We are loving the new Mortal Kombat 11. From the storyline to the difficult as f*ck Tower. There’s just one thing some players are not all that crazy about—the female costumes that don’t show excessive cleavage.

There are a lot of complaints about the new Mortal Kombat female costumes not showing as many fictional breasts and jiggle as they did in previous Mortal Kombat games. While some of the costumes are pretty bland, most of them are cute, and modern and shows an evolution of the female ninjas of Mortal Kombat.

We don’t need to have overly sexualized Mortal Kombat female character costumes to be considered sexy, do we? For the dudes complaining, yeah. But the same guys who are complaining about the lack of “sexy babes” are the same ones crying about Jax’s alternate ending.

While many female gamers who play Mortal Kombat games don’t quite mind the super sexualized versions of female costumes, they expressed relief and applauded Mortal Kombat art director, Steve Beran for desexualizing the female Kombatants. Many male gamers, however, are super agitated about the female characters being covered up.

One guy, Brian Hughes, even started an online petition to change the skins back to, the “iconic skins” that fans of the games had come to know and love. In his petition, he asks the question, “Why do the male characters in Mortal Kombat 11 run around shirtless and even half-naked while female characters are decked out head-to-toe?” obviously not understanding that male bodies are not sexualized in MK and are not geared toward female players.

It’s been proven that advertisements displaying the male body as muscular and masculine are based on men’s ideals of physical masculinity and not female sexual gratification.

But I digress. Hughes goes on to say,

The reason we are petitioning for this is not for gratification, but because many of us are beginning to feel that NetherRealm studios has caved in to political correctness and the neutering of the Mortal Kombat franchise …”

And after saying it’s not about gratification, he says, “bring back the babes in thongs to MK11.” People complaining about the lack of thongs and titties jumping don’t understand that Mortal Kombat female characters have evolved. They’ve grown. And so, too, have their costumes.

That fact that Hughes used the phrase “neutering the Mortal Kombat franchise” suggests that he feels his masculinity is being threatened because of the more covered-up costumes, which is pretty sad.

Then Hughes closes his plea to NetherRealms Studios by asking “Will MK continue to be hollowed out content-wise and become a shell of its former self?” As if the amazing storyline was somehow rendered nonexistent because he couldn’t see tits. Did he even play through? How could anyone who has played MK 11 think that the content was hollow?

People are defending their need for female game characters to have jiggly tits and thongs by trying to invoke the “women want to be oppressed with these outfits” and “women don’t know how to handle their freedoms” misogynist mentality— as if freedom equates to showing tits and ass. It doesn’t. We can if we WANT, but it’s not a requisite for equality. Choice, nerds. That’s what feminism is about—choice, not this or that.

But maturity does not mean that the costumes have to be bland. And bland many of these costumes are. While I do like the new costumes better than the old, the old costumes should be unlockable in the Krypt or through the Tower.

There is no political pandering here. Like it or not, Mortal Kombat has evolved. And let’s not pretend that the costumes for the female kombatants in Mortal Kombat 9 were actually fantastic and creative. Most of the costumes of the female fighters were the same, just different colors. That was one of the main reasons I wanted to unlock all of the skins—to change it up!

The Mortal Kombat female fighters in the latest installment, or any game, do not have to show tits and ass just to be sexy. When Cassie Cage does her fatality, it is brutal, but sexy af. Even Jacqui Briggs has a high-tech fatality with the side-face shot that is hot. And their new skins seem to be more complimentary of each character’s fighting style than in previous games. Look, it’s okay to have a preference for outfits that show tits. But that’s not what this fighting game series is about. And let’s be clear, nerds. Tits and ass, whether in video games, cosplay, or just everyday life do not equal equality. Equality is about women’s choice, not men’s need for unrealistic jiggly tits in video games.

Are Mortal Kombat female character skins really this demoralizing to male gamers? How are you liking the new costumes in this Mortal Kombat series? Join the conversation on Facebook.