D&D General “‘Scantily Clad and Well Proportioned’: Sexism and Gender Stereotyping in the Gaming Worlds of TSR and Dungeons & Dragons.”

[Vaalingrade]

Here in the United States, Armour makes hot dogs

What kind of man wears Armour hotdogs?

 

[Steampunkette]

What kind of man wears Armour hotdogs?

Most men aren't that brave... But I know someone who would probably wear hot dog armour...

 

[Faolyn]

You know I've thought about doing a redraw of David Martin's cover but I don't really care for it. I'd heard it caused some stir but I don't really consider it much worse than some of the other covers. Dragon 52 for example.

I'd consider #114 worse.

The woman on the cover of #52 is nude, but hiding herself in what I would consider a "natural" pose. I have no idea why she's nude on top of a pile of dragon eggs--even if that's a faerie dragon and she's a faerie herself, it makes very little sense. But, as @mamba said, that's Boris Vallejo for you.

#114 has a woman in a pose I'd call "boobs akimbo." Definitely on the side of erotica. I'm not a fan, but mostly because I can't help but wonder if she's wearing an invisible bra.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's the hat. I am not okay with raw meat on my head and I cannot communicate why that's getting to me as I just discovered this limitation.

 

[MGibster]

What kind of man wears Armour hotdogs?

A Hungry-Man?

 

[Bagpuss]

That isn't true, though.

Otherwise people wouldn't go INSANE for Tom Hiddleston, the Beatles, or Bendyback Cucumberpants.

Peoples tastes aren't all the same and fashions change. I wasn't implying that one size fits all, however markets reflect trends and fashions of the times they are in. Is it any wonder that D&D catered mainly to mainly men when they were 85 to 95% of the audience?

If you look at the art of Boris Vallejo and just assume it is sexist you missing the nature of his art. He frequently painted female body builders in powerful poses, not what would be traditionally considered attractive.

Although what I find funny is that I've been reading around the subject (looking at the back issues of Dragon mentioned in the OP article) and one of the letters that kicked it of wasn't a complaint about Spirit of Night, but actually in issue #111 about the cover of #109 which shows a rather dorky looking knight and it was the letter writers wife complaining there weren't enough "hunks" on the cover of Dragon.

Dear KM,

After we received issue #109, my wife pointed something out to me. She said, "When there is a female on the cover, she is generally scantily clad and well proportioned, but when there is a guy on the cover he is covered from head to toe and looks like a jerk."

I'm inclined to agree with her after looking back in retrospect. She would like to see some nice-looking guys on the cover — "a hunk." I have no problem with that. It might even entice some more women to get into the game.

#109 Cover "jerk"

#111 Letter about the lack of hunks.

#114 Spirit of Night.

#115 John M. Maxstadt letter complaining about 114 cover.

#117 Several responses to John M. Maxstadt letter. Some critical of it some in general support.


What I find interesting, is I didn't have to click back far to find this cover of a fighter in just a loin cloth and leather straps.

https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonMagazine101/

or this of a fully clad female mage.

https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonMagazine105/

In fact going back through the covers there isn't a huge amount of cheesecake, either male or female, the vast majority of it is just thematic. It certainly seems Spirit of Night was an exception, rather than common.

Semi naked male figures pop up more frequently than you would expect...

https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonMagazine073/

and fully armoured female knights aren't that uncommon either.

https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonMagazine072/

It does seem the original article is at worst cherry picking, or more likely suffering from some confirmation bias, or just the anecdotal evidence, where a few bits of controversial art are getting a lot of column inches at the time compared to the vast majority of art that was a lot tamer.

 

[Clint_L]

Ours weren't much to my chagrin. Teenage boys in the 80s, being exposed to fantasy films in the height of the T&A era? We role-played out similar scenes that one would find in Deathstalker, Conan, Barbarian Queen, etc.

Heck, there was a Dragon magazine that had an article about spending your down-time money on orgies...

Edit I suspect the difference between people never seeing it and others seeing it is because we probably define sexual violence differently. I'm sure some view it as an act of obvious physical violence, while I view any form of non-consensual act as violence.

No, I define it as you do. I'm saying that the group I played with never went there. We were well aware of all those films and never felt a need to role-play anything like them, at least when it came to sexualized violence, or really sexual content of any kind in our games. Not every group is the same.

 

[Charlaquin]

(Also another one which I really hate is stiletto heels I see given to so many women in fantasy).

You take one step off a smooth hard floor and you're sinking straight into the ground. And god forbid there is a cobblestone road...

They do have a purpose in film, which is so the actors don’t look comically shorter than their male counterparts. But, yeah, in drawn or painted art… you can just draw or paint them taller without having to use that cheat.

 

[Hussar]

The sound of points being missed while the whoosh over heads is deafening in here.

 

[Autumnal]

Upton Sinclair once remarked, “It is very difficult to make a man understand something when his paycheck depends upon not getting it.” There seems to be a similar dynamic at work with regard to sexually gratifying artwork in some quarters, as though any concession to anyone else ever is one step from jackbooted gaming police coming to confiscate it all and not even bringing snacks to share.