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January 5, 2013 4:28 PM   Subscribe

The Top Ten Hottest Female Sonic [the Hedgehog] Characters: You might not have realized this but the Sonic universe might also be classified as "Hot Chick Heaven". Hotties include Cream the Rabbit, who is "attractive and the size of an average human mother"; Princess Sally Acorn, who not only didn't wear clothes in the comic but also "grew very long hair and married Sonic in the future"; and not one, but two echidnas: "What's better than having a female with cascading quills? How about a female with cascading quills and hair?" Curiously, the list ignores the beautiful Fiona Fox, who readers will remember was Tails' first (robotic) love, and whose rusting prompted the legendary 1995 Tails Miniseries.
posted by Rory Marinich (90 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
(I sincerely hope this doesn't come across as mockery. This guy's enthusiasm is terrific, his descriptions of things are wonderful, and his delivery is damn good. It's a weird thing to be enthusiastic about, but as somebody with fond nostalgia for the Sonic comics, I love this.)
posted by Rory Marinich at 4:32 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


Well then.
posted by shakespeherian at 4:36 PM on January 5, 2013


Wat
posted by mhoye at 4:39 PM on January 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


YES
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:39 PM on January 5, 2013


Dude he's like the Bill Nye of Furries

sounds about right
posted by lazaruslong at 4:41 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


Grissom: "I guess we're lucky blue's not a more popular color"
Fursuiter: "Hello? This is racial profiling!"
posted by bpm140 at 4:41 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


What the hell just happened.
posted by brennen at 4:43 PM on January 5, 2013


You can really hear the amazement in his voice when he says the word "Pyrokinesis!"
posted by lazaruslong at 4:43 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


I respect his enthusiasm and.....depth of knowledge, but I can't help but get creepchills every time he says females which was a lot.
posted by lazaruslong at 4:46 PM on January 5, 2013 [11 favorites]


FYI ladies this is exactly what most of us dudes are looking for

Additionally, while the ability to set things on fire in a metaphorical sense is definitely a plus in a partner, a tendency to set things on fire in a literal sense is merely dangerous. Possibly less so if you are trying to attract fast-moving Erinaceinae.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:48 PM on January 5, 2013


For me the creepchills dominated, by a considerable margin, any feelings of respect.
posted by Diablevert at 4:48 PM on January 5, 2013


What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-goin' on here?
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 4:51 PM on January 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


MetaFilter: the size of an average human mother
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:53 PM on January 5, 2013 [8 favorites]


Being obsessive about anything can be creepy. Being obsessive about games is creepier. Obsessively eroticising games in this manner wins the creepy award.

Unfortunately, the award is an ankle tracker and a court order to stay away from playgrounds.
posted by clvrmnky at 4:57 PM on January 5, 2013 [10 favorites]


What creeps me out, even before the video:
Subscribe to TheBeastlyChink for Playthroughs/Live Commentary Gameplay.
TheBeastlyChink.

AznGuyFromSweatShop may have issues. Or is trolling.
posted by Mezentian at 4:58 PM on January 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-goin' on here?

– Sega made a game called Sonic the Hedgehog that was a faster, "cooler" version of Mario, because they wanted to compete with Nintendo's flagship title.

– Sonic was so cool that Michael Jackson wrote the soundtrack of the third Sonic game. (not necessary info but still SO COOL)

– the Sonic franchise was turned into a comic series in which a bunch of animals resist being turned into robots, which was pretty dope at the time but hasn't really held up with age

– there was a spin-off series featuring an echidna named Knuckles who safeguards the Floating Island and discovers secrets of his ancestors and stuff, that's why there are so many echidnas in this list

– unlike Mario, which transitioned to 3D really well, Sonic developers found it difficult to capture the speed of 2D Sonic in a 3D world, and began spinning off lots and lots of new characters who had nothing to do with Sonic in order to make up for the crappy "run around" gameplay with all sorts of new activities

– ultimately the franchise has wound up sort of bloated and lame, there haven't been good Sonic games in about a decade, and Sega resolutely failed to become a contender in the console industry

– however, there are still plenty of Sonic fans, either due to the success of the early games or the somewhat interesting universe of the comics (which, in retrospect, were terribly written; but there's something neat about the concept of freedom fighters opposing an Industrial Age tyrant who literally transforms nature into something mechanical and evil)

