Fanservice for women?

[Gear]

I think that with straight guys, it's easier to do fanservice, simply because it requires the physical form.

But with women or gay guys (speaking as one) personality DOES play into it. For example, if the guy is really attractive and he KNOWS it, that's a turn-off. But when a nerdy-geeky guy looks really good and doesn't know it, then randomly loses his shirt or something and is EMBARRASSED by his hotness, that could be a massive turn-on.

[MaiMai]

And suddenly I felt a chill pass through this thread...

Time to warm things up!... Let's start with an early morning breakfast scene where you are greeted from behind by this handsome long haired middle aged slightly overweight guy wearing glasses and aprons cooking eggs...

"POOF" (Disappears)

Edit: ...and sporting a sexy mustache

Mugen you fiend

EDIT: It's okay, I got a good laugh out of the pic. At least Belinda's being served food, but I can't promise she won't cleave him in half afterwards. Mysterious long haired man isn't her type

[Mink]

Yeah, I'm not sure if I should find that image hilarious or horrifying. >x>;

I think that with straight guys, it's easier to do fanservice, simply because it requires the physical form.

But with women or gay guys (speaking as one) personality DOES play into it. For example, if the guy is really attractive and he KNOWS it, that's a turn-off. But when a nerdy-geeky guy looks really good and doesn't know it, then randomly loses his shirt or something and is EMBARRASSED by his hotness, that could be a massive turn-on.

This may be why on Criminal Minds girls seem to absolutely adore Spencer Reid, both in the show and in real life.

papillon: ...Who would enjoy being force-fed ANYTHING? No really, even overlooking the fact he's basically okaying RAPE, who in their right mind would enjoy having food they don't want shoved down their throat?

[Aleema]

I think there's a difference between what I find attractive in real life vs what I want in my fiction. I think someone mentioned on my forum that they had a hard time choosing which was better: Alistair from DAO, or Ezio from Assassin's Creed. And I'm like ... those are two different things. One is a guy you might actually date in real life, and the other is a pure sex fantasy. I think they occupy 2 spots in your brain. So coming in here for "tips" really isn't going to work (because in all reality, I would never date an assassin).

[Mink]

For some reason I doubt an assassin would tell you they're an assassin from the get-go. "Oh yeah, I've, uh, got something to tell you about my job..." Awk-waaard.

Though, considering the Assassins in Assassin's Creed are basically the good guys, and they're not *supposed* to kill innocent or uninvolved people, I don't think they're that bad. (Really, play in the storyline and just run around killing bystanders. See what happens.)

Or I guess what I'm saying is that I'm screwed up and probably would date Ezio or Shaun* IRL. Not Desmond; he's too stupid for me to want to date. Then again, I haven't played Brotherhood so maybe he's gotten smarter.

*See? I like jerks. Together, we can be one MASSIVE ball of snark and sarcasm!

[Aleema]

Well, death row inmates aren't exactly good either but some people still have a problem with the death penalty. In fiction, they're characters and it doesn't matter and I don't even think of it that way, but if I had to honestly ask myself if I would ever love and be okay with someone like Dexter or that guy from Red Eye ... answer is probably a big fat no. But I could still find them attractive in the fictional sense. It's just two different measurements in my brain.

And no, Desmond does not earn any cool points in Brotherhood. He has some banter with Lucy or whatever which is more character than he's ever been given, but he's still just pretty boring in general. Shaun on the other hand, changed his barbs from Desmond to Rebecca (almost cruelly so) in some effort to make him TOTALLY NOT GAY GUYS. Too late, Ubisoft. That ship has sailed.

[Mink]

...Wait, how would being snarky to Rebecca instead of Desmond make him not gay? For that matter, why would being snarky to Desmond make him gay?

I R CONFUZED. (Or hell, maybe I just really need to play AC: II again. 8|)

Oh er, on topic. The guy Desmond/Altair/Ezio is based on is hot. Seriously, he's a model. And former bartender, funnily enough.

[ririruetoo]

This made me squeel like crazy~!



Stupid heroine for not going swimming with him! I would have been all over that in a heartbeat! (>0<)~

Hopefull the picture will show....

[Aleema]

...Wait, how would being snarky to Rebecca instead of Desmond make him not gay? For that matter, why would being snarky to Desmond make him gay?

I don't ship it, but a zillion other fangirls do. Like Harry Potter x Draco. People who are not nice to each other is obviously secret code for "I want your wang." The hate on Rebecca from Brotherhood seems really forced, as if they caught whiff of the BxB vibe due to him directing it towards Desmond in the first one, from all the fangirls. I really can't find any other explanation from it (or maybe I'm just remembering the first game mistakenly and there was a big reason to hate on her and only her from then on).

ririruetoo: what's it a picture of?

