Hypersexualism in Digital Games 9
Rouner, Slater and Domench-Rodriguez (2003) cited studies indicating that women were
turned off and critical of commercials portraying women in a sexual manner while men were
energized and positive towards such portrayals. Many television commercials were specifically
targeting men with many images of women being sexual in nature (Signorielli, 1994). Similar to
digital games, these depictions often objectify women into body parts on display for the
consumer; the focus on women was on their bodies and frequently in revealing clothes (Hall &
Crum, 1994). Reacting to these commercials, most women were more critical of them,
discussing both the gender role stereotypes and the sexual nature of the images (Rouner et al,
2003). This result expands on previous research. Rossi and Rossi (1985) found women rating
ads containing sexualized portrayals as more sexist and less appealing then men did. LaTour
(1990) found that men were energized when a female was nude in advertising, but women had
negative, tense and fatigued reactions to such depictions.
However, while women may not like these images, they do not stop buying the packages
that contain them, such as Victoria's Secret or women magazines like Cosmopolitan. Women
may be turned off by overtly sexualized and objectified portrayals of women, yet at the same
time, Lavine, Sweeney and Wagner (1999) found that viewing women depicted sexually caused
women to have lower body satisfaction, and which can lead to engaging in consumer behaviors
like cosmetic surgery. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2004 among
women the second most popular surgery was breast augmentation; focusing on 18 years and
younger, the surgery was the third most popular, which was an 8% increase from 2000
(www.plasticsurgery.org). Rejecting the images did not appear to be buffering the women from
being affected by them.
If women are supposed to be turned off by such hypersexualized portrayals to the point
that they would not play a game that contains them, they why do they not consume magazines or
Convention