– because Sonic was trying to tell a story, it inevitably had romance stories, including my childhood favorite linked in the FPP, and also ones with Sonic being a total stud, and probably a bunch of others; my favorites included a cowardly French snob fox named Antoine, not that that's important

– some people take romance in fiction very seriously

– and some of those people make YouTube videos
posted by Rory Marinich at 5:00 PM on January 5, 2013 [12 favorites]


'HE KNOWS HOW TO HANDLE THE FEEEEE-MALES *BEEP* *BOOP*'
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 5:03 PM on January 5, 2013 [5 favorites]


Sonic was so cool

You lost me.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:04 PM on January 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


Today I learned that there are at least ten female Sonic the Hedgehog characters. So that's something.
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:04 PM on January 5, 2013 [4 favorites]


@thsmchnekllsfascists,

I died of laughter when he said that, and I too imagined a robot.
posted by Evernix at 5:05 PM on January 5, 2013


dear ask metafilter

is there a way to retcon my enjoyment of video games
posted by danb at 5:05 PM on January 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


So this is what my Saturday night has come to.
posted by windbox at 5:09 PM on January 5, 2013 [6 favorites]


Furry stroke material on the MeFi front page? Why?
posted by DecemberBoy at 5:10 PM on January 5, 2013 [8 favorites]


That was just a little too heavy on the creepy to enjoy.
posted by arcticseal at 5:16 PM on January 5, 2013


This gave me flashbacks to an incident in the '90s when I met a friend to make some music. He woke up his computer to start the recording and I got an eyeful of the Sonic porn he had accidentally left up.

Apparently fifteen years later, people are still sexualizing Sonic characters. It seems rather anachronistic at this point, I thought the community had moved on to My Little Pony.
posted by foobaz at 5:16 PM on January 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


I once used Tails to illustrate a two-tailed hypothesis test in a prob/stat class.

I'm not sure that helped anyone.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:17 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


Ok, technically AIs don't have true gender, but this list is useless without Nicole.
posted by radwolf76 at 5:17 PM on January 5, 2013


If this is how 'females' in comics/cartoons/video games for 10-year-olds were handled, how can it be any surprise that the superhero comics for 'grownups' (or at least 'older kids') are dominated by objectification of women? (come on, wouldn't you like to see some of those 'Sonic Girls' doing the same 'Escher' poses as superheroines?)
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:25 PM on January 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


Yup. One-tailed vs. two-tailed test.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:28 PM on January 5, 2013 [4 favorites]


FYI, MeFi's own Hogshead is the author of several very strange Sonic the Hedgehog novels. Let's hope he'll weigh in.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 5:39 PM on January 5, 2013


I really want to like this video, as I'm generally ALL FOR unselfconscious nerdy youtube nonsense, but this is like a perfect storm of Shit I No Longer Have Patience For: referring to women as "females," ranking women characters in order of how much you want to bang them, and totally unnecessary neon-colored animated effects.

The Sonic Furry stuff doesn't actually bother me, though. Mostly just makes me nostalgic for late 90s fanart trends...and dammit now I'm going to go crazy for the rest of the night trying to remember the name of this one insanely popular artist who drew piles and piles of sonic-influenced sk8ter echidnas....
posted by Narrative Priorities at 5:42 PM on January 5, 2013 [13 favorites]


And I really wish people would label video links as videos, so if you just want to see the list (or pictures), you don't have to wade through an 8-minute narrated video.
posted by destinyland at 5:46 PM on January 5, 2013


but I can't help but get creepchills every time he says females which was a lot.

1) Wings for flying
2) Strength of a gymnast
3) Femme Fatale


4) Skilled in oo-mox?
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 5:48 PM on January 5, 2013 [13 favorites]


I think this is intentionally creepy and over enthusiastic. The dude is being massively sarcastic.
posted by royalsong at 5:48 PM on January 5, 2013


oh no
posted by Apropos of Something at 5:49 PM on January 5, 2013


WAIT! WAIT, IT WAS BARACHAN!

She seems to have mostly moved on, although some of her older stuff is still online, for the none of you who are interested.

THANK YOU WAYBACK MACHINE.

