Monday, September 8, 2014

FTR: QUICKIE BEAT-RESPONSE

To Heidi McDonald's question: "so three Sub-Mariner covers equal the entire Bad Girl era?", I said:


The whole "who's exposed more" question should never have been one of pure equity.  Equity is something to be observed in the workplace or the boardroom, but not in fiction.  Fiction is a place where fantasy reigns, and as I said in the essay, it's simply a lot harder to sell hyper-sexualized fantasies to women than to men.  I tend to think that this is because in general men are hornier bastards than women, but others' mileage may vary.

Equity should never have been the question because equity of this sort is not feasible.   There will probably always be more sexualized female characters in pop fiction than sexualized male characters-- but that doesn't mean that the latter don't occur at all, or that one can sluff off all the chiseled chins and buff bodies as manifestations of "idealization."

Also, one of the three covers is actually neutral on Subby's hottitude, which goes to my point about how certain artists just may not be tuned to produce this form of sexualization.

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