there’s a fantastic little cafe in Nuremberg called the Salon Regina- the owners are 2 ladies- and on towards the back of the menu there is a listing of other items:
a light for your cigarette- free
a call for a taxi- free
a tampon- free
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That reminds me of how a female friend of mine went recently to see those male strippers dancing. She showed me a few videos of it afterwards and it was insane. These women were screaming and pulling the clothes off of these guys.
It doesn’t matter who it’s happening to- a woman or a man- I felt creeped out for those guys.
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This is sort of what I was trying to get at in describing my experience.
We’re talking about the old trope of men being made powerless by their desire for women.It’s a total fiction because trying to use desire to manipulate means obfiscating one’s own desire and self in order to become a fantasy. But you really can’t control anything about the way another sees you, or if they really want you can you? It’s a losing game and a moving target that opens the would be manipulator to manipulation by others.
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I think perhaps you should read the above linked articles.
Objectification has little to do with sexual attraction and everything to do with power.
We’re not talking about sexual attraction, we’re talking about objectification.
The concept of objectification owes much to the work of Simone de Beauvoir regarding the basic dualism of human consciousness between the Self and the Other: the general mental process where humans classify the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’. Women are universally viewed as the Other across all cultures, a role which is both externally imposed and internalised, and which means that women are generally not truly regarded as fully human. An important point of de Beauvoir’s was that this Othering effect is the same whether women are viewed as wholly inferior or if femininity is viewed as mysterious and morally superior: Otherness and full equality cannot coexist.
“FAQ: What is sexual objectification? | Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog”
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You might not need to become a fantasy in order to control someone who falls for you on their own, but I don’t think that’s the same thing as trying to make them fall for you so that you can control them.
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Thats because you are conflating objectification with desire, and they have very little to do with each other.
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No, one cannot.
People can manipulate their appearance in many ways, but they can never dictate how others perceive that appearance,
Again take Michael Jackson as an extreme example; he altered his appearance beyond recognition from how he looked as a young man - presumably in pursuit of some ideal he had in his mind.
Yet all the surgery didn’t cause most other to people to find his countenance more attractive; in fact, it had the exact opposite effect for many.
Therein lies a rather tragic example of not being able to control others’ perceptions.
Also, because you’re kind of derailing, just a tad:
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Yeah, you need to read the articles. Coming in over 200 posts down and changing the meaning of the key word of the entire topic is just going to turn the whole thing into a discussion of language, rather than, you know, objectification.
As discussed upthread, there’s more to it than just desire or attraction. And it’s not so much making someone powerless as making their power irrelevant to how you view them.
Consider:
Max has objectified Miss Cross into this ideal of flowery womanhood. She’s tried to be empathetic and push him away gently, but it hasn’t worked. This is the scene where she breaks out of the box he’s put her in – where she forces him to see her as more than this idealised object of his affections.
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I haven’t read every single post so maybe this was brought up already. I think one of the most outright objectification of both men and women are the NFL’s Draft Combine and any Beauty Pageant. Am I off base on that?
The point of the thread is that men cannot be or do not suffer from objectification like women do/are.
The Chris Pratt quote in the second article is key:
“There’s a horrifying past around [female objectification]. You have to deal with it separately. It’s a sensitive issue. Objectification is good for me,” Pratt explained. “When I turned my body into an object, I got paid a lot, and my grandkids will go to a great college. But there’s been more great roles, classically written great roles, for men than women.”
The NFL draft isn’t based on looks, its based on ability. And despite all the talent portions they add on to beauty pageants, it is still based on appearance. So no, not the same. Just look at the earning ability of the average NFL draftee versus Pageant winner. Not in the same league at all.
While we’re taking and beauty and appearance, lets talk about the NFL cheerleaders who make maybe $3000 A YEAR.
http://www.totalsportek.com/news/nfl-cheerleader-salaries-2015/
This is what objectification does to women. It DECREASES the value of our abilities. But it increases the same for men. This is a side effect of patriarchy, and can I just say I’m so please to have y’all discussing patriarchy! 
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Counter point: the combine is based on ability, but also looks. There have been plenty of productive players at the collegiate level who just don’t look the part in an evaluator’s eyes. Additionally, how a player looks can effect their draft stock. Tom Brady is a fine example of someone who was thought to be too skinny and not physically able to stand up to the punishment of being an NFL starter, and 15 years and 5 rings later.
I agree with what you replied with, and that the comparison of NFLer to BP contestant doesn’t quite fit and the greater point…the man is rewarded and the woman not.
How would you classify super models then? It is widely known that Giselle is worth far more and made far more in earnings than the above mentioned Brady. and it is entirely around the objectification of her physical beauty, no?
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“too skinny” is not the same as “attractive”, sorry, false analogy. There are lots of players that are not as good looking as Brady, so how do you explain them?
I honestly don’t understand your point about super models. Are there women who have managed to capitalize on their own objectification? Sure. Girls gotta eat. But how many super models are there at any given point? 5? 7? a dozen? Do you know how many 14 year olds start modelling every year? 1000s. How many of them will ever get to Gisele’s status? Probably none.
I honestly feel like you’re just nitpicking and I don’t know why…
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I wasn’t nit picking at all, I thought we were discussing examples.
Examples of what?
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If anything, objectification is more closely related to dehumanization than to desire.
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There is one supermodel in the world, ever, who made more than a football player who was not highly regarded at the start of his career.
Ergo, objectification affects both men and women. QED.
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Sorry, I keep coming back to your super models example because you asked me “how do I explain” them… because they are rewarded handsomely for their objectification so I guess you feel they don’t fit my thesis of “men are rewarded for objectification and women are not” but yet to me, they makes perfect sense. You always need a carrot. They’re the bait. If we just diet enough, exercise enough, buy the right clothes, use the right products, get the right hair cut, do your makeup just right, then you too can be Gisele! You too can marry Brady! You too can be rich! This is the trap of womenhood. This is how objectification gets us. Even those of us who profit from it. Can you imagine the headlines if Gisele gained weight? She’s never going to be allowed to be anything other than what she is right now. How limiting is that? She will always have to be “Gisele”. So yes, she’s a super model and she earns a lot of money, but she’s just as trapped by this as we are.
@anon67050589 - there is ONE career path where women outearn men, ONE, and my god we can never let women live that down! That this career path is open to like six women at a time is not the point!
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That’s pretty much the subject of the last few Dune books right there.
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I think @Missy_Pants sums it up pretty well here:
The narrative of objectification as power is very much alive and well. It’s sold as status even though NFL cheerleaders make next to nothing in exchange for it, and thousands of girls are used and then disposed of by the modeling industry every year.
Edited to clarify that we’re using desire here the way you’ve defined it. I don’t think being desired and objectified are the same thing.
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One thing I learned in previous discussions about this is that men are super sneaky about their sexual oddities. So the dudes who are dangerous, know very damn well to hide it from everyone, especially other men, and only become dangerous when they know they can’t be detected / stopped. I did not realize this, and it feeds directly into…
But I’ve never seen a man do X! Therefore it cannot be common!
No you haven’t because they’re unbelievably talented at being a ninja asshole, and they’ve been practicing their whole lives!
This is why “other men should step up!” is true, insofar as it goes and I agree with it, but it does not account for how incredibly secretive men can be about this stuff. They actively hide it, especially from other men who could stop them. They’re not idiots, and they know where the real danger lies.
So if like me, you felt guilty for not helping out to stop all this rampant abuse going around, you… have to be sherlock holmes (or a woman) to even detect it.
Also @Missy_Pants what’s with the URLs in quotes? If you don’t want a onebox simply add a space in front of the URL…
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