I wouldn't know how to overly sexualize a male character.
On the other hand, I know how to sexualize a female character.
On the third hand, I do not know how to draw so it does not matter.
Coming from a woman, I find Nightwing to be a great example of how to sexualize a man without it being gross/silly. That shot of him upside down? Hoo boy.
That's also silly. lol Catwoman in the Batman Arkham games comes to mind. I've been replaying them recently and can't help but notice it just looks a bit ridiculous.
Agreed. That’s just a man doing an amazing forward fold. It’s not sexual, but it can be silly. Losing your balance in a class and accidentally making eye contact with someone in that position does tend to set off giggles in both people, ime.
If I sexualized that pose, I’d never be able to do yoga with men again. And I’d lose some prime giggle chances (worth more than orgasms tbh, they’re rarer and I can’t give them myself).
Can you also give an example where a man is sexualized and it is gross/silly? And I mean in a way that is gross to the man, or to other men, not to women?
That would be equal to how women are often sexualized in media.
And I'm not asking this to say that the treatment of both is not equal. I know it's not. I'm actually interested if it's even possible to sexualize men for the female gaze in such a way.
It's not gross to me. Besides, the point is that women are constantly put in those kinds of poses in fiction, especially comics/manga, and they're usually wearing even less. Your whole "if the roles were reversed" thing doesn't work because the roles ARE reversed, all the time forever.
Dude, this is so great! Reminds me of the actor playing wolverine (very tired and memory challenges) on magazine covers aimed at men vs aimed at women, the latter he's smiling warmly wearing a comfy-ass-lookin sweater. It's insane to me how a lot of men don't get this. I'm not attracted to men and I understand this, but I'm also in community with a variety of gendered-folk and we are open enough to talk about things like preferences and sexuality, so maybe I'm taking that for granted.
Camera angles, shot compositions, the situation, etc.,
A bikini isn’t inherently a sexual thing, but what makes people associate it with sexuality is that in movies, anime, Manga, etc, you always get these shots/moments were a woman wearing a Bikini has camera shots and angles that focus on her breasts or butt or something else, and these shots are often done to titillate.
A good benchmark for sexualizing men to know if you're doing it right is if the average viewer thinks the sexualised scene is gay, because it's kind of an unconscious assumption that men are the target audience.
I had always felt that top gun was woke and was trying to corrupt our children by exposing them to shameful concept of sweaty, sexy, beach volleyball!
What? No, of course I’m not attracted to Val Kilmer and projecting my insecurities on others, you even insinuating such a thing disgusts me!
Now I’m going to take this bottle of hand lotion and this issue of the sports illustrated swimsuit edition to the bathroom to take a BIG MANLY HETEROSEXUAL DUMP!
It's a combination of detail and posing, IMO. The women in the bikinis are constantly in poses where they're sticking out their chest, or bent over, or have their legs spread, or just generally have their breasts as a prominent part of the silhouette. Care is taken with the
curves in the linework such that you could identify the position of the areola through the clothes, because they're meant to be the focus of the image. You don't tend to see men with their bulge or ass emphasized in the same way. How often can you identify the individual testicles through Superman's spandex?
Care is taken with the curves in the linework such that you could identify the position of the areola through the clothes, because they're meant to be the focus of the image.
First off, you're attributing parts as the whole here, which is very disingenuous. Can we find nips poking through bikinis in anime? Yes. Can we find scantily clad women on the beach irl? Also yes.
Let's remove film and anime from the picture here. We don't typically see men showing up to the beach in a speedo to show off their bulge. It's almost a guarantee that women will show up in what is basically a bra and panties (bikini). I'll stop here and let you decide who is self sexualizing here and why that leads to the hyperbolic representations we see in film.
Don't act like social expectations don't play a part. In the Anglosphere at least, it's socially expected for women to go dressed in bikinis and men to go in something less revealing like swim shorts, so much so that we think it's weird for women to go in swim shorts and men to go in speedos.
Do you not think this social attitude and desire to not be seen as weird might have something to with why most women choose the Bikini and why men don't choose the speedo? Like, at all?
It's rather funny to me that you simply say "this is a social expectation and that's why we must follow it"
It's actually hilarious when you consider the old swimsuits that were almost dress-like. One piece suits were much more common.
Fast forward to now, and you are saying it's expected for women to show ass much skin as possible? Just... lol...
