Chimpanzee Psychonaut's page

Gee, now I actually have to read your posts to pick up on the writing style. :P

Edit: Or be spoiled by Gary.

Oops, sorry TOZ, when i said TOZ I meant TriOmegaZero. I forgot you exist.

You seriously need to dial back your rhetoric right now. One more post like that and we're done here.

But of course Evil Lincoln and Fionna can openly accuse me of being a lying troll without so much as an unkind word from you? Glad to see you're still playing fair and unbiased moderator, Gary.

Chimpanzee Psychonaut wrote:

These aren't my first seven posts. These are my first seven points with this account.

OK, if you're going to publicly state that this is not your first account, we need to make it crystal clear that Chimpanzee Psychonaut is Gailbraithe, who was permanently banned from participating on our site for being unable to walk away from the keyboard when provoked.

Generally I try to use a "brand new day" kind of policy for people who want to come back but that comes with the responsibility to not behave in the kinds of ways that got the person banned in the first place. But alluding to past history on the site in a fashion that doesn't allow people to discover that past behavior is a no-no. If you're going to be here and refer to your posting history, you need to own that history.

It'd be much easier if you just unbanned my other account, since I never should have been banned in the first place, since I never did anything wrong. I mean seriously Gary, you banned me for saying I believed what Shifty was saying about himself and accused me of making an unwarranted attack on him, completely ignoring the fact that Shifty was the one who attacked himself and I only agreed with him.

(Also, I still think its absolutely ridiculous that I got permanently banned for [i[reacting[/i] to provocation but Shifty didn't even get a temporary suspension for making the provocations in the first place. I mean you're finally admitting that I didn't start it, I just happen to be the one who got punished for it.)

But yeah, I'm Gailbraithe. I'd post in the other forums, but I don't really have anything to say about Pathfinder right now (I still hate the idea of high level content, but that horse is dead and been beaten enough and nobody wants to hear me complain about it).

The line you're quoting, Lincoln, combined with the OKCupid stats that actually proves my point, makes me think we have a Poe.

Those OKCupid statistic do not prove your point. They demonstrate that your point is vapid, ideological nonsense.

And accusing me of being a Poe is just a pathetic way for you to flounce out of the argument, having lost it completely, without learning anything or admitting that your ideology is a load of nonsensical crap.

Let me 100% clear on this point, Fionna: In this argument, you are the creationist. You are the one whose entire position lies in direct contradiction of all of the facts. You are the one whose position is entirely an article of faith. You are the one who has drank the kool-aid, surrended rationality, and degenerated into sheer nonsense.

You tried to make the argument that sexy girls in video games causes men to rape women. You are the one who is presenting absurdities as arguments. If anyone here is a Poe, it's you.

You only call me a Poe because you know you can't possibly hope to argue with me and maintain any sort of credibility. It is obvious that a debate between you and I amounts to an intellectual curb-stomping.

I'd tell you to just take the hit to your ego and admit you lost, but I know better than trying to convince ideological feminists of the error of their ways. It is as pointless and futile as trying to convince a creationist that evolution is occurring, or convincing a conservative that smaller government is not automatically better government. You believe this nonsense because it satisfies some emotional need you have to blame men as a class for you own insecurity, and you have clearly given up on reason and fact.

Enjoy your life of being wrong and thinking you're right.

Chimpanzee Psychonaut wrote:

I minored in women's studies in college, and have a very strong grasp of what the term male privilege refers to.

Even if this were true (which I highly doubt) your stating it does absolutely nothing to help me take you seriously. It would go a long way to explain your holier-than-thou attitude, but it doesn't begin to explain why you would troll everyone who doesn't support your extremely confrontational stance.

Translation: I can't offer any real or substantive rebuttal, so I'll accuse you of trolling and pat myself on the back.

It's okay to admit you're losing the argument, Evil Lincoln. I know it stings the pride a bit, but in the long run being intellectually honest beats out being ideologically blinded.

I find it funny that you accuse me of trolling (and lying on top of that) when this entire thread is just one massive troll. It's not like we haven't had this argument before. It's always the same argument, the only thing that ever varies is how rude, insulting and obnoxious the people making the provoking argument ("Anything intended to appeal to male geeks is sexist and harms women!") decide to be. This argument has been going on for decades, and it won't ever stop. Because the people who make this argument have no evidence, no proof, nothing but empty, vapid feminist theory that is unsupported by anything but their fervent desire to give their baseless opinions and insecurities moral weight.

