I can’t say whether or not men and women treat sexuality differently (I’m only one of the two genders, after all). While outward behaviour would seem to suggest this to be true, I’ve had more than a few female friends tell me “Oh no, we think the same things, we’re just better at filtering”. I think it’s just as possible that, historically, men were “allowed” to express their sexual desires more freely, and so they have throughout history.
Regardless, I don’t ascribe to the idea that “attraction” and “objectification” are interdependent like that. I think that’s just a convenient excuse that can be used to justify gender discrimination.
One of my earliest teachers taught me that what separates us from animals was our ability to control our instincts. I don’t need a gom jabbar and a pain box to tell me that - I routinely interact with those which I find stunningly attractive, and can consciously choose to treat them with the same respect and attentiveness I would anyone else.
Louis CKs video may be correct in that sexualized thoughts are pervasive, but that’s a personal burden, not a cultural one.
But, do you think that our culture’s consistant offering of images, stories, jokes, etc ad infinitum in service of titilating one sexuality in particular have no consequence? In other words, thoughts are not really generated out of nothing, what we spend our time focusing on shapes our perception, no? I think culture contributes in that respect.
If you are referring to me, posting on BB 24/7 isn’t my life…(plus I hate making multi commented posts from a phone.)
That wasn’t the original intent of the question. You are absolutely correct that the onus isn’t on women and the fact some asshole, somewhere is going to continue to treat women like shit. However I’ll expand on my original intent as I delve deeper into the apparent shit storm I didn’t intend to start…
If you want, but the objectification of women doesn’t always come from a place of sexual interest.
Neither.
The original question was intended to be looked at as a roll reversal (this is taken from the perspective of American or western society, obviously due to other culture/religions things vary). Brainspore touches on what I was thinking with this:
But why is that? The thread this was pulled out of was cresting 450 posts and full of hot beefcakes, men who are spending hours a day in the gym, a very strict diet, and possibly even some level of steroids. Given the comments about them it is obvious they were/are seen in a sexually positive way - call it lust. Now the more I thought about it the pictures of men were not exactly being objectified, because as it was brought up they for the most part were self objectifying. 5% bodyfat and massive muscle just isn’t a natural state for any man, not unless you are wanting to present that to the world. Now what does any of that have to do with my question…
To the extreme, objectification gets way more into power dynamics and control than just noticing a woman too long or making an unwanted comment about how she looks. But somewhere in the more “casual” everyday objectification and sexism it gets wrapped up into sex or sexy thoughts for men. Like codinghorror’s post eludes to:
So I’m going to guess at some point in their lives 99.9% of women have been objectified - inappropriate comments, touching, sexual innuendos, and so on. As a guy that is foreign to me. An article was linked to in the other thread about the mostly all women show (I’m not digging back through all that to find it explicitly…) and in it was a comment was made about the “gaze”. That men feel very uncomfortable with being the object, the one being gazed at. I’m not sure I agree with that. It’s not the gaze itself, it’s the why. I’ve always been overweight and now middle aged I can add in body hair and balding to the mix. I’ve never felt sexually desired that someone wanted me on a purely physical level. I might could spend a couple of year of all my free time in a gym and maybe experience it, or at least that’s what I took from the other thread. But like Brainspore pointed out, women will always experience it. The question was originally intended to ask how would feel about living in a world where no one saw you as physically desirable? How would you feel to realize you will never be the person others make lewd comments about…sometimes the other side isn’t as perfect either.
Thanks? I don’t post a lot anymore mainly due to this sort of thing… I mean I’ve been here like a decade and has it been 4 or 5 commenting system revisions now… From past experiences when I’ve laid a whole complex thought train out at one time I seem to get thrashed because my views don’t exactly align with the majority here. I think you and what most everyone said it pretty spot on. The objectification of women is caused by men and it’s something we (men) have to work toward eliminating or at least controlling.
Oh no, not at all - in fact I’ll go further and suggest that language, as the basic building block of thought, causes this as well - how many people think or say “hey guys!” without thinking because that’s just a cultural norm? I’ve had to work hard to mentally condition myself otherwise. I have no doubt that society has played a substantial role in the development of how men and women think about sexuality!
