: Because fictional worlds aren't real, the creators can invent a reason for
: anything to justify their own prejudices. So there being an obscure
: throwaway line to rationalize the male character being treated more
: equally than the female character doesn't nullify the sexism at the heart
: of the issue. Here's a good short video explaining that.

Well, I see several issues when we talk about these sorts of things.

The first is that, as a fan, and a lore nerd, the fictional world *is* what takes primacy. Because being internally consistent in a major part of its appeal. To use the video example you picked, there's a world of difference between "there are AIs that choose to be naked" is a far cry from "I feel like this is torture porn of women." Halo is consistent in its depiction of AIs, and I don't see Cortana looking "naked" or "nekkid" or whatever as a big issue. I thought H2 Cortana was a better look, and now H5 Cortana is gonna' run around in hard light armor as she deludes herself into being the galaxy's white knight. And that's about as much as I thought about it. She could be dressed in a hijab and you'd still have some guys making Source Filmmaker porn of her.

The second issue is why I should care. And at this point, people tell me it's sexist, or that it's damaging, and I just don't buy it. To use the comic mentioned earlier, I'm a 100% heterosexual dude, but if gay guys or women want to throw their ideal of sexually attractive men into a video game, I don't have issues with it, because I don't have issues with that sort of content in general. It's an entertainment medium about escapism and fantasy, why not have hot women and men? There are cases where it might not fit the tone and themes of the work in question—yeah, I can't see a situation where Halo 6 has a sex scene at the Covenant space brothel and it makes sense for the game—but ultimately I'm not concerned about this purported "damage" of an attractive character who doesn't appear to wear clothes. We'll already figured out that violent video games don't cause normal individuals to go run down hookers and go on murder sprees, so the idea that sexy women and men will cause similar harm is hilarious to me.