Natural Nudity, Lewd Clothing

Following up the previous post, let's take history forward from the 1970's to now. In comparing the old controversy about the nudity in D&D art with more recent controversies about sexualization in D&D art, a few signal differences emerge.

The naked or topless females in OD&D and AD&D are mostly monsters, demons, or goddesses, like the harpy from last time or the memorable Loviatar. There's a certain amount of "realism" behind the nudity - how ridiculous does this foul carrion bird from 4th edition look in a smock?

Yes, she eats rotten flesh, befouls the food of others, lures men to their graves, but her only crime against decorum is daring to wear a brown breastplate with a blue skirt. (At the same time, it is notable that a lot of opportunities for male monster-nudity get passed over in those books, unlike the equal opportunity monsters of the present-day Otherworld miniatures line.)

But isn't it odd that the female adventurer pictures in old D&D are mostly reasonably clad and mostly not sexualized?

I have to grin a little because this generalization is based on a grand total of two female adventurers depicted in the 1st edition AD&D player handbook, and one more inside the DM Guide (though her and her party's adventures take up several illustrations). And feel free to point out the glaring exception: the metal-bikini Fay Wray on the DMG's cover.

Since those days, it seems that the "artistic nudity" or "realistic nudity" loopholes in mainstream gaming art have been sutured firmly shut. And yet, although more women are represented, their sexualization - particularly in player character representations - is even more evident. The difference between female and male representations, now as then, assumes that woman, not man, is the proper object of visual erotic delight.

I am reminded of Roland Barthes' essay which begins, "Striptease--at least Parisian striptease--is based on a contradiction: Woman is desexualized at the very moment when she is stripped naked." Eve, nude, has the possibility of being innocent; Eve, in pasties and G-string (or costumed with a cleavage window and thigh slits), does not. The covering of nipples and pubis satisfies the letter of the obscenity law, but sexuality is not a mere matter of obscenity. Going back to the infamous succubus from the AD&D Monster Manual, what's striking in light of adolescent memories is how covered up she actually is, by hair and pose and strategically placed limbs:

 Can you really say Pathfinder's present-day iconic character, Seoni, is much more covered up (except by tattoo ink)?

 

And those leggings and bustle/skirt/train call to mind Barthes' observation: "The end of the striptease is[...]  to signify, through the shedding of an incongruous and artificial clothing, nakedness as a natural vesture of woman, which amounts in the end to regaining a perfectly chaste state of the flesh." Except we never get to the innocent state of nudity here. Yes, we have many more female characters now than in AD&D1, but when so many of them look like this (and almost no male characters look like Riker in "Angel One"), is this really progress?

A real matriarchy would have him in short-shorts, too.

Next and last post in the series: What these issues mean to players today, and why the endless three-way flame war over sex, gender and art can be reduced to false premises.

The Half-Stork Brings Half-Orcs

Ah yes, the eternal conversation on the sexual background of Half-Orcs.

The sexual background of Halford is a far better topic.

Why is this even an issue? Why was it seen as such an inevitability, that 2nd edition D&D purged half-orcs altogether from the core game? Why does Pathfinder leave this one aspect of sexuality in canon, rather than take the much wiser approach that the individual group should be free to turn the dial on this particular topic?

To reduce it to absurdity ...

