Body images in World of Warcraft
I know, I know, I mentioned the WoW Ladies just yesterday, but they talk about such interesting stuff over there. Today it's body images in WoW-- one of them, Tsuraibara, saw someone on the EU forums calling human female characters fat "couch potatoes," and couldn't believe what she heard.
Personally, I'm with Tsuraibara-- I find the human females pretty darn attractive. I'm even one of those guys that plays a human female priest just so I can watch that holy body do its shadowy casting thing all day. Of course, I have a male gnome warrior, too, just because I love the look of a tiny bundle of doom charging Horde in PVP. Although I have to disagree with Tsuraibara about the Tauren females-- she plays two, and I don't think there's any way I could ever stand to look at one of those enough to get her past level 10. Elsewhere in the thread, someone sings the praises of Dwarf females, and I have to admit, while they're not classically attractive, the emotes especially make it seem like Dwarf females might be fun to hang out with. UD females are another matter entirely, though...
Now, we're no Guild Wars-- I once attended a conference where a professor of game studies couldn't believe how those women ever made it out of a battle with so little armor on. But at the same time, this ain't no text adventure, either-- WoW's graphics are cohesive and defined enough to make judgements on what the "models" look like. Have you judged your characters or other characters' looks? Is it wrong to do so? And the other question brought up in the thread is interesting, too-- is it only the female characters that are judged? Or are male Night Elves and Orcs getting checked out, too?