However, that doesn’t change the fact that I believe it is up to everyone, individually, to rise above that conditioning and choose to act with equality and fairness. That, along with working to identify and dismantle the historically sexist components of society, can only work hand-in-hand (otherwise you get modesty laws to protect from those same “impure thoughts” or, conversely, you get social acceptance of “locker room talk” because hey, everyone thinks that way!).
This conveniently ignores that women have similar thoughts about sex but repress them, which of course is exactly the point all images are making on the original thread.
Up until medieval times women were believed to be the ones with the higher libido. The Greek myth of Tiresias has him first as a man, then magically transformed into a woman, then back to a man again. He claims sex was better as a woman.
None of that squares with the modern-day claims men are more sex-obsessed – unless we acknowledge our social structure gives men more freedom to do so.
ETA: the frequency of an activity does not tell you its root cause.
Where’s our Mormon whisperer? I’m pretty sure that the LDS also views women’s libidos are something that need to be controlled and subdued and resisted, that it is always women “tempting” the men to stray from the path of righteousness.
As stated in the other thread, in our society, men are actively encouraged to express and explore their sexual appetites, but women are typically vilified if they do it, or worse; their agency is negated and sexuality becomes their only defining attribute.
Your post reminded me of something in a book I’ve been reading. For the sake of brevity, the section I am referring to touches on views of women’s sexuality in medival times.
"They might be away for years on the crusade; the wife was to remain inviolate, and if for any reason the worm Suspicion happened to have entered to gnaw the husband’s brain, his blacksmith might be summoned up to fit an iron girdle of chastity to the mortified young wife’ pelvic basin. The Church sanctified these sordid property rights, furthermore, with all the weight of Hell, Heaven and Eternity, and the coming of Christ in glory on the day of judgement-the day so beautifully pictured in the western rose window of Chatres: that “jeweled sunburst on the Virgin’s breast,” as Henry Adams called it, “with three large pendants beneath.”
So that, against all this, the wakening of a woman’s heart to love was in the Middle Ages a grave and terribls diasaster, not only for herself, for whom torture and fire were prospect, but also for her lover; and not only here on earth, but also- and more horribly-in the world to come, forever. Hence, in a phrase coined by the early Church Father Tertullian, which long remained a favorite of the pulpits, woman-earthly actual woman, that is-awakened to her nature, was janua diaboli, “the devil’s door.”
maybe I skimmed too much and read into or not into enough some of the comments, but are folks picking apart a Louis CK bit as some sort of bell weather or gauge on anything? I would agree there is most likely some truth to the idea that “men are pervier than women” on some general level…the reality is it’s a comedic bit. It’s also pretty damn funny, as many of Louis CK’s stuff is because he takes something that is either a stereotype belief or some misconception (As Bill Maher calls them “I don’t know it for a fact, I just know its true”) that are usually uncomfortable topics and makes fun of them.
I honestly am not even sure where this thread is intended to go from its inception. I just know that quoting a comedian’s bit as then belaboring its merits (or lack thereof) back and forth is probably not going anywhere productive.
To the original post…why should any woman have to make that choice? She can be both attractive and NOT objectified. Is that really that difficult to comprehend?
I’m a 43 yr old white married male. My spouse is not the only attractive woman in the world. It is not that difficult for me to consciously admire someone else’s attractiveness (whether that be physical, mental, or emotional) and also control my own random thoughts whatever they may be and treat her like a person.
Consider that the gaze doesn’t apply only to you, but also to the way that other men are depicted and seen. The way all of those beef cake pictures made you feel is part of that. Some women don’t experience being sexually desired as you say you would like to.They only see other side of being devalued as not sexy enough, as Brainspore mentioned.
Then what did you mean by your original question? If sexual attraction has nothing to do with objectification, why is there a tradeoff? Why even pose a question like that?
But that’s really what opened my eyes.
When I first saw that thread, it had well over 100 posts, mostly beefcake. Several things struck me when I saw this:
Women are as capable of objectifying men as men are of objectifying women, but for whatever reasons, they usually don’t.
