What is the fascination with giant boobs/butt/hips?

[WooShoo]

...and weird thigh gaps?

 

First off, yeah, I get it - this is a fantasy world, a game, but why are like 99%* of all body mods and armors made for and/or modeled by figures that look like they were comically over-inflated? I feel like I am in a vast minority of players who prefer athletic builds (more like Allison Stokke, less like the Williams sisters, but still, most pro tennis players would be good examples) over figures with boobs twice the size of their heads, hips twice the width of their shoulders, and each thigh being like twice the width of the torso... not to mention a thigh gap so wide it looks like someone had their pelvis broken then fused open. I'm assuming that these models are mostly a guy problem as I haven't seen many (any?) male body mods which are as exaggerated. To make that comparison, male models should look like the extremes of the bodybuilding world - not the champions here, but the "I'm going to see just how big I can get" type, or the naturally giant ones like that Iranian hulk guy.

 

When I use/make models, there are times I will toy with some extremes, but even then, I don't go far outside of reality (usually just slightly larger breasts on a slimmer build - and I do mean slightly; I don't go in for the double airbag look). I almost always come back to what would pass for a normal, athletic build - normal, as in you can actually find multiple real-world examples**. While I realize that no body mod/armor really forces the gigantism on players, the wide hips/thigh gap is really annoying. Apparently, this is a personal preference favored by the majority of players using mods...

 

So someone tell me, what is it with this kind of look... a joke, a teenage fantasy, what?

 

 

*the author is well aware that his generalizations and statistics are about as accurate as a blind man standing on a small boat in choppy waters, using a fork in each hand to hold a gun, and trying to hit a target behind him - i.e. "bull****"

**this point was two-fold: 1-women with this build actually exist and are not as rare as a unicorn-riding nyan cat as some would have others believe, and 2-while there might be examples of the extreme bodies I am ranting about, those are almost as rare as the mythical internet-born creatures mentioned above

[Jannifer]

As the old saying goes, "There's no accounting for taste." In fantasy games, I guess people feel freer to experiment with fantasy figures. That pin-up type of figure has been around for a long time, so I'm never surprised to see them in games. Is that how I build my characters? No. I'm like you in that I prefer a slimmer build for the most part. But, what goes on in the privacy of someone else's computer is between them and their hard drive. :tongue:

[Ethreon]

99%? Are you sure? Are you really, really sure? Or are you internet statisticking?

[gavinjb]

Couldn't agree more with either of you, some part of me thinks that it might be due to a fairly large amount of Skyrim players being Teen/early 20's Male players, but for the rest I don't know.

 

I must say going hand in hand with this is the Armor (having to go through 20 pages of Skimpy Armor Sets to find 1 good set for a Female Character Playthrough gets to be a pain).

[lordkoz]

I blame bodyslide :P Its because people can make whatever they like, so its because of freedom of choice and the most common choice is bigger "anything", in my case I was happy with the CBBE default model but later I was free to change it to whatever I prefer then I did it, I even think some of the bodies I set are exaggerated but since the range of then are diverse (for me at least, from thin to thick) I like them anyway.

You dont see that many different male body types since noone made that many choices or a tool to make them easily.

 

So to each its own, everyone has their own "thing" I guess, like "Immersion/lorefriendly" maniacs or loli mods fans, for me they are weird hehe but they probably have their own reasons to like/care about that or there wouldnt be any mods for that and I will probably never understand them unless I like what they like too.

[WooShoo]

I definitely won't blame BodySlide; if not for that, I'd be stuck with the weird thigh-gap/giant hip fixation almost every body mod has, but I see your point.

[lofgren]

Sociologists have been asking these questions for decades now. I doubt that anybody in this forum will be able to answer for you.

[mwhenry16]

Why do Khajit have spots? Geez, with 80 some percent of player being 18-25 or thereabouts, I suspect some connection.

[whferrell1]

Let's face it, sex sells! Now I'm sure that most game companies will not admit to this, but they usually target the 16-30 yr old male demographic. And the best way to do that is by

using copious amounts of T and A. Look at all the ads on TV and in print.

[NeshiraNamea]

Probably because most of the playerbase is still young boys. As a grown-ass woman I for one prefer more realistic proportions and non-skimpy armour. I don't mind some impracticality in my armours because it is a fantasy game and I don't require it to be 100% realistic so some boob plate is okay I guess and pretty embellishments that would just get in the way of real armour is a-okay by me. I just don't want major organs showing and vulnerable so I don't play super cleavage stuff or chainmail bikinis.