Congratulations on your first seven posts, by the way. All in the same thread, in the Off-Topic forums. That seems a really strange place to start.

These aren't my first seven posts. These are my first seven points with this account. Most of you know who I am (I know TOZ does), and this issue -- feminist whinging about fantasy art and the constant attack on male fantasy -- are a pet issue of mine.

I think these better personify feminine strength:

Example #1

Of course, that one is completely unrealistic. You'll be hard pressed to find any real woman with that developed a musculature and (real) breasts that size.

Also, I highly doubt using art like that would significantly reduce the number of complaints about objectification/sexualization of women. Of course, I don't believe it is actually possible to satisfy those kinds of complaints.

Example #2

Oof. Seen that one before, which is why I made this. (also this) It's Cate Blanchett's face on a man's body. Those are so clearly a man's arms and hands. Attractive face (its Cate Blanchett after all), but the arms are really off-putting. The artist should have used an actual female model for the arms. It also suffers from a severe case of "collage anatomy" - the arms don't match the body and connect oddly because they're all so clearly from different sources.

But that's me, I tend to judge the art on its actual technical qualities, not on entirely subjective and personal biases that no artist can hope to appease.

Chimpanzee Psychonaut wrote:

But that is not a problem. Women are not hurt in the slightest by the existence of media that appeals to men, just like men are not hurt in the slightest by the existence of media that appeals to women.

Actually, you're very, very wrong about this. Women are absolutely hurt by certain media that is made to appeal to men. Women are hurt, for example, when men compare real-life women to the impossible women depicted in comic books and games, and when they find those impossible women more sexually appealing than real women.

First of all, even if we assume that the claim that men compare real-life women to the "impossible" women depicted in comics and video games and thus find real-life women lacking is true, this doesn't cause any harm to women. That a man does not find some woman attractive because he has unrealistic expectations and standards does not hurt women. The only possible consequence of such unrealistic expectations is a life of loneliness for the man holding such unrealistic views. At worst some specific woman who is attracted to that specific man may be disappointed that he does not return her interest, but if that is "causing harm" to her, then sister, you women have a lot of apologizing to do. Because every man on this planet has felt disappointment that a woman he was interested in did not find him attractive for some reason or another.

Second of all, I call shenanigans on this entire line of argument. Women have far, far more unrealistic standards concerning men than men have concerning women. And unlike you, I can actually point to evidence to support that assertion, rather than just saying it and hoping no one challenges me. Here's my evidence: statistical analysis by OKCupid. Read through that article and what you'll find is that when men rate women's physical attractiveness, the aggregate of tens of thousands of ratings is a fairly symmetrical bell curve, with roughly the same proprotion of women at the top of the curve as at the bottom, and the vast majority of women falling somewhere in the middle. Which is exactly what you would expect to find if men were applying a realistic standard to women.

Meanwhile, if you look at the chart showing women's appraisals of men, you find the exact opposite occuring, with over 80% of men being considered of less-than-average good looks. Which means that -- and again, this is the result of tens of thousands of women's responses -- the average woman thinks the average man is ugly, while the average man thinks the average woman is average.

This is the exact opposite of the results we would expect to see if these baseless and unsupported claims that sexy comic book and video game females distort men's ability to appreciate real-life women. If that argument held water, then we would expect to see women making realistic appraisals of men while men held women to impossible standards. But we see the exact opposite of that.

So no, your claim is completely bogus. The existence of sexy women in male-oriented media appears to have absolutely no effect on men's perception of real women.

Women are hurt when violence is depicted as sexy, because it in turn normalizes sexual violence (read: rape). In the Second Life game, you could "buy" a rape. Then there's the RapeLay game, the goal of which is to, you guessed it, rape women. These are some of the things marketed to men. Don't tell me that this s**t doesn't harm women. It absolutely harms women.

I can't believe you just cited RapeLay as a typical example of what is being marketed to men. That's completely ridiculous. Furthermore, your argument is fishy. You are now trying to equate images of sexy women with the glorification of rape, which is definitely a case of moving the goalposts and changing the nature of the argument.