[Mink]

Oh, that's just ridiculous. That's about as bad as two people being nice to each other or close friends meaning they MUST want to sleep with each other. Case in point: Criminal Minds (yeah, again). From the way people ship Hotch and Prentiss, I'm starting to think the 'chemistry' and 'obvious signs' they see are all in their heads: they WANT these characters to get together, so the slightest thing they do equals TRU WUV.

I guess it's true men and women can't just be friends. I know *I* want to date and/or boink every one of MY guy friends. /sarcasm

And yeah, the picture's broken. I'm kind of wondering what it is myself.

[Aleema]

Nevermind, just opened the link and refreshed. This is what she was posting:

Ruka from TKMGS3? This is totally fanservice, and it's not bad, I agree.

[Kyminara]

I think there's actually two subjects here.
Some girls more appreiciate the muscular, shirtless guy (who may or may not have drops of water glistening off his perfectly tanned chest). These people tend to also like cowboys, tuxedos, exotic locations, and a guy wearing an apron (think single visual event, not slave boy).

Other girls want to see more bishi-feminine type guys. That's what you'll see more often in anime and otome games. They like to see guys put in somewhat embarassing situations (like forced to wear a dress or two guys falling into a mud puddle when thier macho fight goes awry.) Ouran covers a lot of them - it's practically all fanservice, imo. But this....

is the big one. Girls go nuts over that romantic "almost kiss" probably even more than an actual kiss.

There's also a lot of stuff that's just based on the preferred niche. Glasses, vampire/goth, and cat ears come to mind as examples of that. Some people like them and some don't, but it seems like they're thrown into a lot of things with no other reason. I also consider BxB to be a niche thing - it's really not the same as GxG for guys.

[papillon]

Men really aren't a simple monolithic entity either. Plenty of them find GxG gross, not sexy, and others only pretend to like it because they've been told that's a guy thing to do. (And plenty of them DO like it, obvs.)

[Arcanum]

Fujoshi are slowly being recognized. I've heard it's even a fetish for guys… They're are becoming moe (I suppose that, for an otaku, finding a girl that's as passionate as he is about an anime/game might have to do something with it).

And coming back to the subject, t I see a lot of boy's love fanservice hinted at in otome games. Not full on like, say, where in a straight BxG game you can find the option to see two girls making out (or even join in! oh how I wish GxB games would be revolutionary like that!), but just enough (like in Meine Liebe, if you become a secretary, you can "spy" on the guys together, meaningfully touching each other's shoulder or looking into the other's eyes…). I think it's ingenious. You can please both fans and non fans… Because fujoshi will see the fanservice, while other won't read too deeply into it, I suppose.

[IonicMomo]

Hm...Yes, I would definitely consider most of the images posted on the previous pages (Gibbs, Hotch, Armitage, Tennant, etc.) to be my kind of eye candy.

For me, it's not about skin; a guy can be completely covered and still be insanely attractive to me. I don't know if any of this has been mentioned, but I like guys with relatively narrow frames and long legs in tailored suits. I've always found that a turn on, in fiction and in real life. I also really like Western period dress, whether it's Revolutionary era, Victorian, Edwardian, Jazz age, or whatever else, and I think this is one of the reasons that period dramas and their male leads are so popular among certain types of women. (Mr. Darcy, case in point.)

To add to what others have said about visual stimuli vs. personality, yes they are both important components, but I agree that women generally have more varied tastes and are more likely to be interested in attitude/personality than simply the physical. I've noticed that women read/write more romance, erotica, and pornographic fiction than do men, who I believe are more likely to watch pornographic movies or look at images. (I can't remember where I read those statistics, but it doesn't surprise me.)

I also agree with Gear's comments. I personally have a thing for slightly awkward, geeky (but still good-looking) guys that don't realize how attractive they are, as opposed to players that think/know they're all that. Oh, and a bit of Ho Yay is great too; I love hints of sexual attraction between male friends, even if it's just a notch above your standard bromance.

I do have to say that I almost prefer the much-maligned (on these forums, anyway) lean, slightly androgynous male, as opposed to muscular "manly men." While I'm not a huge fan of the sparkly bishounen in Twilight or a lot of Japanese media, I'm not at all uncomfortable with challenges to the masculinity-femininity binary. I know not everyone will agree with me on this, but I've always found David Bowie, River Phoenix, and pretty much all of Blur kind of attractive, for example...(That being said, I don't mind a bit of facial hair either, it all depends on the guy in question!)

But, as someone else pointed out earlier, I think we need to see some more attractive male *faces* before we start worrying about fanservice.