty’ part is always so bland and rehashed that you could substitute one book’s writing in for another’s with no problems.
One of the biggest mobile games on the planet is Love and Deepspace. It is a game that appeals to women(and gay men?) and on top of being kinda conventional videogame, it is the modern version of erotic literature.
I have only seen clips and they were much more spicy than most mobile games, even mobile games that appeal to straight men.
For anyone wanting to know more about these books, Reading Smut is a side-project podcast by the hosts of Reading Glasses. It’s really interesting, with lots of thoughtful guests and often odd books. One of the first episodes covered a book about a door that comes to life and lusts after the woman who lives inside.
Yes, its no visuals. Thats why there isnt 500,000,000 books with fabio ripped and glistening on the covers.
Hey, dont judge a book of smut by the rippling muscled hunk on its cover!