That anime is mostly about butts isnt it?

Anyway, Cato you said some really awesome things. Id say chivalrous but that's become a dirty word these days.

I mean, let's be perfectly honest here, op made this thread to argue against those calling for the removal of a highly sexualized character in an anime series.


Well, if sexual objectification of men is, as you say, really of a different sort than objectification of women, then you'll agree with me that it's stupid for people to bring up the "men are objectified too" argument.

There is one thing I'd like people to understand. Yes, the constant boob shaking is highly sexualized, and the producers made that did it to provide fanservice and comedy relief. I'm going to share with a slightly different perspective though. In RL, I have personally known girls who are as upbeat as the girl in the anime. I'm sure you guys have friends like that too. She dances and twirls and no one really cares. Give her huge breasts though and suddenly she's inappropriate. That's why I started this thread. Yes, if you look at Ryuko from an out-of-universe perspective, much of what she does is sexualized garbage. I'm not arguing against removing that. I'm arguing against society's adamant refusal to put huge breasts on any female character and portray them seriously and realistically. Here is a quote from the chat about the first episode:



It continues on in another post:



Course he/she didn't know the animators didn't do what they did for the reason she thought they did it for but whatever. My point is that I did not start this discussion to talk about sexualization though that is what It eventually led to. If I was to argue for anything in line with the discussion right now it would be arguing for a woman with huge breasts to be not ridiculed or made fun of as she goes to save world in whatever fashion mainstream media prefers. Do you understand my position now comrade?

Is the proper response to a thread about highlighting how hysteria regarding sexualization of women in media limiting what creative studios are willing to depict, really to complain about sexualization of women in media?

I've claiming that erotic pandering to men and women is most of the time going to be very different, one of the differences even being that one type has a lot less sexual objectification.
I don't think sexual objectification of men is different than women, since those would both be sexual objectification, other than them probably highlighting different things. Society isn't big on manboobs.
If you read the thread, you would also notice that the first person to make a comparison was squid, claiming that women have it worse than men, with nobody else disputing or bringing it up beforehand, of which a discussion followed. Would you like to claim that this was stupid of him to do?

EDIT: You ninja'd me, Mown. This post is in response to op. I'm not going to add a response to your post here because this is already the great text wall of China.

I'll take your bait again.

Here is your argument as I understand it:

You are arguing against objections to women in fantasy art being given extremely large breasts.

Your argument rests on 2 premises:

1: There is no reason to object to large breasted women in fantasy art, because it's not actually degrading to women, because there are plenty of legitimate reasons to include large breasts beyond sexually gratifying men.

2: There is a specific reason NOT to object to large breasted women in fantasy art, because it can make large breasted women feel shamed and excluded, and because large breasts are necessary for proper characterization and storytelling, and therefore a dramatic work because weaker with their exclusion.

You would have a compelling case if either of these were actually true.

Premise 1 holds that large breasts (EDIT: large breasts in anime) don't just exist for fanservice. They do. They are waaay too prevalent for it to be a coincidence. And they have a disproportionate effort put into their animation. And, despite the fact that obese women have, on average, bigger breasts, they almost always show up on thin women. There only non-contrived explanation for this is fanservice. And fanservice is degrading for the reasons I listed above.

Premise 2 holds that objecting to large breasts in animation and games is harmful to real women with large breasts, like your relatives. Your argument seems to hinge on the idea that people hate large breasted women. They don't. They hate the attitude that every woman, even fictional ones, must sexually gratify men. The other part of this premise is that breasts are necessary for characterization. I really don't believe this is the case, but art is subjective, so I can't really disprove it. Fortunately, I don't have to. Maybe a character having large breasts is an essential part of their character. Maybe, you could even argue, them being extremely sexually attractive to men is also essential. But them being sexually arousing to the audience isn't. You don't have to animate the breasts with extreme detail and show them bouncing all the time and make sure the camera is always focusing on them.

A lot of these premises seem somewhat contrived. Yes, maybe there exists some woman somewhere out in the world whom neither of us have ever met who feels underrepresented because there isn't a large breasted woman in her favorite card game. And maybe there is some conceivable reason for making a character that happens to have every characteristic that would appeal to a male audience's sexuality, besides appealing to a male audience's sexuality. And maybe the vast majority of anime having such characters is really because they all want to explore the unique challenges encountered by women on one side of the anatomical bell curve. But there's no reason to believe any of these are true. Which raises the question: why do you really believe these things?

This will be my final response to op on the subject. I believe this post demonstrates that I understand his argument, and also makes the best possible case I am capable of making against it. If it's not enough, then nothing will be.

I enjoyed the part where you completely **** on the motives for every woman with breast implants.

Chris says "mature and stable" to me, while Liam says "fun and that sort of warm intimacy that comes from being comfortable just being you around someone." I feel like I'd have to step it up for Chris and be somehow more dignified.



I post about objectification of men in a thread about objectification of women because I think both are interrelated. I think it's pointless to simply point to female objectification and say, "It's bad and must stop!" without really looking at why it's happening and looking at why some people dislike it while others find it empowering. The issue is complex and I think people have every right to feel uncomfortable with sexualization, but I also think that some people will enjoy it for other non-fanservice reasons. I'd actually like to see a show or something where a woman has large breasts yet is entirely capable of doing her action-y stuff and no one says a word about her large breasts nor are they a constant camera focus.

I can't say anything against that wall of text. The man's right.

If you wish to know why I believe these things well I point to a original story I read on writing.com. It was a superhero story whose premise revolved around a freak accident that gave a woman powers and breasts that'll make Ryuko look tiny. Believe it or not I was highly skeptical about it, and the only reason I started to read it was because I was bored and had nothing better to do. Of course I was very surprised to find that it had an amazing plot, equally good sub-plots that dealt with complex issues, and a cast of highly complex characters especially the main heroine. I'll not give any spoilers but things get really intense several times throughout the story. The authors-their were two of them-managed to do all of this with great ease even with a premise such as that. So, yeah that's why I believe these things.