STIRRING THE POT, ADDING PEPPER AND TABASCO [Author: myschyf]

Personally, I think people (that would include both women and men) should be able to wear whatever they please or even walk down the street in the buff if that is what floats their boat. I also think that the workplace, (and restaurants, etc.) has a right and good reason to restrict dress. But I’m not one of those who see a tight mini skirt and fishnet stockings and immediately start denigrating the wearer for being a whore.

However I can understand Liet’s desire to play a game without having to look at boobage all the time. I was at the Ren Fair last weekend and let me tell you after one day of looking at flopping tits on every man, jack and woman I was damned sick and tired of cleavage. I didn’t even want to look at my own.

Then of course there’s my own disdain for people who are so hard up that a little boobage on blocky pixelated piece of bad art will get them aroused. This is coupled with my disdain for those who are threatened when someone says she would rather not be subjected to boobage in every goddam game on the market. It is coupled again with my disdain for those who would give phat lewt to someone just because of displayed boobage.

This leads me to wonder about that parent who was responsible for Mystere being banned. Or Shahrressa. Is this boobage ok for their kids to be exposed to? Will they sue Verant and Microsoft for exposing their children to the awful reality of cleavage? Have these people so protected their children that, upon seeing boobage, they will come all over the keyboard and ruin their computers? If this last bit is true I’m thinking boobage could be good for the world.

However I know that sex sells. So does boobage. I guess that I can’t blame Turbine for bowing, just like Verant, to the lowest common denominator. They do, after all, enjoy the lowest number of players among all of the big three. Exposed boobage is bound to increase those numbers. Just look what it did for UO and EQ. Wood elves or Enchantress Emily anyone? I could make some other nasty, unfair comments about how Turbine is owned by Microsoft and how Microsoft is all about money and boobage makes money but the point, I think, has been made.

I started to wonder, in the face of a thread that will shortly exceed 400 posts, if we will ever see an RPG of this type completely devoid of boobage. Or if we will see corresponding exposed male parts. No way. Because there is no reason for it. Because no one would believe Turbine should they say to the unwashed masses that many men wrote in requesting provocative outfits for males. Because that would be, you know, gay. For lack of a better word. It is, on the other hand, completely believable that many women wrote in asking for provocative outfits for women. There’s something fishy going on in Kansas, Dorothy and it isn’t your ficticious or very real desire to display pixelated cleavage to the world.

You folks need to get a serious grip on some reality. Liet has a valid complaint when a boobage-free game becomes artificially well endowed. I also think those that play this game and want to display boobage should be given the opportunity. What I don’t know is how to reconcile the two. However her complaint doesn’t make her a whore nor does it make that of those who want to display their avatar’s selves. Does this sort of thing cheapen the image of women in some people’s eyes. It sure does. Now I’ll grant you that those eyes in whom women were cheapened didn’t have a lot of respect in the first place. Nonetheless it is usually not good to perpetuate a bad stereotype.