This one little thread of objectification of men is what women experience all the time, day in, day out, and it’s not pleasant.
The men in the pictures were self-objectifying, meaning, they had to purposefully inject themselves into a situation where they would be objectified, rather than not having any escape from a society that objectified them whether they chose it or not.
It’s beefcake, and all in good fun, but it made a fairly powerful statement too.
I think that’s fairly run-of-the-mill objectification. Objectification literally means treating something as an object. In this case, it’s about treating women as objects instead of human beings. Power dynamics definitely come into play, and are even the root cause, even though there’s definitely a sexual component as well. This is something that’s learned from society, not relating to hormones or biology or any other such appeal to nature.
There’s a difference, though, because it’s nice to experience that once in a while, but to literally be unable to get away from it is another matter entirely. That’s really what struck me about that thread.
Again, you really wouldn’t. Attractive people are attractive, and are perceived and treated differently than ordinary or unattractive people. That’s a given. However, you wouldn’t be objectified no matter how good you looked, because our society doesn’t do that. Society would see you as a man and automatically treat you as having aspects beyond physical appearance, and value as a human being. Objectification takes that away from women.
That was exactly how I understood the question, and again, the answer is that objectification has a separate root cause from sexual attraction, even though sexual attraction plays a role. So, the tradeoff is false. Whether or not someone is objectified is split down gender lines, with a few obvious (but still dubious) exceptions. Whether or not they’re attractive is a matter of personal taste.
The question also gives the vibe of “How would you like it if nobody catcalled you ever? Be appreciative for what you have!” Not sure if you intended it to have that meaning, but that’s how I saw it playing out. Similarly, it ties into the MRA points about how women have all the power because they’re physically attractive and all that, which doesn’t even consider that they are objectified while men are treated as human beings.
It’s not the opinions, but it’s how they’re expressed I guess. I got weird vibes from your question, and so did a few others here, maybe because I saw the question playing out toward the MRA angle. Derailing a thread on feminism with MRA talking points would not be cool.
Thanks for the explanations though, I appreciate it.
When answering questions, my first instinct is to break down the question and define terms.
My physical sexual desire: a natural human feeling I feel for someone else, where someone else could be anyone, including my husband.
My physical sexual attraction: a natural human feeling someone else feels for me, where someone else could be anyone, including my husband of 23 years.
Female sexual objectification: a social construct, stemming from the problematic idea that women aren’t fully realized persons (like men), but instead objects to sexually satisfy (or fail to satisfy) men, which is a subset of
Objectification: a social construct, stemming from the problematic idea that some people aren’t fully realized persons (like the person doing the objectification), but are instead objects that satisfy (or fail to satisfy) the person doing the objectification
Seen in this way, it is pretty clear that objectification is the underlying disorder, not whether I feel (1) sexual desire nor (2) whether someone, including my husband, sees me as sexually attractive.
So @bcsizemo’s question can be restated as:
Here is a question for objectified persons, would you give up a natural human feeling, or cause another person to give up a natural human feeling, in order to greatly reduce the problematic idea that some people believe other people to be less-than-human objects?
I’d like to point out that there’s some TERFy language getting thrown around here.
I’m sure at least some of it isn’t intentional. That said, gender isn’t biological, and not a duality. We have trans folk in this community, and they have to deal with their own objectification issues related to gender roles. Being more inclusive with language goes a long way to create a safer space for those points of view.
People have alluded to this a few times already, but just to have another specific post about it: objectification isn’t just for attractive people. It’s also for ugly people, or for perfectly average people. It just means that instead of being turned into a beautiful object, you’re turned into an ugly object or a perfectly average object.
The shitty part remains being turned into an object.
Is that J Campbell as in Joseph Campbell? I read Hero with a Thousand Faces last year with some friends – one of them is a big Star Wars fan, and George Lucas is very big on Campbell.
What I got out of it was “Western white male academic erasing women from history and mythology by objectifying them”. The passage you quoted as a good example of that, the whole “devil’s doorway” idea.
Also, chastity belts weren’t real things in medieval times:
