I wish I can be like Bayonetta. She's not simply sexy, she's being sexy as a personality with class (not trashy desperate and submissive). She has the "you can look, but you can't touch" approach to expressing herself in her behaviour and clothes and she does whatever she wants. I'm pretty sure if she's deliberately spreading her legs in her summons, it's really her teasing and getting a kick (pun not intended) out of it because she is the type of person to tease and have fun (of course, it's also to tease the player...it just occurred to me that they were probably making her break the fourth wall in one of the scenes). Compare it to Ivy Valentine from the Soul Series (I saw some of your Youtube videos, so I know you know who I'm talking about), she's just blatant eye candy who happens to be a smart educated woman. With Bayonetta, I personally think the intention is eye candy, but also to make her a fun character and that her design is not simply like that to attract the male gaze. Hell, I sometimes wonder what percentage is the creators' thought on "appealing to the male gaze" when they created her to the thought "fun, free spirited, voluptuous woman", I wonder what discussions did they have? I would be interested to know. I love both Ivy and Bayonetta. People may not consider her a feminist icon, but isn't being "feminist" about not caring whatever societal expectations place on you? It's pretty subjective, you can look at her as full on male gaze, but when I see her, I see a woman who has things I aspire for, freedom, not a care in a world, the power to tease ANYONE in any sort of way. I suspect the unfortunate thing is that people see her as solely a male gaze thing and that how she expresses herself is the game telling people "to be strong, you got to be sexy" instead of considering that her as a potential feminist icon can suggest "it's okay to be free spirited". Look at Jeanne, she dresses much more conservative, but she's still a beautiful voluptuous woman and judging by her Bayonetta 2 dialogue (tone and action), she seems as care free as Bayonetta if her dialogue about forgetting to buy caviar from the shops in the middle of a fight is anything to go by, it seems like "ugh, crap our christmas is crappier without caviar" also when she's being a jerk on a motorcycle to Enzo (that near crotch run-over thing is not cool).

Now, considering that some feminists argue that the character was borne out of male fantasy and use that as an argument of why a female character can't be a feminist icon, we should look at why these characters are created and their context of creation. These characters were generally created to appeal to the male audience to varying levels (considering companies originally marketed video games to males) but if you look closely, do you think that should automatically disqualify them from being feminist icons? Males have been designing women as one-dimensional beings (pun not intended) and over time they started giving them personalities and backstories and some of these character development projects has lead to these female characters being strong women (whilst still appealing to the male fantasy), which nonetheless still appeal to the male fantasy. From doing this, males have also humanised women and given society a source to imprint on their subconscious, women can easily over power a man. It's no different than what a woman character designer would do (although more likely she would have a bit more of a grounded reality in what a woman would behave and dress like in her society in her character designs and development).

Edit: Wording

Edit: Grammar