Honestly, I think there are a few answers to this question. I'm not claiming that the following are true, but they are my two cents. First, gaming as a projection / gaming as comfort. There are a ton of things that perception of gender influences when it comes to game identities. I always play as a female in my games when I have the option, though I'm a male who is into my twenties and holds a heterosexual relationship. In community-based games, especially RPG's, I see females chosen as the primary sex of the player - though the player base itself houses a majority of male gamers. Whereas the nuclear "male" may be associated with competition, domination, and power, nuclear "females" are seen more as cooperative, intriguing, instructive, and graceful. With your example of the warlock, I assume many male players enjoy the fantasy of watching the roles reversed: it's the "unassuming nuclear female" that is the truly powerful character. It's less about BRAWNS/TORGUE EXPLOSIONS, and more about the romance between the player and the game world as a fascination. It's a little subversive, especially because the desire for looking cool / badass / powerful is all rooted in a struggle for power itself, but I digress. I do it, too. I enjoy having my female hunter look like a total badass, and that's okay. Second, I think that within today's world (whereas patriarchy is a norm), some men are getting more furious with male projection. Hear me out. The political climate in the US is such that many resent having genderdized(?) or sexual representations at all. Many people who resent the gender binary choosing the opposite sex as a character to play may be the more comforting or equating option. Striking a balance between the players resentment of themselves/the world/ others. It's all a complicated mess in my head, but hey, I'm trying here. Lastly, and the questionable choice, is fixation. Males tend to fixate more on unobtainable romances or unhealthy dependencies on fictional female characters. Though fixation in itself isn't evil or anything, it begs the question if the player is inhabiting the character, or is the player creating a character to have a relationship with? Don't get me wrong, we all have relationships to characters (and our own characters), and I'm not necessarily talking as much about Destiny with this one but rather the MMORPG genre as a whole. That question of intention is more overlooked and important than I first thought, because it often shows if the player is projecting themselves within the world or in control over it (a trait, rightfully or wrongfully, associated with males.). There are my thoughts, thank you for an interesting question! I kind of streamed every thought coming to me, but hopefully some can make sense of it. Tl;dr: Because perception / freedom / power / Foucault / Borderlands 2 reference.

I chose femshep in Mass Effect because male shep sounded like a real dweeb (read: incapable of saving the known Galaxy) In destiny it's just because they look cooler to me. The male models are super buffed up and it's just dumb looking with most armor types. Warlocks are the only class that look normal except for the fact that it's a dude running around in a dress. If I'm going to invest all this time and effort then I want it to look cool and the female avatars get it right more often than the male avatars with this game, in my opinion. Especially with legendary/exotic armors.

I view warlocks as more of a female class since they jump like princess peach in super Mario 2 for the NES

For the dance.

More or less, "why not?".

It's to awaken your insecurities about your sexual identity.

Why does it matter? It's not like playing with a female avatar requires you to deck yourself out in a dress with makeup. Get a grip.

The real question is...why not?

Long time no talk, long lost VoG veteran. I see you got yourself a level 40. If you have a PS3 and need to run a kings fall raid let me know id love to raid with you again. PS: Do you remember me hahaha