Do you not think this social attitude and desire to not be seen as weird might have something to with why most women choose the Bikini and why men don't choose the speedo? Like, at all?
This one is even more funny, because it completely overlooks why these things are seen as weird. Also, weird doesn't fully capture the whole picture here.
Most women do not like to be seen/thought of as visual creatures. We can again blame society and puritan values here, but it's clear that something causes men's jaws to drop and their brains to melt when seeing a beautiful woman. Women don't typically react the same to a beautiful/hot man.
So we're left with women being able to drop the jaws of men frequently, but not the other way around. This leaves men with no reason to try to amplify the attention towards their bodies via speedos. The only reasons I can think to wear a speedo are speed and showing off muscular thighs. A very fat man in a speedo is going to look a lot more "weird" than a ripped man in a speedo. There's even jokes/skits/stories about fat people refusing to remove their shirt when swimming.
This circles back to your "weird" argument. What you're really saying is "ugly" in disguise. What is "weird" about a woman hiding her tummy and thighs? Is it "weird" because she should be flaunting what she's got instead of hiding it? Please help me to understand here. Looking "weird" is not a gendered thing, and it goes far beyond the attire that individual decided to put on for that day.
You can't simply say "it's this way because it's expected" and not investigate why it's expected. Hell, nude beaches are a thing, why don't we just remove any expectation of clothing? Just make all clothing optional and we won't have to think about this anymore, right?
Again, absolutely hilarious that "society expects this so I should embrace society's expectations" is your argument
It's a bit more nuanced I'd say. The covering of the body in such a way as to draw attention to what is being covered can cause a kind of excitement that makes the whole feel more sexual.
Give him a midriff that shows off his happy trail.
Linger the camera on his ass, very obvious (perhaps even revealing) bulge and sometimes his forearms when his sleeves are rolled up
Make him pose in uncomfortable positions to show off said bulge and/or ass. Angle the camera without respect to his face or personhood, unless he is making a pouty or cold steel expression where you can imagine he is about to munch some carpet.
When he has to wear armor it’s just a chain speedo with a very obvious codpiece.
Yupp, go look at any slutty(non nude) Leon Kennedy mod and you'll get how to overly sexualize a male character real quick. It's basically the same type of outfits they put on female characters xD
But does he have a nice, visible bulge in the same way as I can see the tit folds on a boob window? I wont consider it square unless I can catch print.
If I’m a straight man writing stories for straight men, what’s my incentive to sexualize the male characters as much as the female ones? Doesn’t really make sense to me.
Seems to me that the current stories written by straight men for straight men and sexualize women do really well. One piece is literally the most sold comic of all time and it’s still currently going. So it turns out you don’t have to write stories for everyone. Cause when you make it for everyone, you’re really making it for no one.
If all your dinner options throughout your life consist of plates of different kind of bugs or starve, you’re probably gonna eat the bugs eventually mate.
Especially if you say, could have a steak once or twice. Yeah theres a steak, but you eventually eat it. Back to bugs or starve.
So women are upset because they’re watching shows meant for men lmaooo. And they’re upset the shows aren’t for them. Like I said just get more women involved. Try to find talented women and watch their shows. Simple.
It’s a bit of a different problem when women are still denied major projects on the basis that they won’t attract a male audience. Look into the history on that- the people green-lighting shit are men looking to make money on more men dude.
Kids aren’t gonna be able to safely sift for the indie shit. This is about large scale presentation, normalization, passive dehumanization.
Okay and that’s a different problem entirely. The post is upset about male centered media not sexualizing the men in it. Not upset that there aren’t enough women writing stories that sexualize men. The original post wants male stories to be more appealing to women, but when you make something have a more broader reach it ends up being for no one.
You’re soooo close. Why aren’t more women involved? Society has gotten leaps and bounds better, but the overwhelming majority of media produced was made in a society where women had much less of a voice and less power. Just because it’s better now, doesn’t mean that the people who have the means and say in producing media has entirely caught up. It hasn’t even been a decade since “Me Too” went viral. Harvey Weinstein still has a grip on the pop culture psyche, I can’t deny that I occasionally put on a movie and see his name in the intro. The critiques women make are real because culture has not had enough time to catch up. And unfortunately, there’s still tons of pushback. Think of how successful Gamergate was
This does not make any of us bad people, especially for enjoying media made for us. But it’s also true that media made for women BY WOMEN is still not as valued by the industry
It comes down to money. That’s all it comes down to. Visual media for men makes a ton of money versus visual media for women. This isn’t true for all industries btw for example musicians that appeal to women make way more money than musicians who appeal to men.
