Monday, December 14, 2009

Sexuality Online

I thought that the unit about sexuality online was really interesting, especially regarding racial and gender stereotypes. As a small Asian female, I've experienced a lot of stereotypical approaches online. On online mediums such as facebook and myspace, I've been approached and friend requested so many times by numerous males with comments referring to my race and looks. At first, I thought it was really annoying and disturbing, but after a while, I got used to the idea that stereotypically, Asian women are looked upon as "sex symbols" in a way. However, after our discussions in our rhetoric class, I realized that it's actually pretty sad that this conception has become so commonly accepted. According to Mia Consalvo's article, girls, especially teenagers online get insecure and create false impressions of the world based on what’s presented online.

On another note, I’d also like to discuss the effect of video games on female players. I personally play a lot of video games, and I usually play these with my guy friends. However, whenever we play games, there are always female characters that are dressed in very scantily clad clothing. My friends would always jokingly make snide comments about how sexy she looked which made me feel really uncomfortable. This is the topic that I wrote my final paper on, and I really think that these games should be made more realistic (both for female and male characters) to represent a more relatable game world. 

1 comment:

  1. Sally: Let's not resign ourselves to being treated in a certain way by certain people just based on genotype and phenotype. I see a lot of apathy online--the tendency to overlook or dismiss inappropriate or genuinely hurtful behavior simply because of the anonymity or distracted nature of social spaces and play spaces. It's important that we speak up about our values and to not allow others to proceed in ignorance.

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