Warning: If the title didn’t already tip you off, there stands to be a fair amount of vulgarity in this post. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
Recently there’s been a bit of buzz in the blogosphere about the cultural effects of transmogrification (wow, my spell check actually likes that word), particularly in regards to why people may choose the types of outfits they do, how others perceive them, and what the proper terms are we should be using to insult each other, or at the very least, label each other.
In particular, I would like to point to MMO Melting Pot for calling my attention to Apple Cider’s post titled Let’s Get Rid of “Slut Plate” Forever and Terri over at the F word with her post, You’ll catch your death in that. Go read them if you can, it’s OK, I’ll wait a minute.
I’ll be honest, I hadn’t heard the term “slut plate” before this post. So I imagine the “landslide usage” is either in the official forums (which I avoid) or in trade chat (which I ignore). Or it could be a local thing in her realm/battlegroup.
And again, I’ll be honest, I kinda like the term. It’s catchy. Her suggested replacement, “sassy plate” is also cute, but doesn’t roll off the tongue in quite the same way.
But wait! I’m a woman, how can I approve of a term that denigrates a woman’s sexuality?
Well, the answer to this can be found within the depths of my mind. Follow me, please, and watch your step.
*Hands you flashlight, can of Raid, and baseball bat.*
Words are words.
The English language is probably one of the worst in terms of words that have multiple meanings, particularly in the realm of slang and insults.
Take “whore” for example.
I am a self-proclaimed “achievement whore.” How many people honestly think that I’m exchanging sexual favors for achievement points? Hopefully none. (That exchange rate would probably be absolutely terrible and hardly effective at all unless you’re shagging a Blizzard employee.)
For being a non-gender based language (we don’t assign a masculine or feminine article to our nouns), a lot of our casual language is perceived to have gender slants.
Bitch, pussy, and slut are all lumped in as “feminine” terms. Using them in reference to a man is traditionally doubly insulting as you are attributing the original negative definition as well as then putting the spotlight on his penis or potential lack thereof.
Now here’s where I get weird.
I don’t automatically assign a gender flavor to an insult.
To me, bitch, pussy, and slut (as well as dick, asshole, cunt, twatwaffle, etc.) are all gender-neutral. Each term has its own definition that excludes a gender bias.
This probably stems from my own gender issues, or absence of. Remember, I’m a woman perfectly comfortable playing male characters.
When I played my previous MMORPG, I never challenged the assumption that I was male and even played along with it, flirting with individuals that presented themselves as female. (Laugh all you want, but I had a pocket healer for no more effort than a few jokes and compliments.)
There’s a huge tangent we could follow about the underlying problem that being referred to as something other than your identified gender is insulting (basically that gender itself can be an affront), but I’ll leave that bee hive alone for others to poke at with large sticks.
But for purposes of being insulted by me, kindly keep in mind that I attach no gender value to my words. If I call you a bitch, I mean that you’re being difficult with a side order of complaining/whining and just generally being unpleasant. I’m not passing judgement on your gonads.
So what does all that have to do with transmogrification and slut plate?
Apple Cider sums it up with this line:
“Our choice in in-game armor shouldn’t be a way of defining us, especially in a shameful way.”
Gender is an attribute that is often used to define individuals. It is a fairly significant physical difference in the real world and makes quite a bit of difference in how long one has to wait to use the restroom at a crowded public venue, but it really doesn’t come in to play in the game world and it certainly shouldn’t be a shameful definition regardless of environment.
If men want to wear slut plate on their female characters, so what?
If men want to wear slut plate on their male characters (there is some out there, just not much), so what?
If women want to wear slut plate on their male characters, so what?
If women want to wear slut plate on their female characters, so what?
What’s the difference? What’s the problem?
There’s the tired argument about “practicality.”
Why would your character go toe-to-toe with a dragon in a chain mail bikini?
Why the hell would your character go face off against a dragon AT ALL?
When we enter a fantasy world we’re sort of signing away our notions of what’s normal and correct.
I can SHOOT FIRE FROM MY FINGERS and you’re going to quibble about whether or not a few extra inches of steel (enchanted steel, at that) will make a difference in a FUCKING DRAGON finding your soft nibbly bits?
And so, in light of this, I would like to introduce the term “pussy plate” to describe the more conventional full-body, head-to-toe covering. (Remember I assign no gender bias to words, this just sounded good and conveyed a sort of cowardice.)
As Terri stated:
“I like conveying the idea she can be sexual and feminine and powerful and capable all at once without sacrificing any part of [femininity being accentuated in a tanking role, which requires strength and stamina].”