It also completely fails to explain why rape and sexual assault crimes have been on a steady decrease for the last forty years, despite constantly expanding definitions of rape and sexual assault, despite greater awareness of gender bias on the part of law enforcement, and despite increased resources being devoted to the problem. If the existence of sexy images of women in comic books and video games, which have clearly been on the rise for the last forty years, leads to increased sexual violence against women, then why have the number of rapes and sexual assaults been constantly reducing? Once again we find that reality is acting in the exact opposite manner that your hypothesis suggests.

If we're being rational, then we have to conclude that your hypothesis is wrong. When your hypothesis completely fails to predict trends and outcomes, and furthermore predicts the opposite of what is actually occuring, then your hypothesis must be discarded.

Instead, I suspect (based on previous arguments like this I've been involved in), you will refuse to acknowledge that reality does not support your ideological claims, and instead insist that I am a privilege male misogynist who is only arguing this point because I have issues with women.

^This? Shining example of male privilege. I think this paragraph alone is enough for a Bingo.

^This? Shining example of ideological blindness. Instead of actually presenting a cogent and rational rebuttal of the claims, you are making baseless accusations and forcing me to defend myself from your antagonistic and insulting assumptions. That you would reference Male Privilege Bingo indicates to me that there is no possibility of us engaging in rational discourse, since you are clearly only interested in reinforcing your own commitment to your ideology by turning my attempts to engage rationally with the subject matter into a game.

The author absolutely knows what male privilege is. Here, look up the word. The author of the article linked to in the first post has a pretty good understanding of what privilege is, at least according to a well-understood definition.

I disagree. I minored in women's studies in college, and have a very strong grasp of what the term male privilege refers to. A significantly deeper understanding than one will achieve by reading a wiki article. The article linked to in the OP misuses the term. You saying it does not only demonstrates that you don't understand the term either.

I'm not telling you what to think. I'm telling you what you sound like to me, when you read that article and then respond to it in the manner that you did. It's pretty obvious that you don't care, and it's not my place to change you.

Here's what I don't get:

You say the point of this complaining is not to encourage self-censorship or actual censorship. So then what is the point? Why complain if the complaining isn't meant to effect change?

Complaining is annoying. No one likes to listen to people complain. That's why we (as a society) generally expect people to only complain when a situation demands change. Complaining without expectation of change is not only pointless, it's actively annoying and aggravating.

You're wrong that I don't care. I do care. Which is why these kinds of arguments piss me right off. Because it leaves me feeling attacked, manipulated, and defensive, and it leaves me with the distinct impression that the people making the argument are complete and utter jerks. Which makes me want to not just get defensive, but get aggressive.

If you (generic you, not you specifically) are going to insist on complaining just to hear yourself complain, then dangit, I'm going to respond by telling you to shut up, get over it, and move on. And if you can't do that, then I'm going to start pointing out that you (again, generic you) are a whiny, insecure and obnoxious person that should be made the subject of ridicule and mockery for being such an aggressively annoying turd.

You say that the point of this article is to us "entitled" males "understand" the position of the author's girlfriend. Well, okay then. I understand her position. And my response is: The author's girlfriend is a whiny, insecure and obnoxious troll and she should shut the heck up. If she doesn't like those kind of games, she's free to not play them. And if her problem is that her boyfriend plays them, well then hey, get a new boyfriend.

And in the meantime, stop insulting me and accusing me of crap (like being an "entitled male") like her insecurities are of any concern of mine.

In the previous post, I wasn't referring to you specifically, Chimpanzee Psychonaut, but I will speak directly to your comments if you like.

Ah, well, it wasn't clear who you were speaking to, and since your post followed after mine, I thought it was in response to mine. I would love it if you responded directly to my comments. That is why I post them afterall, to provoke and engage debate.

The article basically says "My girlfriend feels threatened and objectified by certain aspects of geek culture, and gets actively confronted by folks who want to defend those aspects. Here is what the dudes confronting her don't quite understand."

Try to recognize the actual message of the article without getting defensive. It's not about censorship, it's about understanding what it is like to be someone not-you.

By removing it from the context of the article explaining someone's viewpoint and characterizing it as some kind generic quest to sanitize and equalize all media, dudes really telegraph themselves as belonging to the male-entitlement crowd. It shows that you don't often think about anyone's experience beyond your own.

Well, boo hoo. How I am not supposed to get defensive when you accuse me of "belonging to the male-entitlement crowd?"

Okay, so the author's girlfriend feels threatened and objectified by aspects of (a narrow subset of) geek culture. So? What kind of response do you want from me? Am I supposed to feel sorry for her? Am I supposed to feel guilty?