DM: All right, this setting is a fantasy version of medieval Europe. You can choose your national background, or roll.
Player 1: I'll roll ... hey, I'm Irish ... and with Viking ancestry! The blood of the Lochlannach flows in my veins!
Player 2: Yeah, you know that means a Viking raped your mom, right?
Player 1: Excuse me?
Player 2: What do you think, they asked for her hand in marriage? I'm sorry, but it's just a fact of medieval life. Your character is a bastard conceived by force.
DM: That's not necessarily true. The Viking blood could have come from an earlier generation ...
Player 2: Who still got raped. I don't know why you're acting so shocked at these natural facts that are necessarily part of the setting.
Player 1: I dunno. Do I have to ...
Player 2: Yes. It's historical canon!
DM: Player 2, what kind of GM did you play under before that gave you the impression it was OK to act this way?
Player 2: Someone who didn't knuckle under to the political correctness brigade. Hey, my own character was a product of rape due to the setting and I handled it all right.
DM: Do tell ...
Player 2: You see, logic demands that evil creatures can only reproduce through the most evil kind of sex there is. My backstory called for my father to be a necromancer and my mother an anti-paladin. They had no alternative but to rape each other.
All: They what?
Player 2: It happens. Charm spells were involved in this case. You see ...
DM: Okay, okay, let's move on.

For those completely bereft of imagination, and who don't want to make a stand on a dubious setting detail that's about as productive as random ass-boils, here are six other ways half-orcs can come into being while keeping orcs evil.

1. Humans sometimes seek out orcish partners out of decadence and perversity.
2. The orc is the most evil race there is. Those who actively promote evil willingly breed with orcs on ideological grounds.
3. Humans are not born orcs, but become that way through mutation or evil deeds. A half-orc is one who has willingly or otherwise arrested his or her orcish development.
4. Half-orcs are artificially bred by test-tube wizards.
5. Inbreeding leads to half-orcism. Inbred half-orcs in the past produced full-orcs.
6. Half-orcs are part of the normal genetic variation of orcs - they happen  to look sufficiently human, if ugly, to "pass" in human communities. Likewise, there are very ugly humans who can "pass" as half-orcs.

Does Violence Make Sex OK For You?

A couple of things have me thinking recently about shock-value. The main one is my new-found awareness (via a thread on the RPG site that has since derailed into a piggy-pile of hate) of Ed Greenwood's now-infamous description of the sexual proclivities of his NPC, Alustriel. Which in turn fueled a piggy-pile of its own some years ago on ENworld.

So, what's behind the "creepy" and "icky" and "squicky" feelings that not very explicit descriptions of a super-powerful free-love wizard-queen and her perpetual elven hot-tub orgy conjure up in so many people?

Well, some of it surely is principled prudishness - "I don't want to see any kind of sexual depiction, ever." Some of it is a kind of horror-of-the-nerds - "You can have all the sex you want, but don't mix it with my gaming!"

But what if instead of a goodly queen and her consensual pleasure jacuzzi, you had descriptions of a cruel demon empress, genitally tortured male slaves, raped women forced to bear demon babies? Would you see the author of those scenes described as a "dirty old man"? Would he be accused of projecting his own sexual fantasies into the fiction?  Or would this stuff be considered kind of staid, traditional, in a game that started out with a naked chained female sacrifice on a cover? You tell me. 

Writers of that kind of "extreme" scenario may get called out on sexual politics, but they're also taking a more usual step than you might think in fantasy gaming. And it certainly avoids the cardinal sins of being uncool, and hippy-dippy, and happy-smiley. I mean, that Elfquest orgy - so embarrassing!

Again, you tell me. Do you give stuff that mingles sex with violence a free pass because it's edgy, bold, transgressive? Or, actually, because it's strangely traditional in the fantasy and horror genre? Or, also, because the motion-picture rating cliche is more true than you'd like to admit - violence is more OK by an order of magnitude than sex - to the point where violence can actually make sex more acceptable? Perhaps the real revolutionary is the one who cuts sex free from its pulp-fantasy whips and chains and altars.

Consider this. Some creators mix depictions of sex with violence because "that's the way it is, man."  Some, on a kneejerk level, because it's part of the genre. Some, no doubt, do it because that's what sexually excites them. Still others, to force a more existential kind of confrontation. But there have always been those who do it because on some level they think sex is bad, they think violence is bad, and the best way to reinforce the badness of sex is to mix it with violence and gross-outs. Like so:

All of this sets me up to write the next entry: How to shock, and why.