So wear your slut plate, your chainmail bikinis, and your netherweave robes proudly. You aren’t unconventional, you’re fearless. What you lack in steel you make up in sass and ferocity. You’re doing more with less. Conserving natural resources by using less packaging.
Slut plate isn’t demeaning, it’s empowering and it’s just plain fun.
“Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.” – Faith Whittlesey
My take on such gear is simple. Everyone should have the right to dress their character in skimpy outfits if they want, and I should have the right to assume everyone who does so is a fourteen year old who likes to masturbate to their avatar, or else someone so uncomfortable with their own appearance that they need a virtual avatar to feel sexy.
I’m sorry. I just find it impossible to take anyone in this kind of gear seriously.
You can say it’s a fantasy world, but there is such a thing as verisimilitude — the illusion of truth. I can suspend my disbelief, but I also expect some degree of logic from a fantasy world. It’s a little more tolerable on caster gear, since they’re not supposed to be on the front lines anyhow, but I facepalm every time I see a midriff-bearing plate set. (Thank god I found a mog piece that matches pally T13.)
I suppose it also has to do with the fact that I’m not really a big fan of slutty looks in any reality. I find a classy look on women much more attractive.
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You must be a right bummer at a Halloween party.
“I just find it impossible to take anyone in this kind of gear seriously.”
Were you really taking the pink elves, green trolls, Onyxia being resurrected a million times, the engineering helicopters, mechanical rabbits, zeppelins steered by bicycles, swords bigger than your body, shoulders so immense that they clip through your body unless you stand perfectly still, WWE belts, and killing 100 zhevras for 10 hooves seriously?
If we’re are going to open up wholecloth judgements about a person based on their gear, why not extend it to their race, class, faction, professions, etc? Oh, you’re playing an orc. That must mean that either you’re a muscle-bound jock with poor control of language or you’re a skinny nerd that gets beaten up by a jock. That’s an awfully black and white brush to apply to the world.
While you have the right to think that everyone in slut plate is 14 and masturbating or embarrassed about their own appearance, you might want to examine why you think that. It honestly sounds like some repression or shame on your part.
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Well, I’m a fantasy author. I take fantasy seriously. Sue me.
I don’t think judging someone by skimpy gear is the same as judging someone based on their class or race because there are a lot of reasons why someone might choose a class or race. Maybe they like Orcs because they’re a musclebound jock, or maybe they like the Orcs’ sense of honor and duty. Maybe someone’s a healer because they want to nurture and look after people, or maybe they just like a role with a bit more pressure and responsibility. Maybe someone’s a tank because they like to be a heroic protector, or maybe they’re just a control freak.
Whereas if you’re dressing your character like a prostitute, I really only see one motivation for that: you want to look sexy. You either want to drool over your character, or you want other people to drool over them.
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Ever read the Apprentice Adept series by Piers Anthony? The non-citizens of Proton are naked, save for any protective gear required by their jobs. Clothing is a perk of citizenship and its absence has nothing to do with sensuality. (Actually clothing is considered very provocative there.)
Was Michelangelo’s David an expression of his own physical insecurities? Was Botticelli’s Birth of Venus painted by a 14 year old boy with the intent to provide fapping material to a nation?
From your response it appears that you are capable of attributing several reasons why an individual would choose a particular race, class, or role but it also appears that you are only associating one reason (sluttiness) to wearing less material.
People like to look at attractive things (something I’ve covered before in my posts about gender bending). The body (human or otherwise in this case), is often an attractive thing. Most adults are capable of seeing a little skin and remarking, “that’s nice,” before moving on with their activities. They aren’t dropping everything and masturbating furiously to an exposed midriff in a video game.
With many of the armor sets available, it’s getting harder and harder to differentiate between the male and female models, they’re just being weighed down with so much metal. Why bother choosing a gender if you never get to celebrate any part of what makes you who and what you are?
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But this isn’t the human body we’re talking about. This is a goofy cartoon exaggeration of it. If you really think Michelangelo’s David is a fair comparison to WoW toons, you have a much higher opinion of Blizzard’s art department than I.
And I really find it hard to believe anyone could have trouble seeing the differences between male and female characters in a game where sexual dimorphism is so great that the opposite genders often don’t even appear to be the same species and where even the most unrevealing armor is literally painted on.
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Art is art. If you want to go towards the more unconventional, there’s always Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a grouping of nude women painted in the cubist style.
I was thinking specifically of the dwarves, gnomes, and goblins where the sexual dimorphism isn’t so pronounced (and the haters would argue the same for blood elves).
