Friday - the day when people across the world get out of doing real work with that universal mantra: “Ah, come on, it’s Friday.” So, in typical Friday spirit (and early weekend celebration), I’ve decided to put off actual thinking for a bit in order to explain, as you may have guessed from the title of this post, the name of my site.

“Heroine Sheik”, while neither a reference to drug-induced fashion or the head of an Arab household (though certainly reminiscent of both), is a tiny homage to my number-one, favorite heroine: Sheik. Now before you get your panties all in a twist, yes, I know Sheik is really just Zelda, and Zelda is really just another helpless blond damsel.

But for a few brief moments of her long gaming life, Zelda was something totally different: she was a bad-ass, hot-ass transvestite. She was Sheik. Of course, it’s a little messed that a normally submissive woman literally needs to put on men’s clothing to become powerful, but it’s also a little wonderful that she goes ahead and does it. The gender-bending, butt-kicking result is inspiring. Seriously, when was the last time the video game industry gave a thumbs-up to transvestitism? And that sexy androgynous look sure doesn’t hurt either…

Sheik: she avoids all that nonsense about dressing inappropriately by covering up an awful lot of skin; she messes with gender expectations; and, boy oh boy, does she rock in Melee.

And that’s my personal heroine Sheik.

Who am I? Who are you? No, this isn’t another drawn out Nintendo campaign, complete with Zelda’s SD head pasted on my body. It’s a question about women (specifically, women gamers), art, and identity.

Identity, gender expectations, societal roles: if you’ve ever checked out Heroine Sheik before, you’ve probably been seeing a lot of these words. In a recent back-and-forth debate between myself and a reader (see the comments for Monday’s post), I mentioned trying to understand “the sexual other”. The reader perceptively pointed out that, really, that’s what this site is all about. And male-dominanted society’s “sexual other” is none other than women themselves. Female gamers play a parallel role within the smaller gaming community. So just who is this person we call “woman”, and, by extension, who is her other: man? Moreover, why the hell can’t girls (like me) every stop talking about them, about identity?

This isn’t a post just about gaming. It’s applicable, to be sure, but what we’re looking at here is a larger trend in the creation and evaluation of art itself. Women who are part of an artistic movement which is considered inappropriate for their sex (Think of novel-writing in the late 18th century, or, I don’t know, the video game industry of today.) become, over and over again, obsessed with the idea of identity - precisely because the community around them doesn’t recognize their own. Because the selfhood of women is so unsure, because no full understanding of themselves will be offered unless they discover it, women must answer the question for themselves: Who am I? Which can only lead to: Who are you?

Men, on the other hand, are assured of their role in the society (in this case, one based on gaming). They, therefore, are not forced to explore their selfhood in order to assert it. They have already been empowered merely through their masculinity. Therefore, they are often less interested in issues like those of gender roles and sexuality, ones that are closely linked with the question of identity.

And the result? As women, we may not yet know for sure who we are? But we know more about men than they’re willing to discover about themselves.

This October, for the second year running, Playboy will be featuring not just naked, surgically-altered women, but naked, computer-generated ones. That’s right, full nudes of female video game characters, apparently coming to a newstand near you via magazine trading cards. (Collect them all, boys and girls!)

So let’s talk about this for a second. On the surface it seems pretty simple: give men what they want. They see sexy women in the games they love, why not play that sexiness out all the way and offer them full-frontals? It sells Playboys to a gaming audience that normally downloads its porn for free, and, in turn, it boosts game sales. What could be better?

