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'Like it or not, Fanboys LIKE this sorta stuff. It sells product. Until that is changed, let's applaud Paizo who cares about the issue.'
I've seen this idea that 'sex sells' bandied about a lot on discussions about sexualised portrayals of women in media and I'm afraid that I've just not seen any reliable evidence to back it up. The closest I've found was this study: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2040218/Sex-DOES-sell-Attrac tive-men-women-ads-affect-capacity-rational-thought.html - which has serious issues (such as assuming that high activity levels in the brain automatically equate to remembering all of the add rather than just the sexy bit).
On the other-hand in a five minute google search I've found four studies that not only suggest that sexy content doesn't improve recall but may actually reduce it:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201312/does-sex-sell
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sexy-adverts-turn-women-off-research-show s-8985656.html
http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/06/sex-doesnt-sell-neither-does-violence.php
http://www.emergencemarketing.com/2005/10/25/sex-in-ads-does-not-sell/
I love pathfinder I really do, but even though it does so much better than other fantasy games on the gender equality front it can still be a bit irritating sometimes with the way it portrays women and I'd honestly love for there to be more body and age diversity for both genders- especially as cheesecake may actually harm sales rather than boost them :)