Hideo Kojima is courting controversy by unveiling the character design of Quiet, a mute soldier in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. She's a sniper and a major character in the game, and her uniform is… a front-tied bikini top, a g-string, an ammunition belt with suspenders, combat boots, and ripped pantyhose.

I'll come right out and say it. She looks like a military-themed stripper. In a game that's focusing on Naked Snake/Punished Snake's evolution into the Big Boss and that has so far shown mostly big, burly men wearing full-body armor and fatigues, she stands out. Punished Snake gets a military uniform. Revolver Ocelot gets a leather duster. Quiet gets a murder bikini. Obviously, this has raised some concerns.

The problem with Quiet isn't that she's an outlier. It's that she's a normal female character design in the Metal Gear Solid series and video games in general. I can count on one finger, without using that finger, the number of adult female characters in the Metal Gear Solid series that don't pointedly highlight their cleavage or wear skintight outfits that show off their legs and butts. It's a medium in which women are sexually objectified as a rule, and where them being treated like characters every bit as capable, functional, and clothed as male characters are the exception.

It's about cool versus sexy. Male characters get to be cool. Female characters have to be sexy. In both cases, they're designed with a man's perception in mind. Male characters are crafted to be either everymen we can sympathize with to put ourselves in their shoes or epic heroes with awesome clothes and armor that make them look amazing whenever they act. Female characters are crafted to be dolls that show off their chests, butts, and legs whenever possible and who dress to display those features at the expense of any realism or tactical advantage. Men are the subjects of the story. Women are the objects of the story. Even when men might offer eye candy in certain games and when women show strong personalities and become major figures in stories, we tend to first look at them in the context of "cool" men and "sexy" women. But being "sexy" as a fundamental characteristic is a lot more dehumanizing than being "cool" as a fundamental characteristic.

Male characters are made so the player says "Awesome, I want to be him." Female characters are made so the player says "Awesome, I want to ..." I'll let you finish that thought on your own but it involves sex. Men are characters. Women are objects, whether you control them or not. The exceptions are few and far between, but for the vast majority of female characters in games, their most prominent attributes are sexual.

Quiet might be capable. The Sorceress (below) and Amazon in Dragon's Crown are capable. Cammy White and Chun-Li are capable. Cortana is capable. Bayonetta (right) is capable. Whether a female character is good at kicking ass or not doesn't matter. This isn't about making them into a damsel, it's about making them into a sex object. Those characters are seen in terms of sex appeal first and anything else second.

The reason is obvious: Sex sells, and men are often very willing to spend money on the possibility of seeing the female form in a way that's exposed or highlighted. We don't look at these characters as women, we look at them as women's bodies. They're dolls to be leered at, and that's the main priority that sways us when sex sells. It's not flattering, but it's been proven time and again. You only need to look at the Tomb Raider series, or the Dead or Alive series, or nearly any other action game series with a prominent female character, or nearly fighting game series at all.

It's about how we look at them first. What first comes to mind when you think of these characters? Quiet? How she's dressed. Bayonetta? Her clothes are made of her hair that disappears when she uses special attacks. Cammy? Butt. Chun-Li? Thighs. Sorceress? Chest. Mai? Chest. Elizabeth? Chest (and the way her corset showed it off became a bigger point of interest when Bioshock Infinite was first being promoted than the whole concept of a turn-of-the-century flying city with mad nationalists and anarchists fighting). Cortana? Naked. Whether you learn to respect their characterizations or their ability in combat, we have the bad habit of looking at their sexual characteristics first and everything else second. Game designers and publishers know this, and focus on that, which we happily eat up without a second thought.

I'm as bad as anyone else is at this, because our immature responses are constantly being reinforced by this sort of game design. By reflex I saw the character design of the Sorceress in Dragon's Crown and said "Nice," with a goofy, lecherous smile. This sexualization is drilled into our heads as much as the characters are designed to take advantage of it.

This isn't a matter of these character designs being offensive to women, or about "us" versus "them" in controlling the narrative. The imbalance between sexual perception in character design is much more than just who holds the pen. Everyone is diminished when characters like Quiet and the Sorceress are shown off and seen primarily as sex objects. The issue of sexual perception, liberation, and parity is a much, much bigger issue than video game characters and one I can't cover in one column, but systematically these choices mean women are demeaned and men are trained to keep demeaning.

This isn't about what you only see when you look at these characters. It's about what you first see. Bayonetta is a strong character with a powerful personality who maintains control of unreal situations just as well as Dante. Cortana is a surprisingly complicated character who has to deal with her own identity as an artificial intelligence doomed to eventually go mad. Quiet might be the most composed and intelligent character in the entire Metal Gear series. That doesn't change how they're first seen. Bayonetta is a hot witch who wears her own magical hair which disappears when she uses special attacks. Cortana is a hot hologram who's blue and naked. Quiet is a hot sniper who dresses like a stripper. Those are the first bricks in the foundation of how we see these characters, and while they can be built up, they're still being built up with those bricks at the base.

I've seen some people defending Quiet's and other female characters' designs by bringing up Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2 (particularly the section where he runs around naked) and Dante in Devil May Cry. These characters are scantily clad pretty boys, so it evens out, right? No, that doesn't fly, and if you think about it for more than five seconds you'll realize why. Raiden was clothed head to toe in a stealth suit for most of the game, and the naked section was played entirely for laughs by the game. Dante, while he sometimes doesn't wear a shirt, plays off any skin he shows with his long coat and a general "cool" design to his character. He's supposed to look like a badass, not a sex object, and any remote eye candy he offers is at best a secondary bonus. Neither of these characters are designed to be primarily regarded for their sex appeal. In fact, with the barest and most obscure exceptions (before anyone brings up Cho Aniki), I could say with confidence that no male character in a video game has been designed primarily to be a sex object.

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