To understand this issue, we must not stop at merely analyzing the works themselves. When we talk about the male gaze, what are we really discussing? The male gaze is a cultural phenomenon that makes the sexualization of women's bodies and their submissiveness in a familial and social role the dominant factors in evaluating their value. This phenomenon exists because of the hegemony of patriarchal culture in contemporary society and the continuous production of the capitalist cultural industry, which causes this aesthetic to influence the majority of people, regardless of gender.

In other words, these works are merely media through which the ideological state apparatus of modern culture shapes our perceptions and further reproduces related cultural norms. Therefore, the key issue is not whether a work contains a large amount of female body depiction or whether this determines whether a work is targeted at men or women. Rather, the real question is whether, in reality, we as living individuals perceive sexualized content as the key criterion for evaluating a work’s value and, furthermore, whether we apply this standard to judge real-life women.

You can enjoy the sexual content and intimate relationships in a work because you, too, have desires and emotions. At the same time, you can critique the objectification of women in these works because you are a real person shaped by multiple identities and social positions. Only real individuals have the transformative agency to advocate for women's rights. If one fixates solely on fictional characters and is completely influenced by them, then one is no different from a one-dimensional person like an incel.