There’s Nothing Wrong With Sexy Costumes – Follow Up On My TSW-Post

Some time has passed since I wrote about representation in The Secret World. I’ve had some great discussions since, and I want to officially follow up on a few things.

When Funcom retweeted me I freaked out. In a mixed yay!/nooo! way. I got so scared. “This is it. My carefree blogging days are over,” I thought. I’ve seen what the hate groups do to people expressing feminist opinions, and I’m terrified of them mobs. With The Secret World‘s some 24k Twitter followers, at least some critics would find their way here. I went to bed that night without daring to check my comments section or open my mail, and talked to my friends about my fears. The next day I steeled myself, and apprehensively checked my mail, ready to run crying from my computer.

I was unprepared for the love and appreciation that filled up my inbox. Of all the comments, tweets and mail I’ve received since I wrote the post I haven’t gotten a single mean word. I’ve had great discussions about things people have disagreed with, all of which have evolved my opinions and deepened my admiration of the game. I have first hand had the pleasure of experiencing how loving and engaged the TSW community is.

I see this as proof of how an inclusive game where both game developers and the game itself take care of their players fosters an inclusive community that’s policing itself, with players weeding out the bad apples and spreading the love. Of course no group this big is all good, but when I dive into forums, social media or in game chat, the overwhelming feeling from the community is welcoming, friendly, helpful and cooperative. Everyone seems so excited and starts to share their passion every time a new bee is introduced into the fold.

A Follow Up on My Comments About Clothes

When I wrote about “sexy Halloween costume” syndrome, I struggled to find the examples I knew where in the game. Because I couldn’t find them, my point became unclear and in my opinion also unfair. While I mentioned the good outweighed the bad, I believe my negative criticism came out as a bigger problem than it is. Now finally I found all the examples, which were sorted under a category I overlooked in the item shop last time. So here goes again!

1. “Sexy Halloween costume” explained

These are the ones I was thinking about, where the male version of the costume is covering more skin. Two points. One: if you go out on in the world and find people identifying with these styles, this is what they sometimes dress like. There are hard rock girls wearing pants like that, punk women rocking those clothes, cowgirls tying up their blouses, and goth chicks pretty much got the trademark on corsets and mini skirts. In my opinion these costumes are not sexist crap from a game developer, but accurate representations of what many people in these categories find cool. I used to identify with some of these groups and recognize the styles from parties, music festivals and my own wardrobe. If all the costumes in the game had been gendered like this, that would have been an issue, but they’re not. I still don’t approve of the gendering of the warlock uniform, but a gap in one costume is not a systematic problem. There are plenty of non gendered uniforms. I did an unscientific, subjective count and found that of the uniforms that were available under the same name to both genders, about 80% looked the same or similar on both avatars. Of the other 20%, about half of them are the ones in the screenshot above, falling into my “kinda true to life” category.

Two: usually when you encounter “sexy Halloween costume” sets, the men are posing assertive and the women sexy (meek or assertive according to whichever the costume is supposed to embody). Here, there is no difference in posing between the genders. I of course love this, and want to draw attention to it.

2. Nothing wrong about sexy

It’s about equality and choice, Funcom gets it. Yeah, you could nit pick about the posing belly dancer costume in it’s passivity being more objectifying than the male “why so murderous¹” counterpart but really… No, I don’t care. I care about my plague doctor set not exposing me to sickness like this, my gladiator looking as historically correct as the man next to me and not like this, and my ninja costume blending better into the dark than this. I care about men getting the opportunity to show some leg, wear a skirt and flex their abs when they want to.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong about sexy costumes, we want sexy costumes! Often gaming is about empowerment, and that means different things for different people. Sometimes, even for a boring old feminist like me, that means twerking half naked while waiting on the next wave of draugr. In game, I mean. *cough*

Feminism is about giving that option to men too.

I also want to show some costumes exposing male belly, and a set where the male version is more objectifying than the female:

3. Finally, my favorite!

Why is this my favorite, you ask? When did you last, in any media, see the female counterpart of the spy in tuxedo also wear a tuxedo? This is very empowering. It’s a long ongoing pet peeve for me that women spies in movies, comics, etc., always walk around in some sexy dress and high heels and seduces the bad guy into submission, only putting a gun to his head after doing some kind of sexy performance first. Yeah, yeah, to blend in a cocktail party it makes sense with the dress I suppose, and if you want to be that kind of spy, there’s no shortage of cocktail dresses in The Secret World. But with this set, if you want to look like James Bond even though you chose a woman avatar, you can! Yaaay!

My joy over all the costume choices in this game that are equally cool for all sexes is stronger than the force of a thousand suns. I really wish this had come through better in my original post, so I’m happy to clarify it now.

Odds and ends

A couple of comments more before I wrap this up.

I mentioned costumes not working well on brown skin. I hunted them down, and I count 1½ of these. The second one as a half example, since it really more shows a real life problem many black and brown people face. It’s not trivial to find tights matching their skin color, I’ve heard². The first costume is actually a replica of a costume worn by a white NPC. The costume was not designed for players, but is a reward you get for completing an achievement. So the tattoos are not meant to be on brown skin. Complaining about these two costumes is stretching ridiculously far, and me needing to grasp for these examples to find something to weigh up all my praise for the game only shows how well thought through The Secret World is.

Still on the topic of race, I want to mention that there’s a bunch of different ethnicities in this other section of clothing that I couldn’t find in the item store the last time. The shop is still predominantly white, but it’s not as bad as I thought. Really, that I didn’t find this section the last time really messed up my analysis, skewing it towards some unjust negative conclusions.

And last but not least. Just today I noticed one of those tiny things somebody at Funcom thought about. I myself have considered this to be a kind of microaggression³ from other games, a constant reminder that I as a woman is considered a deviant by the game. When you create a new character, in almost every game with two genders, by default a man is chosen. It was too long ago I created my first character in TSW, so I don’t remember if that is the case with this game too, but it might be. What matters to me is that as long as I can remember TSW has defaulted to female when I launch up character creation screen. It’s such a small detail, it shouldn’t matter at all. But it does to me. A relief in life so small it’s almost not noticeable, but it’s there. Yet another “Welcome!” from this fantastic game.

As you play The Secret World, if you pay attention you also notice that while representation in game was great from the beginning, it gets better and better as the story unfolds. It seems to me like the people behind this game has made a concious effort to constantly improve their work in every way, and not to settle with great representation. I really wonder how Funcom make representation seem so simple, where other developers stumble and fall flat on their faces. Those other studios should take notes from Funcom. Thanks again for making The Secret World.

Notes and Links

Special thanks to blogger, podcaster and TSW fan Gryph for many meaningful exchanges.

• 1) When marketing disempowers the hero
• 2) Black women try nude fashion part 2
• 3) Microaggression theory (Wikipedia)

In this post scriptum I just have to throw in my number one pet peeve with TSW 😀 It’s that the default type field when you log in is login name and not password. I haven’t changed my login name once since 2013, but type the password a couple of times per day. I forwarded this complaint to Funcom two years ago, but then I just settled to get slightly annoyed every single time I log in :D. Being one thesis away from a master of science degree in usability, I pretty much obsess over this detail. Whyyyyy!? 😀

Also, drop me a line if you have tips on where I can do my thesis on usability ^_^