za.ch: But for your 2 I have to disagree. The playboy session and sex cards are a form of objectification. And so would be that playgirl Geralt. And this shoud be called sexism as it strengthen a sexist mindset.*²
Calling out on something like this when you see it, is not censorship. You do not force someone to change, you do not oppress someones rights to express whatever they want. You just call it bad. Maybe they can see you point and change on their own free will, maybe they don´t*³. That is a big difference to censorship.
Defending sexsim with artistic freedom is a similar case. Even if it is a peace of art, so what? If it is sexism it becomes just sexist art at best. If it is not sexism, the art defense becomes meaningless anyway. A simple straw men argument if I am not mistaken.
Hurrah, we're mostly on the same page! We still differ, of course, but at least we have grounds for conversation.
I agree with you on art & censorship, though the objection raised wasn't that critism was censorship, but that those who criticize also justify censorship. I think that's nonsense, or at least, unsupported by the evidence at hand. It was just a bomb lobbed to get a rise, I suspect. But the riposte, that the lobber doesn't know anthing about censorship or art, was equally unsupported.
I am familiar with the mindset concept, but I again consider this a hijacking of serviceable language by those desiring to shape the discussion towards their own particular bias. To call anything which reinforces a sexist mindset "sexism" is the very definition, in my opinion, of broadening a term into uselessness. Finding a man or woman sexually appealing, or seeking out depictions of such, or depicting them as such, is not in itself sexist - the necessary condition of bigotry is lacking. Is Triss inferior? Is she a poorer sorceress for appearing in a "playboy shoot"? Is she a lesser fake-person therefore? No she's not. The fact that a sexist may think so, and be reinforced in their bigoted attitude by seeing what they perceive as further evidence that "women are sluts are inferior", is a fault in the sexist, not in the actions of the character, or of those who present this "playboy session". Thus I have a strong objection to considering objectification "sexism", because objectification does not require bigotry. I believe, and have before this particular issue, that those trying to improve the depicition of women in videogames are hurting their cause by conflating "true" sexism with objectification.
And I stand by my statement that to be "objectification" the character must be reduced to solely or primarily an object of sexual desire, merely playing up that desireability is not objectification - in this case my opinion is shared by those with stronger feminist
bona fides than my own, though of course it doesn't apply only to objectification of females.
Which is why one cannot and should not take the playboy session by itself, but as a supplement to the game, a game which features the character in more important ways (especially for Geralt in my hypothetical, though I wish more had been done with Triss in the actual). Triss isn't dimished by posing in a "playboy session", or for being presented that way by the actual people involved. She certainly is portrayed as sexually desireable, to us the viewer, within the game as well.
But of course, if you don't believe that a real person may choose to pose nude for another, or for an audience, without being a perpetrator of sexism, then of course we'll have to settle for disagreement here!
So it seems we come around, again, to the sexual attractiveness of a character being played up for the benefit of some players, and defining this as sexism (or objectification at least, if we can agree on that term). (Not nudity == sexism, as benexclaimed argues against, but not any better, either). SInce you say this would be true with Geralt as the "object", I'm sure you can understand my objection. Geralt - and Triss - are both characters with important characteristics which are not in any way diminished by being presented as sexually appealing to the player. We aren't led to define their worth by this one trait. Just because the character is presented as revealing themselves to us, the player (as opposed to, to another fictional character in a relationship with that character), this becomes objectification? Or do you consider it objectification when Geralt admires the view of Triss in the bath as well? If not, why not?
And as I re-read the above, I shake my head a bit at this extensive discussion of the ethics of relationships between fake people, but still, I'm interested. :)
As to
benexclaimed: Shoehorning a character from this universe into a "Playboy session" to pander to weird, gross people = sexism (or something that helps to perpetuate sexism)
I can get behind this a bit more, because of the last parenthetical clause, but I think the "weird, gross people" comment didn't help. "Weird" seems a poor choice, considering how very commonplace the interest in such material is, and "gross", well... perfectly valid if it's your opinion, but no better than the "scum" comment flying the other way.