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Let's Just Calm Down About The Nudity In Baldur's Gate 3
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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Are people really mad about nudity, or are they just mad that it's not all het nudity?
Edit: ok so after some research, looks like full nudity is an optional setting, and all body models (male or female) can have dicks or vulvas. Which makes me think there's an anti trans component to complaints as well.
They're mad that Japanese games get criticism for sexual themes, but not western ones. Examples being Dead or Alive and Street fighter characters where panties and bikinis are shown. No one is mad at the nudity itself of BG3.
Do these people get mad about the nudity in those games in general, or do they get mad about those games almost exclusively reserving that nudity for women? Because there is a difference. I haven't played those games so I'm genuinely curious.
The type celebrating nudity in baldurs gate are usually prudes who argue for censorship, oppose nudity and sexual content, etc when it comes to Japanese games. Sane people are pointing out this obvious hypocrisy.
It’s not hypocrisy because a lot of that “censorship” is over things like characters that are underage or consent issues.
You really wanna talk about “censorship,” well, in Japan, in Cyperpunk 2077, the entire section that lets you pick your genitals is cut out of the console releases and you can’t get the dildo weapon because you’re not allowed to show genitalia on consoles because consoles are seen as being “for children.”
You can't even show genetalia in porn in Japan.
Or in pretty much anything. I saw The Shape of Water in the theater when it came out, and there’s a sex scene in it. They literally blurred the few seconds of the man’s naked butt. It was very surreal.
For me, it's definitely option 2. I really like the way Dark Souls handles it, where the armor sets looks the same on both genders, and everyone can be as tart or as modest as they like.
Maybe there's a case to be made for a setting in BG3 that pixelates the naughty bits, but looking through youtube comments on BG3 romance scenes (for science!), most people seem to think the nudity is funny more than anything else. The few complaints about nudity really seem to be about the fact that they have to look at a dick/gay couple, which i don't have too much sympathy for.
In Street Fighter at least, there's at least as much male skin shown as female... more, really, due to the fact that males are allowed to go bare chested. From Ryu's chest bush popping out of his gi, to Balrog wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, there's no shortage of male skin in those games.
"Sexual themes" in those games seem to exist just for the gratification of the (het male) player, as evidenced by the people getting mad when a game desexualises its characters after release. I haven't played baldurs Gate but as far as I can tell nudity in the game isn't there just for the eyes of the player, it serves a purpose in-game and in-story. edit: and at times (like in the character creator) it's not sexual at all
I imagine some are genuinely mad about the nudity, I imagine. Remember "video games are for children" and "if a child sees a nipple (let alone a penis!) the apocalypse will begin". Just because gamers are gamers doesn't mean they're not still part of the larger culture.
It all reminds me of the controversy among older TES fans over the lack of nudity in TES3: Morrowind. There was a lot of European vs. American in those threads (and we had a genuinely cross-pond fandom back in those days). Arena and Daggerfall had nudity, and a few of our European posters expressed indignation over the change.