Why should I care? Seriously, why should I give a rat's ass what some random dude on the internet's girlfriend feels about video games that are marketed to teen boys?

Seoni is annoying because she was the first major iconic image to get thrown around for Pathfinder, and the outfit and look doesn't fit her character sheet.

sure, sure, sorceress = high charima = super hot chick that can't wear armor so we can put her in sexy clothing!!! But Seoni has high intelligence (for a sorceror), and is serious and quiet. The outfit doesn't fit her character at all...she's not even underhanded and manipulative enough to use it purely to manipulate and control men. What's the point of dressing like that.

At least the oracle has the excuse she's nearly blind. :D

Paizo's always invested in lots of art, and works hard to keep the quality up. And Seelah and the inquisitor are awesome.

To give you an idea of how completely subjective these sort of opinions are, I feel almost exactly the opposite of you.

Seoni's outfit doesn't bother me in the slightest. She's a Varisian, they are not a puritanical people, they love their tattoos, they seem to inhabit a mostly Mediterranean climate, it makes perfect sense (to me) that she would wear a loose, open outfit that leaves a lot of skin (and thus her tattoos) visible.

But the Inquisitor? That costume is utterly ridiculous. The exposed cleavage is completely nonsensical. The costume is clearly inspired by the robes of the Spanish Inquisitors, but it looks silly. Like its the Sexy Inquisitor outfit from some tacky Halloween catalog.

It also pays not to answer one stereotype with another; right now Downton Abbey is about halfway through its american broadcast, and I'm more emotionally invested in it than I am in any porn. Is Downton Abbey a men's romance? I don't know, but I'll bet according to Chimp it's for girls.

You're talking about a TV show. I was talking about "men's romance novels," as in cheap, mass produced dimestore novels with entirely predictable plots -- a thing that does not exist. I don't think the two are really comparable.

Now, I've never seen Downton Abbey, and I really have no idea what it is about at all, but I know its a British show and a period drama. Which means that it will have limited appeal in America. Not all Americans like British television. The British have different sensibilities than Americans, and that is reflected in our television shows.

If we accept the argument of the article's writer, and the argument you seem to be implicitly making, then there is something <i>wrong</i>, as in <i>moral wrong</i>, about Downton Abbey not appealing to American sensibilities. So the producers of that show should change it. They should make it more appealing to American audiences. They should add an American character, and he should be one of the leads, and they should move the show to America, and set the show in the present (because period costume dramas have limited appeal to American audiences).

Except that is clearly ridiculous, right? And if Americans started whining about "British privilege" because there are shows that don't cater to American interests, you'd laugh at them. You'd think they were being ridiculous. You'd point to the vast number of TV shows created by Americans for American consumption, and it would be crystal clear that what these complainers really want is for there to be no TV shows that are written to appeal to British viewers.

I don't see why a video game (or whatever) which appeals to men can't appeal to women, but the designers are going to have to do more than put in more dancing tit-monkeys to split that difference.

What you will never, ever be able to explain is why a video game that doesn't appeal to women in large numbers shouldn't exist. Because that appears to be the entire "problem": There are video games, comic books, movies, etc. that appeal to a largely male audience.

But that is not a problem. Women are not hurt in the slightest by the existence of media that appeals to men, just like men are not hurt in the slightest by the existence of media that appeals to women.

"Tough. You aren't welcome here. Get out. Stay out." Is a poor response to any segment of the population who expresses an interest in your hobby.

But it is an entirely appropriate response to a segment of the population that expresses an interest in your hobby in such a way that your hobby has to be completely changed into something unrecognizable in order to accommodate them.

Right now, at this very moment, we live in a world where there are video games that appeal mostly to women, video games that appeal mostly to men, and video games that have broad appeal. This is a perfectly acceptable state of affairs.

What you and the author of the article seem to be calling for is a world where there are video games that appeal largely to women and video games that have broad appeal, but no video games that appeal largely to men.

I think the only reasonable response to such a position is to call the person making that argument a man-hating misandronist and tell them to go shove it.

