Alternative: Girls (females) in D&D/ Roleplaying

[Hussar]

Now, this leads to a host of unfortunate and tragic and frankly bigoted cultural effects, but that's not its intent. J.K. Rowling's publisher wasn't being sexist, they were being capitalist, trying to maximize potential profits.

Does that excuse it though? Does the pursuit of profit excuse the sexism? Can they not be both sexist and capitalist at the same time? IOW, does intent matter?

 

[Sunseeker]

Oh, certainly.

But there are also drastically different ideas of beauty that exist in thousands of societies and throughout time as well - and plenty of societies very pointedly did not find large hips and breasts to be considered attractive.

Is lighter skin more attractive or darker, tanned skin? Is a thin woman beautiful, or an obese woman? What about mens' legs - depending on what decade it is in Europe, the legs of a man are either best when shown or covered, they're best long and thing or thick and stout. Norsemen loved women with big feet. China, uh, didn't. Long hair or short hair?

Large breasts and large hips? We just got out of the 90's where the exceptionally thin model who had neither of those were considered beautiful and fashionable. Hell, the medieval standard of beauty - and indeed the standard of beauty throughout most of the ancient world - was either very overweight women or women with small breasts and a tight pelvis. Large breasts were seen as vulger and disgusting; women who were seen as beautiful were compared to apples, small and round. How about the 1920's, where a boyish look on women was desired? That doesn't fit the ideal of large hips and breasts, either.

Big muscular men are attractive? Not so, says Asia, where the look at any teenage girl magazine or at the images of any major JE or kpop band shows men that are seen as effeminate by American standards. What about facial hair and chest hair? Hot or not? Most people on these forums scoffs at the sight of the latest teenbooper or at a certain sparkly vampire from Twilight, and yet plenty of women - not just girls, but adult women - find him insanely hot.

So yeah, no. It's not that simple.

Thank you for not actually addressing the argument and instead running on about MODERN social standards. Which I wasn't talking about.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Thank you for not actually addressing the argument and instead running on about MODERN social standards. Which I wasn't talking about.

Yes, discussing medieval and ancient world desires is pretty modern I agr

Wait, what?

 

[Krensky]

I think if you want a generalization, standards of beauty typically (but not always) involve a certain symmetry of features and whatever physical qualities suggest health and an abundance of resources and leisure time. Looking like you're not from around here helps too.

What those qualities are will and does vary from culture to culture and over time.

 

[Hussar]

I play mostly (well exclusively for some time) online over VTT's. So, I'm always looking for images to use in game. When I ran my last campaign, it was an SF setting set in a trans-humanist far future. But, part of the setting was that a large proportion of the population still looked (more or less) baseline human.

So, I went on a hunt for SF images of men and women. It was really, really hard to find decent pics of men actually. Almost all the images I could find on places like Deviantart, or Conceptart.org or CGSociety were SF females and most of them were pretty heavily cheesecake.

It's actually a bit of a challenge to find non-cheesecake SF art at all - every woman is hyper sexualized holding a BFG it seems. And the men are virtually non-existant.

But, there is hope. Stumbled across this collection of art just now and thought I would share. Lots of pics of men and women (and various other beings) with nary a bit of 'cake.

About the absolute worst of the bunch (and it's hardly what I would call cheesecake) is this one:

And, yeah, I think anyone would be hard pressed to get offended by that. So, there is hope. I guess Sturgeon's Law applies here as much as anywhere.

 

[Wik]

I think if you want a generalization, standards of beauty typically (but not always) involve a certain symmetry of features and whatever physical qualities suggest health and an abundance of resources and leisure time. Looking like you're not from around here helps too.

What those qualities are will and does vary from culture to culture and over time.

You've pretty much got the general gist of it.

I've taken a bazillion anthropology courses, and it comes down basically to this:

1) Beauty is what is hard to get. If everyone works in the fields, being pale is attractive. If everyone eats high carb meals because that's what's cheap, being thin is attractive. For women, beauty is often related to how a woman can display that she does not do work (and is therefore, wealthy) - long fingernails, elaborate hair, shoes that limit movement, a lot of body jewelry. Basically, anything that impedes effectiveness often enhances "beauty". Among men, beauty is generally related to status, but also to the ability to excel in primary cultural goals.

2) Our desires and interests in a mate are not biologically determined. This whole "cross-cultural desire for large breasts" is bull. No, really, it is - there are many, MANY cultures that completely ignore that part of the woman's anatomy (most of Africa, for example). The only real universal mark of beauty could be summed up as "health" - people don't generally find the sick sexy. If you want to argue this, just think - if there were biological cues programmed into us saying "this is beauty", it would span cross-culturally. Over time, those that had those characteristics would become more common than those that do not. And yet... look at the diversity of human life in the world.

3) People that say there are certain cross-cultural "ideals" are actually seeing the effect of globalization in the world, how american standards of beauty are spreading across the globe. Look at Anorexia in Southeast Asia - didn't exist in any quantifiable amount thirty years ago, and now a rather large epidemic (not as large as in the U.S.A., but still considerable).

 

[Krensky]

Although the effect of people in "power" shouldn't be neglected. The deformed tiny feet thing in China was, if memory serves, due to an Emperor's weird foot paraphillia. Similarly, I'm curious exactly when blondes became "more attractive" then other women and how that lines up with Mae West's or Marilyn Monroe's career.

I wouldn't agree that what defines a desirable mate isn't biologically determined though, just that how it's determined is very complex because it's an interaction of lots of different biologic and social factors. The criteria are much more ephemeral and subtle then big boobs or tanned skin or broad shoulders or whatever.

 

[pawsplay]

No, no it's not, the ideas of fertility,

Fertility is hard to spot with the naked eye.

large breasts,

Far from universal, and there is not much agreement on how large, large should be, if you're into large. I think it's more accurate to say that it's popular for women to have breasts, rather than saying the universal preference is for large.

large hips,

Most modern photographers for women's magazines are in the habit of digitally slimming women's hips.

and a pregnant belly are common in thousands of society all over the world and throughout time.

Seoni sure doesn't look pregnant.

 

[Dausuul]

I wouldn't agree that what defines a desirable mate isn't biologically determined though, just that how it's determined is very complex because it's an interaction of lots of different biologic and social factors. The criteria are much more ephemeral and subtle then big boobs or tanned skin or broad shoulders or whatever.

Biologically affected yes. Determined no. Certain things do seem to be hardwired--e.g., preference for symmetrical features--but beyond that, the influence of biology is far too subtle IMO to call it "determining" anything, and social factors seem to play a far larger role.

 

[jasin]

The only real universal mark of beauty could be summed up as "health" - people don't generally find the sick sexy.

And referencing Twilight provides a counterexample even for that.