>>138100843Too many people conflate "sex appeal" with "sexual".
Characters can be sexually attractive and framed as such by the medium, but that's not the same thing as things that are obviously meant to be seen and interpreted sexually. You can have attractive characters in a work and as long as you're not bouncing ass and titties around in an obviously enticing way, no one's going to raise eyebrows.
And, to be fair, lots of people in the animation industry have made this mistake too. It's not that characters are becoming less attractive - many certainly still are - but the creatives are so worried about a character possibly being perceived sexually that they try to diminish the amount of sex appeal.
But all the same, it's sometimes better to downplay the sex appeal in a given situation. Looking back, I'm unsettled by how many shows from my own childhood have had teenage girl characters that, more than just being attractive, are given tons of sex appeal. It's such a palpable thing once you notice it, especially considering the backlash to Netflix's She-Ra making the title character conventionally attractive but LACKING in this sex appeal.
