Brothels

Either both genders should be sexualized or none of them. I vote for the earlier choice. The Mass Effect games were a good example of this: super sexy and curvy women and ripped guys. Everyone got eye candy in that trilogy.

We should start a pool on the over/under number of days it takes modders to unlock our companions to the character creator.

Well, I don't always necessarily want to roleplay characters who are morally upstanding and admirable in every possible way. Flaws make characters interesting. And if we start ethically analyzing power fantasies, even the more innocent ones fall apart pretty quickly, so if someone's power fantasy involves being more selfish, careless, or callous than they'd be in real life, that's the name of the game.
I realize there's a historical problem of games hypersexualizing female characters, and I sympathize with many women finding that off-putting and exclusionary. And some very mannish media can get to extremes in its depiction of women that even I find uncomfortable.

But I agree that in certain corners of the internet nowadays (haven't actually encountered this much in real life), there's a sense that straight male sexuality is inherently sexist and predatory, and not worth celebrating the way other people's constantly are. I'm not surprised you get op-eds about a "crisis of masculinity" among boys and young men when on the one hand they get the likes of Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate spouting BS and on the other they're being told that because of their demographic they're not allowed to complain, have real problems or, ironically, show their feelings (I despise the term "manpain" and how it gets deployed), and that they should feel Catholic guilt about their sexuality and how they express it.

It's all generalizations, but I do think modern Bioware* is fine making male characters that are walking, talking, popular female fantasies in a way their female characters can't be to men because they must also function as female sexual or power fantasies. So it isn't surprising to me that, say, Cassandra was apparently more popular with female than male players. And to be clear, none of this is a call to action on my part. I don't think Bioware need to change anything. Just my two cents on how I see this part of their creative process.

*And just them, really. Other RPG developers with romances in their games—CDPR, Larian, Owlcat—don't have this problem, if you wanna call it that.

I agree about Ashley, I vastly prefer her ME1 look. I'd even say she was more attractive that way.

I seem to be in the tiny minority who loved Kaidan in ME1, he was the most perfect romantic fantasy I ever experienced, but he was near ruined for me in ME3 when suddenly he became all whiny about the pressure of his nice job instesad of being supportive of Shepard who was falling apart herself and really didn't need this drama on top. Almost dumped him for Liara. Should have really...
So yeah Ash looked like a weird gorilla with long hair in ME3 which was really off-putting for her personality. But at least they didn't ruin her like Kaidan personality wise. All subjective obviously.

In any case agreed on the sentiment that either all companions should be smoking hot or none. And I definitely prefer hot.

ME3 has redeeming qualities but it made the wrong choices in so many things...

Which I'm honestly surprised by - the options I mean. I was not expecting a smorgasboard of choice in romances this go-round. Not only romanceable Humans and Elves both but also a Dwarf AND a Female Qunari, heck yeah!

As for Taash, I'll wait and see more pictures of her in different lighting but that Reveal Trailer did not do her any favors, at least to me. Especially compared to the concept art featuring her she looks...different, and noticably less feminine. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but since those concept arts are all we've had to go on for going on ten-ish years until a month ago...I can see why some folks would feel a bit misled.

But then again, I'm not really in the mood for a Big Woman this go-round since I just finished my first playthrough of BG3 a few months back and I romanced Karlach. I've got my fill of Big and Tall, and I've wanted to romance Harding since 2014, so hey-ho. 

Not that we've seen yet. Bull in DAI was basically a shirtless stud. But DAI did keep Morrigan's skimpy witch outfit so skin eye candy for both, although only one of them was a romance option.

I was talking more the general men shouldn't ogle female characters anymore so we make them less sexy thing I perceive while women ogling hot men isn't stigmatized. Fine to disagree with that assessment of course.