(And thank you, college me, for linking to her on your terrible website)
posted by Narrative Priorities at 5:50 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


Also, if anyone has any interest in seeing some crazy beautiful artwork in the same artistic theme as sonic, I present to you this awesome deviant.
posted by royalsong at 5:55 PM on January 5, 2013


Ladies always be treasure thiefs.
posted by Apropos of Something at 5:57 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


I think this is intentionally creepy and over enthusiastic. The dude is being massively sarcastic.

So apparently this was originally created and uploaded by the user Guptill89, and then later reposted under the account linked to in the OP. Judging by Guptill89's other videos, either this is an unusually dedicated festival of irony, of he's just a....well, you know. A really, really sincere and mostly unselfconscious nerd.

I kind of feel badly for him, actually. It looks like he took this video down from his own account at some point, and presumably he did so for a reason.

Although admittedly I would feel more bad if he hadn't called Sally a "female" and ranked her attractiveness.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 6:01 PM on January 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


Sonic was a decent platformer with some good levels and sound design which differentiated itself from Mario by allowing you to go fast, which was appealing, because you could go really fast. But Sega didn't really innovate beyond speed, and there's only so much you can do with speed. Nintendo figured out that the characters and plot could drive things and put a lot of effort into worldbuilding and let their games fall out of that and it really worked for them, whereas Sega just kept fucking about with game mechanics and let level design kind of drive the games and then wedged characters and plots in to fit, and it always felt like a mishmash -- some good stuff, some stuff that made no sense. Their quality control was terrible; they diluted their brand by releasing crap Sonic games instead of doing the smart Nintendo thing by making sure every house branded title was excellent if not spectacular. And basically they tried to spackle all over this hodgepodge with cute furry girls, and, well ... it works for a little while, on some people, but it doesn't build the kind of brand loyalty you want.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:03 PM on January 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


Cream is #1 in my book, mostly because she's named after a Wu Tang song.
posted by hellojed at 6:04 PM on January 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm confused.. why is being called female an irritating term?
posted by royalsong at 6:05 PM on January 5, 2013


Because there is a perfectly good word to refer to human females specifically, as opposed to female animals or insects. That word being, of course, "women." There's a nasty pattern particularly in the Men's Rights movement to talk about "men" and "females;" the implications of this should be obvious.

Now, there's an argument to be made that "female" may be the more appropriate designation for an anthropomorphic animal, but it's not my subculture so I can't say for sure.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:09 PM on January 5, 2013 [17 favorites]


I'm confused.. why is being called female an irritating term?

Because I'm a person and not a farm animal?

(Also, because "women" is much more inclusive, referring to lived gender identity instead of biological sex.)

I've accepted that I'm probably on the losing side with this one, but it's like nails on chalkboard.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 6:09 PM on January 5, 2013 [9 favorites]


Regarding "females," I noticed that he used the word "women" exactly once: when a human woman is on the screen. I suspect that's significant; in this guy's head, I'm guessing, "woman" implies "human" and therefore cannot be used on furry characters.

I mean, yeah, sheesh, objectification much, but I think that's what's going on there.
posted by darksasami at 6:11 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


Flagged as creepy.
posted by asnider at 6:17 PM on January 5, 2013


Ah, I sometimes think very logically, in which case female is a perfectly acceptable term to me. Especially in reference to animals.

Thanks for answering my question though!
posted by royalsong at 6:19 PM on January 5, 2013


Yeah, I agree that he's probably using the word because he's decided it's more technically accurate for whatever reason. But I also kind of feel like when you're at the point where you're fantasizing about a character in a sexual way, that character is either far enough along the human < ---- > animal spectrum to count as a "woman" or you're pretty damn far down the zoophile rabbit hole.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 6:21 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


So to speak.
posted by darksasami at 6:26 PM on January 5, 2013 [8 favorites]


zoophile rabbit hole

Gross.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:27 PM on January 5, 2013 [21 favorites]


Excuse me, server, I'd like to order the 300 comment bean plate please.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 6:28 PM on January 5, 2013 [5 favorites]


...hahaaaa yeah that was unintentional. :I
posted by Narrative Priorities at 6:30 PM on January 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I ain't going to judge cuz we all have our quirks but there is a fascinating mental process going on here. When he talks about why Amy Rose is attractive, he says "when have you see seen three three smooth arcs of hair coming out a person's forehead". Well that's because she is a hedgehog. I suppose he thinks of them not as hedgehogs, but as people with hedgehog like features.