The point is that wearing less fabric, whether in a fabricated world or the real one, has a lot less emphasis on outright sexuality than you attribute to it. If I wear a skirt 2 inches below the knee or two inches above it has more to do with how much I like the skirt – the fabric, the cut, the color, how it matches the shirt I have. In short, I would wear the one that I like. If it’s the shorter one and it shows off a bit of leg, so be it. If that makes me a prostitute I guess I better start printing up some business cards.
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But we’re not talking about a slightly shorter skirt. We’re talking about going into battle in what amounts to lingerie. That’s a fairly big difference.
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Fair enough (although I do have at least one skirt that is significantly shorter), let’s talk swim suits. As a woman, I’ve got the choice of what amounts to a full shirt/shorts or skirt combo, a one-piece, or a bikini.
I wear a bikini. Hands-down, every time. I have a choice to be more covered but I choose to go with the scantier option. All 3 theoretically function equally well for purposes of swimming.
Am I a slut or could there be other reasons why I make that selection?
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There could be other reasons because this is the real world and there are all kinds of other factors that could be at play. Real world =/= video game.
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If “Real world =/= video game.”, then why “everyone who does so is a fourteen year old who likes to masturbate to their avatar, or else someone so uncomfortable with their own appearance that they need a virtual avatar to feel sexy.”
You’re using behavior about armor choices in a video game to make assumptions about a person in the real world.
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People still have motivations for the actions they take in a virtual world. Your real world comparisons don’t hold water because the real world is an entirely different context with an entirely different set of parameters. It’s apples and oranges.
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If it’s apples and oranges, you’re the one that introduced the produce department to the conversation in your first comment.
You’re willing to admit that in the real world there could be multiple reasons why an individual would dress one way or another but you’re claiming that because the selections are made in the context of a virtual world we’re suddenly clamped down to the only possible reasons being 14 and fapping or insecure with our own realities?
Yes, people have motives. But those motives could be as simple as “because I like it.” Terri said in her post that she liked the color of the slut plate set she found. The lack of steel was secondary to that, she just liked the way it looked.
And to tie it in to her observation of wanting to be attractive and powerful at the same time, I give you classic chainmail bikini art:
http://www.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/fantasy/warrior-queen-by-boris-vallejo_20867.htm
http://www.collectiondx.com/news_item/61908/imagine_your_wildest_fantasies_made_reality
I could pull a hundred more from the covers of Heavy Metal or other art galleries.
These women aren’t wearing much and my money would still be on them against a foe of just about any sort. To not take these women seriously would be to risk certain death.
I can understand that it’s not something that you appreciate. But WoW was never meant to be taken seriously. Look at the pop culture references, the cartoony animation, the jokes, and games all tucked away in the world of Azeroth.
When I see slut plate in game I just think, “hey, that person is wearing something different and they must like it.” There was a guy in my last guild that transmogged all his gear to level 20ish greens. In every color of the rainbow. It was absolutely garish and, in my opinion, terrible. But at no point did it ever cross my mind that his incredibly poor taste in color coordination in the game meant anything about him as a person in the real world.
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Okay, so I came upon this post* a little later than the one Tyler had put up, and I’ve already set out my views there. However.
You say that different parameters apply… but you’re reducing ingame motivation to one parameter. *Your* perception of the wearer’s sexuality. That’s not fair to any other player out there, and ignores or precludes entire worlds of aesthetic sense, nostalgia, humour and culture. It ignores everything that we take for granted when dressing ourselves in the real world and reduces players to lizard-brained caricatures if they so much as pick the wrong set of textures.
No.
If I want to dress my tauren dk in a loincloth and stainless steel bustier because I think the Lucy Lawless look is good on her and I want to show off that I have bigger muscles than your li’l humie pansydin, what then?
If I’m running under the assumption that any armour provides its protection magically, since real armour would have as much effect against Al’Akir’s sword as a used hanky, what then?
If my culture is capable of dealing with flesh showing without sexualizing it – which it does, I’m from Africa – what then?
Most importantly, if I don’t consider expressing feminine sexuality to completely invalidate my character’s very real power… what then?
You reduce the argument to the one parameter that matters to you, and by discarding everything else your own prejudices show through. That… stinks, friend.
* hur hur
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I don’t deny that there are undoubtedly some people who wear skimpy armor for other reasons, but there is nothing short of overwhelming empirical evidence that can convince me they’re anything but a minority.
For further rebuttals of points raised here, I direct you to my recent blog post on the topic.
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Leit, thank you for encapsulating what I was struggling to get across in the comments.
Tyler, I know you don’t agree with it. But it really is possible for a woman, or anyone for that matter, to show a bit of skin without “SEX OMG SEX” being first and foremost in their mind. There is an appreciation for the physical form that exists outside the realms of our baser needs to procreate. And yes, sometimes it is there for a bit of a giggle (such as a warlock’s succubus) but even then, what’s the harm in it? From your thinking, three-quarters of the Blizzard art team and a significant portion of the player base must be hard pressed to get anything accomplished between all the masturbating and the insecurities of their body image.
