@smolbaka It's to each to their own, I'm a straight male whose comfortable with playing as either gender but my preferences is to play as a cute girl. Not because I wanna stare at a girls ass but it's more enjoyable to watch females be cool or cute and it makes me grow more attached to them as a character rather than just a self insert. Like playing Atelier, playing mmorpgs as a female or reading a lot of shoujo/josei manga (my top manga is This Girl is a Little Wild) instead of your typical self insert isekai.
Like some people wanna enjoy self inserting themselves as their own gender and be a part of that world but some people like me just really enjoy seeing your ideal female character experiencing and adventuring like in FFXIV and grow attached to them as a character that is part of that world and cherish them as someone you seen showing growth (great MMORPG btw, and let's you dress up guys with bunny suits, or wedding dresses if that's your taste).
I think the "I rather stare at a girls ass" is more or less just an excuse because I'm sure a lot of people aren't comfortable and don't want to come out and just say they like watching girls doing cute or cool things because the cultural norm is supposed to be guys like playing jacked up muscled men like Kratos. And who can blame them our human societal culture is still like that for most of the world? Like especially in a lot of Eastern and Asian cultures.