yellowis4happy: eschergirls

yellowis4happy:

eschergirls:

 Syou-are-bolin submitted:

By Stjepan Seji, who worked on Witchblade. I figured that this picture and what he has to say is pretty relevant to this blog! You can read more of his interesting commentary on the DC reboot and female characters here.

“i am a great believer that sexuality in comics serves a purpose, and works best when earned through character development.

it is supposed to be subservient to the story, it needs to be given a better purpose than just… hey, look sex!”

This is good commentary! It’s what people keep saying about superhero comic art: it’s not that sex is inherently bad, it’s when sex becomes the main focus of character design, costume design, panel construction (the angles you choose, the focus, etc) and just the default way female characters seem to be portrayed that is an issue.

I would be way more into this if he hadn’t used the word “slutty” and then gone on to say this to me when I called him out on it:

by slutty i dont mean women who accept their own sexuality, if you would think that about me you would be severely mistaken.

slutty is what a guy does with a female character when they reduce the character to a sex toy being passed around without ever touching on psychological or emotional states thus making the character nothing more than a …shameless…slutty…fanservice


if that offends you , it truly is not my problem. i am a firm believer of
equality of genders, i constantly point out the hipocricy of guys who are manliest of men when they brag about their sexual adventures, and yet at the same time a woman is put down if she even insinuates sexual desire.

see, thing is, tho… there is a difference between sexy and slutty

sexy woman accepts her own sexuality, and yes, can even use it to her own advantage, enjoys it and is not repressed by it.

slutty is an embodiment of sexual desperation. a woman with no pride or self confidence who will prostrate herself to do nothing more than please men. it has nothing to do with sexual freedom, it has to do with psychological issues and feelings of inadequacy

but hey, if that aspect has been explored at least i wouldn’t complain. i would call it a psychological study then. alas that is not the case


so please… preach that stuff to someone else. cause i am the damn quire here XD

He’s talking about two completely different things here and calling them the same thing, and calling me wrong. Sorry dude, but sexual exploitation and women who choose to embrace and embody the way our society defines “sexy,” all the while knowing what it makes them look like, =/= “slutty.” Women who get demonized for being sluts hear all the time how they don’t respect themselves or their bodies, when it’s really up to them to determine that. All you’re doing is regurgitating that message, in an equally harmful way.

I edited the original post to add my issues with his use of “slutty”.  I left out that part of his commentary because I had issues with that, but I didn’t notice the use in the picture and I wanted to say something about that.

However, then I noticed this, and I felt as the person who promoted him in the first place, I should also reblog this.  Specifically:

slutty is an embodiment of sexual desperation. a woman with no pride or self confidence who will prostrate herself to do nothing more than please men. it has nothing to do with sexual freedom, it has to do with psychological issues and feelings of inadequacy

He’s moved from talking about the choices that creators and publishers make in how they depict, pose and clothe women in comics, video games, etc, to now judging real women for what he perceives are their failings.

And I really apologize for how sloppily I’m modding lately, and not reading the things I put up.  I’ve been having a really really rough month mental health wise, but it isn’t an excuse, I just want people to understand why this is happening so much lately. :(

Edit: Just to clarify, I’m just noting what he said.  It doesn’t invalidate the things he said that people (including me) do agree with.  This isn’t a judgement of him as a person, since I don’t know him.  Also, English isn’t his first language, and apparently in subsequent edits, he’s said that he may be using the wrong word & is open to suggestions.  (Somebody suggested “cheesecake” as an alternative.)

I want to be clear this isn’t saying he’s a good or bad person.  I just wanted to add my own commentary about the problematic usage of the word “slut”, not condemn him.  :)