It's interesting that there is a very clear line that makes something cute, I really think it is a recognizable face. Animals, and even some bugs with a recognizable face are cute. Fish, mollusks, and invertebrates are never cute. That is unless you draw one with a face.
posted by Ad hominem at 6:47 PM on January 5, 2013


The internet has still not progressed much beyond Cartoon Chicks I Wanna Nail

I'm still hoping for a Bonzai Kitten reboot !
posted by blackfly at 6:50 PM on January 5, 2013


If you listen to Dan Harmon's fantastic podcast Harmontown, would you agree with me that the narrator sounds exactly like Adam Goldberg?
posted by anateus at 6:53 PM on January 5, 2013


Why does Sonic always look so angry?
posted by ennui.bz at 7:17 PM on January 5, 2013


So okay then I am going to just close the computer and put a rock on top of it so none of the internet gets out and maybe i am going to push my dresser against the door too GOOD DAY.
posted by louche mustachio at 7:26 PM on January 5, 2013 [14 favorites]


I realize now that Sonic fandom has an accent, and that accent is an imitation of Sonic as he is depicted in the cartoons.
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:28 PM on January 5, 2013 [4 favorites]


This shit's why my kids are not going to be allowed anywhere near fandom of any sort.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:38 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


Wow. The use of echidnas as a catch-all category for both foreigner and oppressed native is actually a pretty clever maneuver in retrospect. It really hides the intense racism, nearly masks the flavor. Yet it still seeps out, what with Knuckles' urban flair and rap songs, and the tribal imagery. The echidna is certainly a convenient short hand for strange when you don't have a platypus handy. Really, considering all this now makes me realize that furry culture was funny sort of racist. "We aren't racist, man is!" What it did was displace the issue onto an artificial human/furry divide. In result, humanity became the foreign monster in their stage play. As for the good parts of the foreigner (and native) those were subsumed within the echidna, at least for the Sonic universe.

The villains, too, follow this pattern, for the most relevant example in this thread look only to Robotnik, our dear Eggman, symbol of all that they find wrong with mankind. It is so strange that he is a genius, but so incompetent, and all he wants is to industrialize (and to what end, Robotnik?) But if you think about the other furry franchises the real monster was always man, or someone trying to be like man, the desire alone was enough to make a villain, the absence of just such a desire was enough to make a hero (Avatar, cough cough), but what a hypocritical position to take. It must have been this that brought about Otherkin.
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:53 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


The dream of being above it all has never died, but as a zombie it sure has become disfigured and gotten way into plushies.
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:59 PM on January 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oh lord, the loungey jazz at the part where the announce "Rouge" the No. 1 character.
posted by sp160n at 8:06 PM on January 5, 2013


This shit's why my kids are not going to be allowed anywhere near fandom of any sort.

I have wasted many an hour of my finite youth reading TV Tropes.

I have only read the TV Tropes forum once.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:28 PM on January 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


"...she's yet another character who barely does a thing..."
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:28 PM on January 5, 2013


[beoooup-beoooup-dingaling, beoooup-dingalingdingaling]

fapfapfapfapfapMOM!GOAWAYYOU'REWRECKINGMYLIFE!fapfapfapfapfapfap
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:41 PM on January 5, 2013


I don't totally understand that sequence of sound effects. What squad car, in this day and age, has a bicycle bell?
posted by TwelveTwo at 8:45 PM on January 5, 2013


I can't help but get creepchills every time he says females

Pretty much why I can't play D&D any more. The other guys thought I had Parkinsons from all the flinching.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 9:10 PM on January 5, 2013 [5 favorites]


OK, for one, your kid will fall in love with something completely inappropriate before they hit puberty. Depending on how strange it is, it may well define their adult sexuality. You have about as much control over it as they do, which is to say, NONE.

Secondly, let me say, Sonic is a generational thing. The comics and TV show more than the games... man, you could be a broke-ass comic book store in the late '90s, and it was Sonic the motherfucking Hedgehog that saw you through one month to the next, with kids descending in droves to snap it up. Those kids are now all in their late 20's, early 30's. We're past the desperation phase and into the lifelong perv phase with the Sonic fans. They get to hang out with the Thundercats, Turtles and Looney Tunes pervs at the bar with the booze and mutter about how Fred Perry should totally do a Cream the Bunny homage.

