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: A: "Men are objectified in media too. E.g. the insane physiques of
: superheroes, among others"
: B: "Batman having a sculpted body is to appeal to male power fantasies,
: not to appeal to women"
: A: "Romance novels aimed almost exclusively at women have male
: hardbodies on the covers without fail because they appeal to women"
: B: "I heard a woman say they don't like it though. Checkmate"
: You shouldn't need a "study" when the data is so self evident. The
: men -- those men -- are on the cover because that's what sells. To believe
: that it's not what women want, you'd have to somehow believe the entire
: industry -- all of it -- is forgoing the larger profits they could get
: from putting balding insurance actuaries on their covers and have been for
: decades.
There has been a lot of subjective statements projected onto reality in this thread. (At least my statements about the changes to Halo 4 Cortana was based a little on what developers described as their inspiration.)
Speaking as a guy who resembles a balding insurance actuary, it doesn't bother me in the least if women enjoy seeing male "hardbodies." The one thing I pretty sure of is this: what anyone considers sexy is a highly individualistic thing. Biology plays a role, but there are cultural factors to consider, too, and that's what I think much of the debate is about. I strongly suspect that a good amount of cultural snobbery is behind judging women who enjoy romance novels (or their covers). As video gamers who have, until recently, often been subjected to a very similar kind of snobbery from the culture at large, I think there's a lot to be said for not assuming there's any harm in being entertained by escapist fantasies.