Today, I was fascinated to notice that in a forum thread I read on whether people’s avatars in online games looked like themselves, more than one woman who posted said that hers did look like herself, except “in better shape”, whereas I didn’t see any men claiming the same. [1] Aside from making me even further indignant about women, by and large, being taught to hate their bodies, this got me thinking about how I myself select player characters when given a number of choices.

It’s quite rare that I specifically create my player characters to look exactly like myself, particularly when there’s the choice to look like an awesome green-skinned alien or whatnot, but I do feel that the characters I choose tend to represent how I perceive myself in essence. However, one commonality I find is that I specifically avoid stereotypical thin, delicate female characters. I’m pretty sure that this has a lot to do with the fact that my own body is short, thick, and curvy, and that I’m quite satisfied with such an arrangement.

But wait! There’s more…