And honestly, I do believe that “lol magic” as you so eloquently put it in your post can explain it in the context of the environment of Azeroth. Pussy Plate is overbearing and cumbersome and would be impossible to move in, let alone fight in yet it is somehow light enough to allow your character to RUN in to battle and perform aerobatic maneuvers that should at the very least give you a sound concussion. There is no reason to NOT believe that the same magic that imbues the armor with strength and stamina also extends the protection past the visible layers of armor, a miniature PW: Shield of sorts. Not to mention, that with transmogrification, you’re really using an effect similar to the Hat of Disguise from DnD days of yore as opposed to physically manipulating the structure of the armor. It’s all an illusion.
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1: We’re not talking about “a little bit of skin.” We’re talking about “armor” that is clearly designed to show as much skin and be as sexually proactive as possible. I’m okay with a little skin. I’m not going to think less of someone whose female mage is in a low-cut robe. It’s when people start running into battle in outfits out of Victoria’s Secret I draw the line.
2: There are a great deal of medieval soldiers who would argue with your notion that it is impossible to move or fit in plate armor.
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Plate armor itself is not impossible to move in, although nearly impossible to run in or perform any of the special attack animations used in game. (A suit of just chain mail can hit 60 pounds and it’s incredibly more mobile – and that’s not including the leather and padding under it.) The problem lies in how the armor in the game is designed. To make more room for art assets, the armor keeps getting bullkier and larger with little concern for realistic movement. Either download the WoW Model Viewer or check out that 3D print site advertised from one of the Blizzard sites. Play around with character poses and see how hard it is to keep your shoulders out of your head. And bending down to loot and standing back up unaided? Forget it. I spent a couple summers working with people in full plate and once they were suited up they required quite a bit of help to accomplish anything other than swing a sword – and that’s with modern day “shortcuts” taken to increase mobility.
You might find this article interesting: http://madartlab.com/2011/12/14/fantasy-armor-and-lady-bits/
Historically speaking, plate mail wasn’t used very often or for very long. It’s expensive and cumbersome and required frequent maintenance. With the abuse our tanks take, without magical protection, they would be crushed inside the armor, and lacking current technology to cut them out, you would be relying on the goblins to invent something just as likely to kill you as act like a giant can opener to free you.
And while the author of the post I linked agrees with you about the absurdity of the armor, it still works for me. Perhaps it’s my background in tabletop roleplaying or my appreciation of certain artists and the way they portray men and women as strong, fearless combatants in less than the recommended allotment of armor.
The magic works for me and I don’t mind the skin. I mind that individuals are willing to make such blanket statements about the mental or physical state of someone that chooses the armor. Not taking the gear seriously is one thing, but your opening statements have the ring of extending a negative view towards the player based on a bit of pixels. Honestly, if you hadn’t started your opening comment with the judgements of the real world person behind the avatar, none of this discussion would have occurred.
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You may get some very strange search hits after this topic lol.
I honestly dont care one way or another. I only play male characters unless I play on my wife’s account. My wife likes stuff that looks pretty. I didnt really care until trasnmog because I really just went for better stats.
I dont get what the problem is with the bikini gear. Like you said, we are fighting Dragons and Ogres and summoning demons to fight by our side. I think that chain mail bikinis are more believeable that most things in WoW.
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At least you can move in a bikini. I’ve been mucking about in the model viewer while working on my new banner and watching combat animations in slow motion. It’s amazing how many times our characters should be decapitated by our own shoulder adornments.
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“Well, the answer to this can be found within the depths of my mind. Follow me, please, and watch your step.
*Hands you flashlight, can of Raid, and baseball bat.*”
FUCK THAT i’m only going there in VR-041 :)
Or at least a haz-mat suit!
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I tried to read the linked articles but they were very wordy and it is Friday. Is a character wearing a chestpiece that shows off some stomach really the tipping point where someone says “this game is not real!!!!”?
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My names is Riv’s and I approve the usage of Pussy Plate…that is all.
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[…] Two Words…Pussy Plate […]
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[…] read this post today @ clear casting, on of my regular blogs and I did have to have a […]
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“Pussy plate” made me laugh for a good 10 minutes. Best term ever!
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[…] though, you may look at the lockstepped armies of puckered-up, punch-drunk pansies, and decide that plate is for pussies. So you roll a feral […]
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[…] while we may not agree on the “reality” of wearing slut plate, Tyler at Superior Realities usually has a few good shots – and they may not even be of […]
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