Thirdly, mainstream media understands what they are doing, and the Sonic franchise is a key exemplar. They are manufacturing a long-tail consumer chain by tinkering with the sexuality of adolescent kids. They want you to fantasize about Rouge the Bat and Amy Rose when you're twelve, so you keep buying merchandise with them when you're thirty and married and looking for something to titillate that isn't outright pr0n. It's the deliberate and methodical institutionalization of furry fetish. I don't know whether to salute or spit.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:12 PM on January 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


I doubt very much such deliberation. These are organic phenomena that corporations go bug eyes over and rightly invest. It was an accident, a terribly profitable accident. If it were at all intended, at all engineerable, then we'd have a much stranger landscape, a much stranger condom aisle, and Disney would have pornographic subsidiaries.
posted by TwelveTwo at 9:21 PM on January 5, 2013 [6 favorites]


They get to hang out with the Thundercats, Turtles and Looney Tunes pervs at the bar with the booze and mutter about how Fred Perry should totally do a Cream the Bunny homage.

I don't worry about them. I worry about the children. We're raising a generation of children that, when they grow up, will be sexually attracted to Angry Birds.
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:12 PM on January 5, 2013 [4 favorites]


I don't worry about them. I worry about the children. We're raising a generation of children that, when they grow up, will be sexually attracted to Angry Birds.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:12 AM on January 6


I used to go out with an angry bird. I don't recommend it.
posted by Decani at 11:22 PM on January 5, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm confused.. why is being called female an irritating term?
From my experience the number of men who use the word "females" and are not misogynists is about the same as the number of white people who use the word "Negro" and are not racist.

Clue : not many.
posted by fullerine at 3:24 AM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]


I sincerely hope this doesn't come across as mockery.
assuming you're sincere, cool, but think about where you're posting: a forum populated with mainly upper-middle-class older dudes. what do you think is going to happen?
This shit's why my kids are not going to be allowed anywhere near fandom of any sort.

karl marx fandom
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 5:24 AM on January 6, 2013


Parents, be sure to prevent your children from being exposed to anything they could conceivably enjoy.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:28 AM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]


but yeah, doing a thing like this, there's really almost no chance it's not going to turn into creepy point-and-laugh with overtones of moral panic

it's kind of a shame that stuff like this is washing up here and that we're acting like this but so it goes
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 5:36 AM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think the "moral panic" is, at least in part, a necessary response to this. Not the "video games/fandom give people creepy ideas about sex" bit, that's a bit much, but this guy's attitude towards women is highly problematic, and you can't just handwave it away by saying "But he's so ENTHUSIASTIC!"

The oddness of this video falls somewhere in between fetishization and outright misogyny; I'm curious of people think it's impossible to fetishize a fictional character without there being some major issues, because come to think of it I've never thought about the morality of that kind of action. If it isn't immediately suspect, and it's possible to separate this guy's interest in animated animal characters from the "let's rank hot females" aspect of this, then it's unfortunate (though entirely understandable) that people are responding condescendingly. I know a couple of furries and I absolutely know people who get a kick out of hentai, and while their sexual proclivities aren't vanilla there's nothing about their sexual behavior that I find worthy of looking down upon.

But yeah, generally I'm not seeing the responses here as hugely problematic, because there are aspects of this video that are, in fact, big "what the hell" zones. I liked this enough to think it was worth sharing but by no means do I think it's above judgment. It's just that I think the judgment should be less "ha ha ha what a weirdo loser" and more "this guy's attitude towards women is severely problematic, even if it wasn't expressed in the sexualization of children's cartoon characters." And now I'm curious if other members think sexualizing children's cartoons is ever appropriate, because it's something I've never thought about before and because there are a lot of instances of this happening in the media, and not even just in the parts that are outright pornographic.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:19 AM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]


