[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

The thing is that females in general are subject to the slut/prude double standard. A woman that is utterly open sexually is derided as a slut while the overly shy character that gets embarrassed over the smallest hints of sensuality is a prude.

You're absolutely right, but this is something that is now engrained in society. Even if a media form isn't attempting to bring up that sort of double-standard, people pick it out. I think it's unfair to blame media portrayals of women under those circumstances. It goes back to what I said earlier: include a female character in a media piece, and you've already lost, because someone, somewhere, will find it sexist/degrading/objectifying in some form. (Granted, if you don't include a female character then you're open to being called sexist all the same...)

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Either is presenting a female character as something to be desired, a prize. This is why most harems feature one guy and many girls.

A harem is, by definition, a group of females sharing one male It occurs in nature. While there are some animal species where "reverse harem" situations occur, they're pretty rare. Off the top of my head, I think it occurs in some species of lizard, and possibly in chimpanzees?

A lot of advertising and entertainment forms claw into our primal desires. No matter how advanced we like to think we are, sex is a big part of that. Women seem to be more sensitive about objectification of their gender than do men, but it's absolutely not true to say that men are not objectified just as much. Look in games, advertisements, movies, etc. and count the number of well-muscled men that you see, particularly going shirtless. I haven't heard people making a big deal about that...

Part of the discrepancy may be that the male sex drive is much easier to tap into than that of females. Almost every male has a perfect "weakness" when it comes to women - it's just a matter of finding the right physical attributes. Women have similar preferences, but for most women it's not enough to only have that physical attraction. Emotions need to be stoked on the part of the viewer, as well.

Hmm, maybe that explains why the portrayal of women in media seems dumbed down? If you assume that these characters are meant to draw people to the show, the amount of work needed to draw in males is much less (and the characters represent that). Since females arguably need "deeper" characters, the portrayals of males are developed to meet it. Or perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

As relentlessflame suggests, it's really not clear what this thread is supposed to be about, and the OP's rather inflammatory post didn't help matters any.

If you boil it down, I think that this is a rant about the objectification of women in the media, only it centers around anime as the media form in question.