Friday, December 2, 2011

Kotaku and Getting Men Sexy

For those who didn't hear the cry of the internet when my two recent pieces went up, I was a guest writer at Kotaku with "Why I Don't Feel Welcome at Kotaku." I shared with the editors and commenters why I don't frequent Kotaku anymore and how I feel there has to be a fundamental ideological shift before I do. In hopes of Kotaku continuing to be a good example of change in the gaming community, I am trying to work with them to make it more friendly to minorities of all sorts. Unfortunately, I had to put up my moderation here at my blog because I did get hateful comments, though it was mostly because I didn't want the random porn a determined Kotaku-ite wanted to share with me. Except a summation and reflection of my interaction with Kotaku within a week.

My second piece was a Moving Pixels blog called "On Men's Sexualization in Games." To anyone aware of gender and body politics in games, its common knowledge men are rarely, if ever, sexualized in video games. I decided to be a little playful and speculate on how we could actually sexualize men in media, because, well, maybe I want some man-service too? As well, it can make artists aware of how they are sexualizing women without realizing it, and remove that gaze when creating female characters. Head over to the cross-post at Gamasutra if you want to see how the average poster is trying to wrap their head around it.