Bullshit. Their are tons of shows that bring in female audiences. Bridgerton, Heated Rivalry, Twilight (Became popular because of women), Fifty Shades of Grey, Winx Club, and that's just iff the top of my head.
And even despite mass media being controlled by men not every advertisement has sexual tones. I mean Sydney sweeny does a sexual ad and it’s news for a whole week. Doesn’t seem like it’s a regular thing if it makes that much noise when one happens.
"Sex sells" is a well known slogan. Just because SOME commercials aren't sexual, doesn't negate the problem of there being too much of it.
People are talking about Sydney because yes, that's the issue, the ad pushed sexualizing for a product to the extreme it could be pushed outside of her showing full nudity unedited.
There are SOME commercials with sexualized men, sure, but looking at the big picture companies have been using sex to sell products to men specifically.
"Sex sells" has been a slogan for those in advertisement media
Yes, "Sex sells". Not "Sex sells only to men". It's "Sex Sells" flat out. This isn't the 50's anymore. They don't assume the men have the purchasing power and this mainly target them. It's been selling sex to everybody for decades now.
You shouldn’t be sexualizing the female characters at all (this is different from making her attractive), unless you’re making something pornographic. That’s the chief complaint.
Being straight shouldn’t mean only engaging with the characters you see yourself in as full ass people. Either let them both be products, or let them both be people- but Id really like for media at large to stop making one a person and the other a product. Human beings subconsciously pick up a lot more from pop culture and media than you’d think, and that sort of portrayal (because media and pop culture has been a male dominated field throughout history) and unintentional but passive dehumanization actually does a number on how little boys and girls and young men and women perceive the sexes.
It’s difficult to present only one sex as a sex object while at the same time establishing their personhood and equal value to the characters that are not being treated like a sex object. If you can write or draw in such a way as to dodge this issue go ahead, but I’m sure if all you ever saw growing up as a little boy was media where all the actual characters were women and the men were only there as a token “boy” whose personality was as deep as a puddle of stereotypes and whose only purpose was a sexual object to be won or pursued or who otherwise does nothing but look nice in a way you find completely unattractive and even a little dehumanizing, it would have absolutely colored your view of women and your own role in life as well as in relation to the opposite sex.
But for some reason, so many people find it impossible not to include sex or sexual elements in their stories/media (that doesn’t serve the plot or add anything!!)- as if they would die if their sexual appetite was not stimulated.
So women are upset because they’re watching shows meant for men and that it doesn’t represent their interests? Sounds like a completely self made problem to me.
And there it is, so a woman being open about how she feels about something is "a self made problem?"
Most of the media that makes it to mainstream is "for men" because of this sexualization, and the men in charge pushing it. This comic strip is illustrating this phenomenon.
Why does media being targeted at men necessitate women being treated like objects? Why are straight men so entirely uninterested in viewing women as fully-formed people?
Maybe not to normal people but I see comic readers and anime watchers go crazy over them all the time.
Like the other day I saw someone give one piece girls normal (kept the bust size the same, still really thin, damn near anorexic just not boneless) proportions and there were people were complaining and calling it fat lol.
Massive bulge? What are you a barbarian? No, a tiny, almost unnoticeable bulge is the mark of civility. Civilised men are growers, not showers, just ask the ancient Greeks.
The bara grossly oversized stuff is also, funnily, more appealing to gay men. Think tumblr sexyman for the general young woman’s taste, and someone like Hopper in his towel from stranger things for older women’s tastes
"It's hard to sexualize men" Simply wrong. Sexualizing a man is easy as fuck. Men just don't want to be caught drawing other men like that. Search up bara yaoi and you'll see men sexualized in every possible angle.
I think this is a huge part of it, men arent taught to see themselves as 'sexy', to be desirable. Men are taught homosocial ideas of status and signifiers to achieve and then devalued by other men for not meeting those goals. And one of those aspects its a control of the expression of sexuality. Men are taught to outwardly want a very specific idea of a woman, and if they admit to liking outside that box, theyre shamed for it. (And this includes men who might be bi, or simply find a single other man attractive). They dont get to be seen as a desirable person, in some weird ways I think a lot of media makes men almost devoid of desirability, and instead they are power fantasys where youre not meant to identify with the male hero as desirable or even sexual, youre only meant to identify with his performance of masculinity.