Also, it's worth noting that the original author of the article linked to in the first post has absolutely no clue what the phrase "male privilege" refers to. he is completely misusing the term. Now I personally don't agree with feminist arguments about male privilege -- I think that its just another example of feminists stealing the work of minority advocates and trying to clumsily substitute gender for race as if they were perfectly equivalent of each other (i.e. "white privilege" is a very real thing, while "male privilege" is an attempt to equate being male with being white, which works much better in theory than in practice) -- but that is rather beside the point. Even if we agree that male privilege exists, the existence (and glut of) of video games featuring tough stoic badass male characters and sexy scantily clad female character aimed at a juvenile male audience is not an example of male privilege in any way, shape or form.

Geek culture should not be gender specific, there's room enough for everyone and I for one want to encourage more women to take the roles of creators and fans without having to defend their reasons for being there.

I read the article and was thinking about it as I read this thread, but it wasn't until I reached this comment that I realized what it was about this discussion that seemed wrong to me.

It seems to me that the only way to make the argument that geek culture is exclusionary towards women is to define geek culture as only those things that appeal to men, while ignoring the existence of things that appeal to women and things that appeal to both men and women.

I would go so far as to say that what you really appear to be arguing is not that "geek culture should not be gender specific" so much as arguing "there should be no male geek culture." That is not a reasonable position. That is, I think, a misandrist position -- a position rooted in the pathological hatred of men.

I find the original author's argument completely fallacious. Consider the company Big Fish Games. A hugely successful video game producer and marketer with a primarily female user base. Go look at the selection of games they offer. There are hundreds and hundreds of games, the vast majority of which have themes which are clearly intended to appeal to women. They have dozens and dozens of "time management games" that ask the player to take on the role of a professional business woman running a small business. They have "hidden object games" where the main character is a woman. The women characters in these games are not presented as cheesecake, they are not sex objects, and they are not being demeaned.

Yet the author says "Nobody wants to acknowledge that a one-sided (and one-dimensional) portrayal of women is the dominant paradigm in gaming; the vast majority of female characters are sexual objects. If a girl wants to see herself represented in video games, she better get used to the idea of being the prize at the bottom of the cereal box. If she wants to see herself as a main character, then it's time to get ready for a parade of candyfloss costumes where nipple slips are only prevented by violating the laws of physics. The number of games with competent female protagonists who wear more than the Victoria's Secret Angels are few and far between."

Big Fish Games literally has HUNDREDS of games that exist in complete denial of the author's claim. You know why the author completely failed to consider them? Because the author is only considering the subset of video games that are aimed at men. Or to be more specific, games aimed at boys.

For over thirty years people have been beating this drum, demanding that anything sold to boys and men be made more appealing to women. How about: No. No, not at all.

Here's what I have to say to these girls who feel excluded from the world of male fantasies: Tough. You aren't welcome here. Get out. Stay out. This is our fantasy life, not yours. We need this because in our real lives we are unappreciated, undersexed and overstressed. We want to have things that titillate and excite us, and we want more options than just pornography. We don't begrudge you your romance novels, your chick flicks, your talk shows, your gossipy magazines. Stop trying to take away everything we like just because it doesn't appeal to you.

You don't like that most comic books are written to appeal to male interests? Tough. Get over it. Comic books are not voting rights, and you aren't any worse off just because nobody is writing comic books to appeal to you. If you really think there should be comics that appeal to women, go out and write one. Illustrate it. Publish it. Try to sell it. Lose your investment and become poor.

But stop demanding that the guys who are making a successful living selling other guys comic books and video games that appeal to those guys interests invest their time, their money, into comics and video games to appeal to you that you probably aren't going to buy anyways.

You don't have a right to demand that. Even if there was a lack of female-friendly video games, which there isn't, nobody would be obligated to do jack about it. Because video games aren't a civil rights issue. They're a free market issue.

You know why there are no romance novels written for men? Because of porn. Men's romance novels can't compete with porn. They can't make money in a world where porn exists. An Harlequin, world's largest publisher of romance novels, isn't obligated to do a single thing to rectify that. You and I both know that demanding Harlequin lose money by publishing men's romance novels that almost certainly won't sell is ridiculous and stupid.

Well guess what? Demanding that Marvel Comics publish comic books that appeal to women when they don't sell is every bit as ridiculous and stupid. Wait, let me correct myself: Demanding that Marvel Comics try one more time publish comic books that appeal to women when every previous attempt has failed is significantly more ridiculous and stupid.

Some geek culture only appeals to men.
Some geek culture only appeals to women.
It's not the end of the world. Get over it.