This is a bit of a rant, but please try to stick with me through the whole thing

So recently OSRS (Old School Runescape) has joined a list of games that have replaced “Male or Female” with “Body Type A or Body Type B” with you selecting your pronouns secondary.

And it made me furious, but I had to sit down and ask why such a small meaningless thing that I only see during the character creator pisses me off. After all, isn’t this giving a seat at the table for Gender Non-Conforming/Non-Binary individuals?

So I tried thinking about this issue from the perspective of a Non-Binary individual. See I myself am female (Transgender MTF for what it’s worth), so the only thing I’m ever going to pick is the female option unless I’m doing a challenge run where I try to roleplay Guybrush Threepywood (Mighty Pirate!) while playing Fallout 3…

That’s when I realized why I absolutely hate Body Type A/Body Type B

This is not a solution to a problem, this is highlighting the issue.

As a woman, I look at “Body Type A or Body Type B” and think “Well, I’m a woman, not a Body Type B, and isn’t it kinda misogynistic that the secondary option is the female one? Like A+ for Men, B- for Women?”

As someone is very much not cisgender, I look at it and go “Well, isn’t every FTM going to pick Body Type A with male pronouns while MTFs like myself go with Body Type B with female pronouns? Who outside of a Far Right Troll trying and failing to be funny is gonna pick the buff bearded dude and select the she/her pronouns?”

It was only when I went “Let’s pretend I don’t exist in a male/female binary and see how I feel about it.” that I realized why I absolutely DESPISE Body Type A/Body Type B

Because when I look at it from that angle, I realize that if I am a non-binary individual, my options are to look like an overly buff dude but occasionally NPCs will refer to me as a They/Them, or like an overly curvy chick who again sometimes gets called They/Them…

That’s when I realized why Body Type A/Body Type B doesn’t do it for me.

Games that do this aren’t being progressive or inclusive, they’re changing the color of the cup that my drink comes in and pretending it’s an entirely new beverage.

I realized that if the choices in Body Type were something like

A - Buff Dude

B - Slim Dude

C - Fat Dude

D - Skinny Androgynous Individual who doesn’t need a bra/binder

E - Fat Androgynous Individual who doesn’t need a bra/binder

F - Skinny Androgynous Individual who requires bra/binder

G - Fat Androgynous Individual who requires bra/binder

I - Curvy Chick

J - Buff Chick

K - Fat Chick

L - Slim Chick

Maybe have also an option for a big buff masculine dude who has big tits, because that’s just how he rolls, I dunno just thinking aloud here…

My point is that gaming could abandon “A/B” in favor of something more like an actual spectrum of Height, Weight, and Gender Presentation instead of just awkwardly renaming the binary? I wouldn’t get so up in arms about gender replacing body type.

I don’t know what more I have to say on this. I guess it’s just a revelation I had about something in gaming that bothers me…

So, wider gaming community. What do you think? Am I onto something or is this all crazy talk?

  • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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    2 months ago

    The Sims 4 actually added a similar approach to character creation about 2 years ago, but very different kind of game with a very different market

    Off the top of my head it has options for male presenting body type, female presenting body type, sliders for fat and muscle (and you can generally reshape most of the body) and the available clothing and hairstyles got sorted into masculine and feminine with I believe more traditionally gender neutral stuff getting placed into both, then for biological purposes there’s “can pee standing up/cannot pee standing up” and “can impregnate/can be impregnated” It defaults to Male/Female defaults but makes it easy to customize, and a good mix of default townies (NPCs) are all over the spectrum.

    They also recently added more complex relationship and romance preferences, so sims can be sexually bi but romantically straight for example, but also expanded to allow various levels of openness to relationships as well as poly relationships