There are many debates about oversexualization in the gaming industry, but to be perfectly honest, there should be no debate at all. Everything in the modern world is oversexualized. Sex sells and people need to get over themselves and just let it be. There is a long standing battle between those who condemn oversexualized media and those who find it pleasing. The truth is that as long as we are a species that is genetically driven to procreate, we are going to love visual sexual stimulation.
Sexual content is everywhere
Unless you are committed to celibacy, you are probably a person that enjoys sex and there is nothing wrong with that at all. The video game industry is no stranger to sexual content and this started way back in the NES days with advertisement that offered content that was meant to arouse gamers (check this article for details on the sexiest gaming ads). Sexual content has been part of gaming for a very long time. Cammy from Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo was probably the first oversexualized popular game character to hit the screens on arcades and consoles with her winning pose.
Cammy with her oversexualized winning pose in SSF2
Women who hate the one-sided oversexualization
The last thing I want to do is turn this into a gender debate, but let’s be honest, there is nothing funnier than women who complain about one-sided video game oversexualization. Men have never been the object of sexual desire in the streets. Sure, there are male strippers that become sex objects to frustrated housewives or women who like to have fun, but no guys are walking the streets showing cleavage that reveals their nutsack.
Women on the other hand, are desired by men in a way that is completely different from the desire that females have for us. A woman doesn’t see a pair of male legs and gets overly turned on and starts thinking about the dirtiest sex (at least not the average woman) on the other hand, the average male turns the slightest display of skin into a full blown X-rated movie in his mind.
Women wear revealing clothing because they know men desire their bodies. Companies use beautiful women in their marketing campaigns because the know men love to look at women’s bodies. Let’s stop kidding ourselves about what we truly are. We are simply animals with reasoning skills, but our core is to procreate and survive. Everything else is that we do to kill time and to provide for that survival.
There is no such thing as oversexualized advertisement, as long as women enjoy wearing revealing clothing in the real world, it will also be a thing that people desire seeing in all kinds of media. Video games are definitely not the exception.
Street Fighter V is proof of the evolution of sexual content in video games. Every single female character has been “oversexualized” but you won’t see most gamers complaining.
Laura and Chun Li are hyper-Ultra-Mega-Oversexualized in SFV
Games like Silent Hill have done some heavy oversexualization in their games with the Nurses being the most common example. The Silent Hill Homecoming nurses are voluptuous and they make sexual moaning sounds as they attack you.
You also have Pyramid head molesting a female creature in SH2 and a large number of sexual references in every single game. The point is that there is no such thing as oversexualization of the female body in video games. As long as most men lust for women, this is exactly what the standard is going to be and entertainers in the gaming and movie industries know that a nice pair of legs are always going to help sell their products.
Nurse scene in Silent Hill Homecoming
Next time you feel like complaining about oversexualized characters, you might want to put your feet back on the ground and understand that sex is the ultimate driving force for humanity. Without it, we would be extinct and there would be nothing left of us.
-Fighter 101