So the minute men are put in a sexual gaze they tend to think its gay since they have no other framework.
The appeal there (insofar as it exists) isn't Tarzan's body/sex characteristics, but the sensuality of being held close to the skin someone more powerful, combined with a rush of danger from them being the thing keeping you from falling.
You could switch the sex there and it would still work, but the female Tarzan could be not sexualised and the sensuality would still exist, while also being able to be sexualised.
I don't think most people get that horny over Tarzan fwiw, but where that appeal exists it's more complex than appearance alone.
Terry does what Terry wants, especially when it comes to sexual matters. Thus I can only hope at some point he's comfortable accepting a role where he can wear a tiny miniskirt and fishnets, preferably with a crop top that leaves some of his underpecs visible.
Me neither, usually when I'm attracted to a guy, it has nothing to do with his body and everything to do with his face. I'm not attracted to manly or bearded ones but pretty boys like dick greyson, Leon Kennedy, a lot of Chinese actors I don't know the names of etc. if the face is attractive, anything they're wearing looks attractive. But I think there's still ways to sexualize the male body beyond that? It's most cosplayers that manage to effectively do it in my experience.
Women have had open thirst targets since at least the 60s, and if you listen to women talk about things, it's clear that there are a ton of characters openly designed for women. It's just a little more complicated than just a dude wearing push up trunks.
It's why a buff shirtless man doesn't have the same effect, and why treating sexualization of men as the same way as women comes off as parody rather than earnest. The real deals are like Astarion in BG3
He-man has to be the best example of this right? As far as main stream characters. There was also issues with the last Thor movie too if I remember correctly.
The problem ive met is that whenever a man creates a character that he thinks would appeal to the "female gaze", it gets called a male power fantasy. He-man is a male power fantasy, or at least he gets called that.
Easy, make him look like Captain America after the super soldier serum.
Its crazy you dont see the parallels between the two, the physique of these male characters are impossible to gain naturally leading to normalized use of steroids in this generation leading to shorter life span of men.
Both sexes are objectified and sexualized in media.
You don't do much to overly sexualize a male character. You just make them attractive and depending on the audience you want you just play into that personality, women will quite literally do the rest of the work from my experience. You could do a lot of things vanity-wise but that can also backfire a lot.
If they like buff manly men then all that guy needs to do is take his shirt off and they will say a lot of things... in some cases they say some really heinous things considering if I said that about a female character I'd be in the wrong or told that I'm degrading them. This has been actual experiences I've had and is why I just start telling people that everyone sexualizes someone. To drive home that point I just explain if they had a S/O and found them sexually appealing, because most people do for obvious reasons, then you have sexualized your S/O but in that case it's consensual.
For women it's not exactly the looks but the character themselves apparently although the looks definitely still matter and there's probably cases where this doesn't hold up. For men it's usually only the looks they need but there's still cases where it's the character that matters still and the looks also help. More than likely if it's only looks that matter then that person is more about vanity where as if they need the character to have the right personality they care more about that then.
In the end people are people and usually sex drives people, it is how we got here in the current day and age, so they are gonna sexualize something if they aren't ace or sex repulsed by other means. The part that matters is respect and lets face it a lot of female characters that are designed for the "male gaze" tend to not actually be respected and the ones that aren't designed for that tend to be disrespected by a lot of "men". You don't see that too often for male characters, at least I haven't.
Muscle definition. Them being that defined is basically only possible if the guy is dehydrated. Because that is a look they go for in movies, especially superhero movies, it has caused some serious issues with some of the actors. It is why Hugh Jackman mostly stopped playing Wolverine
Imagine Fifty Shades of Grey, but instead of taking place in a billionaire’s penthouse, it takes place in the back of a scrapyard with Tony the mechanic.
Honestly there has been some level of “equality” with that marvel game especially with the Venom skins.
It’s largely that women don’t sexualize men the same way men do most of the time. It’s why a lot of us read smutty books/fanfics over pornography. There is more to it than “ooh sexy person doing sex stuff” it’s the motivation, the energy, how all the senses get engaged that our imaginations fill in with exactly how we would like it to go.
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u/VinnyBoy45 12h ago
I wouldn't know how to overly sexualize a male character.
On the other hand, I know how to sexualize a female character.
On the third hand, I do not know how to draw so it does not matter.