That touches a deeper question: is it ever appropriate to sexualize? What is legitimate, morally permissible sexual objectification?
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:35 AM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think the "moral panic" is, at least in part, a necessary response to this.
The oddness of this video falls somewhere in between fetishization and outright misogyny
this doesn't really sound like
(I sincerely hope this doesn't come across as mockery. This guy's enthusiasm is terrific, his descriptions of things are wonderful, and his delivery is damn good. It's a weird thing to be enthusiastic about, but as somebody with fond nostalgia for the Sonic comics, I love this.)
the former doesn't really jibe with the latter. did you post this and then suddenly realize that this might be considered problematic? if so, why didn't you see that, and if not, did you really think this wouldn't turn into what it did?

and do you really not see what's "problematic" or "creepy" about using a video that was intentionally removed by someone and rehosted possibly without their consent by a third party to critique their moral hygiene and sexual proclivities?

if you want to talk about power and imbalances therein, what about the fact that this dude now cannot remove this thing without having it reupped by a bunch of people

the whole thing has shades of Chris-Chan stalker to me. they are like "he's a terrible person, he deserves it", and i'm like "get real" to that shit. if you want to do a thing, you are going to find reasons why it's okay and right to do it.
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 7:56 AM on January 6, 2013 [3 favorites]


I imagine that the two comments don't jibe because some quantity of reconsideration occurred. There were enough hours and delay that thoughts could have been thought, realizations realized.

But as to like, uh, anyone realizing anything might be problematic-- and why they had not realized it earlier? Isn't that precisely the same question someone asks of themselves when anything dawns on them? In a nutshell the moment of any realization begins with the prefix: "Why didn't I realize earlier..."
posted by TwelveTwo at 8:17 AM on January 6, 2013


i'm looking at the comments on the video and yeah there's no way that he didn't anticipate this

welcome to the weird web, i guess
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 8:22 AM on January 6, 2013


I think the "moral panic" is, at least in part, a necessary response to this.

Why would there be a moral panic? Based on the "89" in his user name isn't the guy 21 years old at the oldest when the video was posted? And two years have passed since then, and that's some time to change and mature.

Someone in the comments mentioned 4Chan brought him over. This does sound like something Encyclopedia Dramatica would have an entry on.
posted by FJT at 8:32 AM on January 6, 2013


Slap*Happy : It's the deliberate and methodical institutionalization of furry fetish. I don't know whether to salute or spit.

Although I agree with almost everything you wrote, I don't know if I'd take it quite so seriously as you seem to. We like to imagine kids as these innocent asexual beings, swaddled in an invisible blanket of purity and light. In reality, I considered my father's porn stash the single greatest discovery ever - Somewhere around age 8. And make no mistake, I didn't quite know what it all meant, but I knew damned well it meant something.

Oddly enough, I have to wonder if the internet (and the easy availability of any kind of porn you can imagine) has made exactly the sort of sexualized content under consideration practically a thing of the past. You definitely still have the "accidentally" titillating teen soap opera cartoons, but of the shows targeting prepubescent kids I've seen lately, they appear so abstractly drawn that if the kids take any fetish-clues from them, we'll have a generation of mathematician lusting after simple stacks of pink trapezoids and ovals.


royalsong : I'm confused.. why is being called female an irritating term?

Don't go there. I've already gotten spanked on the blue for it once... Apparently the Women of MeFi have some peeve about it. One of those BS "you have so much male privilege you can't understand" things. Just smile, laugh nervously, and move along. :)
posted by pla at 9:35 AM on January 6, 2013


pla: "Don't go there. I've already gotten spanked on the blue for it once... Apparently the Women of MeFi have some peeve about it. One of those BS "you have so much male privilege you can't understand" things. Just smile, laugh nervously, and move along. :)"

Yeah, it's not really an insular, condescending Women of MeFi thing at all. Men are men, women are women. Females is an intentionally degrading rhetorical choice used by a lot of men, especially and specifically men in the videogame community. Be a shithead all you want about it, but it is a Real Thing and not just some conspiracy of MeFi women to make you feel uncomfortable with the shitty words you want to use.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:40 AM on January 6, 2013 [14 favorites]


Mod note: Let's not do this here. If you need to rehash something about Metafilter, MetaTalk is there.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:43 AM on January 6, 2013


Some people just like a good spanking.
posted by TwelveTwo at 9:49 AM on January 6, 2013


That touches a deeper question: is it ever appropriate to sexualize? What is legitimate, morally permissible sexual objectification?