Uh, okay, starting with the most obvious: how can you, a game company, claim to offer strong, independent models of femininity (think Bloodrayne) when, in fact, your characters are the type to take it all of for a centerfold and a few bucks? It’s alienating to women, it exacerbates standing issues, it represents everything that’s off about gender roles in gaming. Blah, blah, blah…

Beyond all that, it’s just damn weird. CGI women are supposed to be attractive because they so closely resemble real women. But here we have women who are unmistakably appealing simply because they aren’t real. Boobs (especially for such an internet-literate community) are available in abundance. No one is lacking for boobs. You would die before you had time to look at every nude picture on the internet. Yet naked game characters are something different. Talk about one-sided, objectifying sexuality - these women don’t even exist! Sure, you might say it’s a fanboy thing: see more of your favorite in-game women than you’ve ever seen before! Still, we’re walking a fine line between between fanboy-hood and abstraction of sexual attraction, between game appreciate and permanent masturbation.

Why then, if there are real (ish) naked women on every page, give a damn about rendered tits and ass? Maybe our entire cultural image of woman has become so plastic, so candy-coated, and so false there just isn’t a difference anymore.

An article of mine went up a few days ago over at Slashdot, and a friend, who has been browsing the reader comments, told me about one gamer who was disappointed that, despite my normal gender and sexuality bent, this piece had “nothing to do” with either. Normally, I don’t visit the forums for my own pieces. When I first started out, I read them like books. But, as anyone who’s been in one lately can understand, it’s a pretty unsettling experience, especially when it’s you and your ideas they’re talking about. However, this comment was striking, and I’d like to address it.

First off, in my opinion, gender and sexuality always have “something to do with it.” We are innately sexual beings, and innately gendered beings (even those of us who fall outside of traditional definitions of gender). Therefore all of our actions, our perceptions, our creations are somehow influenced by gender and sexuality.

Video game aesthetics are no exception. The folks at Slashdot suggested their audience might not be so receptive of a gender-issues piece, which is why the topic is barely mentioned in “Realism vs. Style.” But the debate over realistic versus stylized graphics is one that’s often split by gender lines. Women tend to be more attracted to stylization, innovation, and, where applicable, “cuteness.” Men, on the other hand, seem to be more concerned with realistic rendering, perfection of old gameplay, and general game “muscle.” Of course, these observations are overgeneralized, but they often hold true. It’s also important to remember that they’re culturally specific. In Japan, games like Halo 2 (an FPS with realistic graphics) is met with little interest, whereas “weird”, stylized games like Katamari Damacy, Rez and DDR are sensational hits.

Why do certain types of people - specifically men and women - look for different things in a game? The question, ultimately an unsolvable one, goes back to nature vs. nurture. Do women have a different inborn sense of aesthetics than men? Perhaps more likely it’s a result of our culture, which accepts “manly” men as only those invested in the real, the powerful - and simultaneously frees women from the burden on realism, allowing them seek out and appreciate that which goes beyond reality: art.

Lesbian gamers… Boys and girls, wouldn’t you like to know more? Shucks, I sure did. That’s why I put together this piece for Killer Betties, which went up yesterday, called “Girl-on-Girl Gaming: Exploring Communities, Questions and Concerns of Lesbian Video Gamers”. Do check it out. It’s an in-depth look at the issues surrounding gaming girls who, well, like girls - complete with quotes from real live lesbians (Watch out, they may be living in a town near you!). While I won’t promise hot girl-on-girl action, I do promise an intellectually stimulating read on the role of these doubly-alienating gamers from mainstream gaming culture. Okay, maybe I should just promise hot girl-on-girl action. Step right up, see the show, HOT HOT HOT, XXX, so on and so forth…

Welcome, in advance, to those of you who may wander this way from my article over at Slashdot.org - “Realism vs Style: the Zelda Debate”. Or, if you’re just bumming around Heroine Sheik, feel free to send the traffic flow the other way and check out the piece. The article tackles that age old gaming question of realistic versus stylized graphics, and attempts to make heads or tails of who’s on what side, and why. And the lovely people at Slashdot have been kind enough to add some pretty screenshots for your viewing pleasure. If you have something to say about the piece, just gaming culture in general, feel free to leave me a comment or write to me at bonnie [at] heroine-sheik [dot] com. Other than that, I hope you enjoy the site!