Not wanting cheesecake--or let's face it, it's sort-core erotica--in an RPG book that isn't about that sort of thing isn't dismissing peoples' desires due to their gender identity (
or their sexuality).
I should also hope that most people, regardless of their gender or sexuality, are capable of reading books that don't have cheesecake in them. If they can't, if their ability to enjoy an RPG book is literally diminished because there aren't acres of skin on display, well, that strikes me as a
them problem.
But now imagine that
that was the sort of thing nearly every male character was drawn like, no matter what. For decades. Terrible weather? Middle of battle where they're in the front line? In the of a royal court, where everyone else is dressed in formal clothes? Nope, it's pin up-palooza, all day long. And then, when it became more common for male characters in outfits that are actually dressed appropriately for the circumstances, other people complained about it and called the art "sanitized."
Should it be gotten rid of entirely? Nah. But c'mon. There's a time and a place for everything, and most of the time, that sort of art is just
gratuitous.
This I agree with completely. A few scars as well. One of D&D characters has a fencing scar on her face and a missing horn.
Nymph, probably not. It would be inappropriate for the monster type.
But, well... this is a piece of old D&D art:
This next art is from Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Ignore the art style and imagine it was painted like the picture above.
The D&D art may be more "medieval," but it's otherwise basically the same thing: a female spellcaster in not very much clothing at all. I kind of wonder how many people would be cool with cheesecake that looks like the TSW art (and weren't cool with it just because they have type and/or fetish), and how many would suddenly start wanting women to be more fully dressed if
this was the type of women that was being drawn.
And for the record, TSW has a
great variety of physical female bodies, ranging in body sizes and how much they're clothed. It's the kind of variety
I'd like to see, for characters of all genders, in D&D books. I was, for example, quite pleased to see the following bit of art in the Level Up
Adventurer's Guide, as the illustration for the cleric entry:
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