Anything that gets you off and you keep to yourself.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:21 AM on January 6, 2013


That touches a deeper question: is it ever appropriate to sexualize? What is legitimate, morally permissible sexual objectification?
posted by TwelveTwo at 3:35 PM on January 6


"Everyone is a sex object sometimes, or else mighty lonely in bed." - Charles Shaar Murray.
posted by Decani at 10:24 AM on January 6, 2013


And now I'm curious if other members think sexualizing children's cartoons is ever appropriate, because it's something I've never thought about before and because there are a lot of instances of this happening in the media, and not even just in the parts that are outright pornographic.

Here is the thing.

Generally speaking, there are two distinct issues folded into that question. One is the issue of source material itself (the "canon" if we're being fannish about it) sexualizing its own characters; the other is the fan community interfacing with those characters in a sexual way, whether through fanwork or commentary like the video above.

In the case of the former, I personally feel like there's an important difference between a children's show whose characters have sexual inner lives (like, say, the teenagers on "Avatar: The Last Airbender" or "Young Justice") and a show which presents those characters in an overtly sexual and/or objectified manner. It's one thing to be telling a story about young characters where sexuality is part of their experience, whether it be the blushes-and-giggling crush of a tween or the heavily implied off-screen shenanigans of older teenagers -- in many cases, like in "Gargoyles," much of the cast is made up of adult characters who we can reasonably expect are having sex with each other, particularly when one of them later turns up pregnant. It's another thing to present children's television characters as super-sexualized objects of desire, particularly when those characters are women and even more particularly when those women are actually young girls -- it teaches kids all kinds of unfortunate lessons about sexuality and gender and self-worth, which....are honestly outside the scope of the comment I'm prepared to write this afternoon, but I'm sure you folks understand what I mean.

I see this as completely separate from the issue of whether or not fandom chooses to view children's media through a sexual lens. In these cases, adults (and let's be honest, plenty of tweens and teenagers) are exploring the inner lives of those characters as they would presumably exist in the real world, where they're fully-realized people and not age-appropriate narrative devices. "Adventure Time" is obviously a show for children, however adored it may be by my own friends, but many of the characters are older teenagers, adults, or ageless immortals -- it would arguably be really inappropriate for a Y7 show to go into the details of Marceline's the Vampire Queen's sexual history, but if someone wants to write about her and Princess Bubblegum (who's canonically 18 years old) making out in their underwear, I don't see any problem with that. One is a teenager old enough to be legally classified as an adult, and the other is a teenage-presenting immortal -- I don't think it's particularly perverted or deranged to talk about them having sex with each other if that's the kind of thing you dig, regardless of the tone and target audience of their original context. And even with younger characters -- like, say, Sokka and Suki from ATLA, who are 15/16 -- I don't think that a story about them having sex is any more or less pervy than your average YA novel. (Which is to say, a point on which reasonable people can disagree.)

Hyper-sexualizing children's source material is creating content FOR kids that they may not be ready for and which teaches them unfortunate lessons about what it means to be "grown up" or a girl or any number of other things.

Hyper-sexualizing fanwork of children's media, particularly when said fanwork is appropriately labeled and tucked away in explicitly not-for-kids spaces, is no more or less harmful or perverted than the equivalent non-fannish material or discussion would be. If you're writing a sentimental tale of the budding romance between Sonic and Sally that culminates in their having tons of explicitly-described sex, that strikes me as totally harmless. If you're ranking all of the women characters in a video game series by how hot you think they are, well, some people are going to have a problem with that.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 10:40 AM on January 6, 2013 [4 favorites]


pla, I am actually female/a woman myself. It doesn't offend me in any way and I was confused why it did offend some. And I say that as a gamer, no less. I wonder if it's some specific subset of gamer culture that I just don't take part in. (Maybe FPS?)

I mean, my opinion about it is that sexist jerks will be sexist jerks no matter what words they wield. And I say that, not to invalidate anyone else's opinion, but to show you my take on it. I still respect that it upsets people.

I only wanted an explanation so I could better understand.
posted by royalsong at 5:05 AM on January 7, 2013


For anyone who hasn't figured it out by now, the problem is people referring to women as "females," as a noun. This is akin to the difference between referring to "black people" and referring to "blacks."
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:05 AM on January 7, 2013


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