It's all overly shredded men with insane proportions doing ridiculous poses.
I think another angle of it is that men aren't as against being sexualized and unless it overtly appeals to them because their gay/bi. they just gloss over it. Conan, jojo, fist of the north star, "manime" in general, etc.
If you find no appeal in the male form like me, this shit is just cool. Im just aware that this is kind of the same thing as above.
Almost naked greasy buff dudes doing goofy poses while doing stereotypical manly things, with their junk regularly emphasized.
edit: I want to add a little addendum to this.
If you read this whole mess of a thread, i think (or atleast I hope) you might take away not so much as changing your entire world view, but rather the nuance of what I'm trying to get across.
I have my opinions, you have yours, but i hope at the very least the nuance of it is something that can be communicated. Even within this thread I have reached agreeable conclusions with those i was debating.
At the end of the day I suppose the only thing we can ever take away is our own conclusions.
Women's first experience with being sexualized is nearly getting kidnapped from the mall at age 12, men's first experience with being sexualized is just not a thing that happens for 80% of men. And even really hot men that do get objectified or sexualized are generally safe when they are.
It's just a completely different average life experience.
I think another perspective is that men find appeal regardless in being sexualized because it's commonly seen as aspirational.
The ladies man was a stereotype for a reason.
You know the phrase "women want to fuck him, men want to be him". Yeah that's kinda the thing about JoJo.
I don't want to fuck any of the JoJo protags, but hell I'd love to be as musclebound as Jonathan, as cool headed as Jotaro, as suave as Joseph, and as determined as Giorno.
If your not attracted to them, they are presented as very aspirational. Most men who are presented as appealing are.
Is it a ridiculous standard, still yes, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a thing.
It's just glossed over because Men stand from the opposite end because men are told they ought to be like this. They will have their dreams come true if they can meet this standard.
Its not because it's safe, it's because it's what all kinds of media tells us we are expected to be. He-man, Conan, Bond, JoJo, comics, etc.
I think avoiding that both versions of this are kinda bad for their respective gender, not just sexualizing women, is why toxic masculinity has dug as deep as it has.
And I love JoJo but I know that dudes genuinely do model themselves after these kinds of characters, and we don't have a million faces coming out of the wood work to tell us that it's wrong, that we shouldn't be destroying ourselves to meet an impossible standard.
You can't put the shoe on the other foot without checking the size first. And frankly I don't think most men can fill em' despite desperately wanting to.
it's not considered aspirational because it's sexual though, it's considered aspirational because it's powerful. The power to physically engage something, the power to get the women they want, the power to not be held down by rules. The same could not happen with women because in the eye's of society women's power isn't valued, women aren't people, they're trophies- that's why women can be freely sexualized in media as a treat for the viewer but a woman being sexual in real life is called a slut and is looked down on when the same generally doesn't happen with men.
I agree to an extent that this isn't good for men either, the issue is it's harmful for different reasons, and when they're treated as the same it's often in service of minimizing the harm to women rather than highlighting the harm to men.
You have a point that the difference is power. Though I will argue that many sexualized characters are still shown as powerful.
That being said, I think those elements are kind of hand in hand and irregardless of how they spin:
they both still hurt people by presenting an impossible image that causes a ton of damage when one inevitably can't match it.
With the problem being we don't have anyone calling this out to the same extent. Its wrong for women to be presented that way, but like this comic, people are more than willing to go to bat for it, where men facing this issue get much more scrutiny if not vitriol.
I don't think either are ok, nor do i believe womens struggles with it should be minimized to prop up the other side of the issue,
i just think men ought to get more help in this corner of the issue, without minimizing what women go through with being sexualized as well.
There are some, yeah, but it's usually in spite of them being sexual not because of it- always exceptions to the rule obviously.
I do get what you're saying, the issue is most men don't identify the issue on their end, unfortunately. They just see the men as powerful and cool and that's it, that's a part of the patriarchy we have to contend with- even though men are also hurt by the patriarchy, the framing of it makes men out to be on top even though those who are are actually on top are a smaller group of wealthy and powerful people, men just disproportionately have a more power than women in comparison and that makes it harder to see the problems.
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u/jbyrdab 15h ago edited 11h ago
I mean if we wanna be fair.... Araki...
It's all overly shredded men with insane proportions doing ridiculous poses.
I think another angle of it is that men aren't as against being sexualized and unless it overtly appeals to them because their gay/bi. they just gloss over it. Conan, jojo, fist of the north star, "manime" in general, etc.
If you find no appeal in the male form like me, this shit is just cool. Im just aware that this is kind of the same thing as above.
Almost naked greasy buff dudes doing goofy poses while doing stereotypical manly things, with their junk regularly emphasized.
edit: I want to add a little addendum to this.
If you read this whole mess of a thread, i think (or atleast I hope) you might take away not so much as changing your entire world view, but rather the nuance of what I'm trying to get across.
I have my opinions, you have yours, but i hope at the very least the nuance of it is something that can be communicated. Even within this thread I have reached agreeable conclusions with those i was debating.
At the end of the day I suppose the only thing we can ever take away is our own conclusions.