I mean of course if he had thought that it would have been OK IMO.
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I have a confession to make. When I see an attractive woman, in any context, my concentration shifts
The semantic meaning of “that” would be “that person” or specifically “that person’s body” so I don’t see the difference. There are valid criticisms to be made (that have been made) about repeating impolite language verbatim from an inner monologue, and the inference is that such impolite language ought not to have been in his thoughts to begin with.
The important thing, however, is not his use of words but the fact that nate reduced a person to an object of sexual desire, and further, that this fantasizing is both harmful and normal to him.
ETA: I can only suggest therapy and possibly positive reinforcement, associate sex with the bedroom or designated sex-places and it might be easier to look at an attractive woman in other contexts without thinking of sex.
~Max
But if he voluntarily started a thread to make a “confession” about his thoughts and behavior, then he’s relinquished the presumption of privacy about his “inner monologue”, so the language is relevant. If you’re going to offer up an unsolicited description of your inner monologue to a bunch of internet strangers, then either translate/paraphrase your thoughts so they don’t make you sound shitty-misogynistic, or be prepared to have people telling you that you sound shitty-misogynistic.
Some here were taking offence because using “that” is very clearly objectifying in a way that “her” is not.
I would disagree with that. I am an extremely polite person but if you could read my mind sure you’ll hear curse words both in sexual or angry contexts.
Confessing to some of those thoughts in a forum is maybe a bad move, and I said that in my last post.
But I would disagree that even the thought itself is intrinsically wrong.
More generally, the rude behaviour of the OP is the main problem here and I have said that.
But having lustful thoughts is something pretty much everyone is guilty of (“pretty much” because there are some people who claim to have been asexual all their lives).
In context, I see no difference between “that”, “that person”, “that person’s body”, “that female person”, “her”, “her body”, or “that female person’s body”.
I will agree to disagree, but this might make for an interesting thread.
~Max
We had a similar thread a while ago.
In that tread, I posted:
Here’s a thought:
How often in a day does a women think about her attractiveness? That is really her thinking about sex.
Every time she changes her posture or facial expression to look better, every time she adjusts her clothing or thinks about how it fits, every time she thinks in a pleasant flirty way about how a guy might like her… that is a way of thinking about sexuality that, in our culture, is open to women, right?
Or not?
OK. I get that. YOU don’t see a problem.
What women in this thread (and at least two others that have cropped up during this conversation) are telling you, though, is that WE see a problem with it.
You then come here and imply that because YOU don’t have a problem with it they shouldn’t either. This is called “mansplaining”. I hasten to add that I don’t think you did this from a malicious place, but at best it’s the verbal equivalent of patting someone on the head and saying “there, there, don’t worry your pretty little head about that”. I know that was not your intention, but that’s how it comes across.
As a woman, let me repeat: saying "I want to have sex with that" is definitely more objectifying and de-humanizing than saying "I want to have sex with her". Even if you don’t perceive a problem with that we do. Please acknowledge that women see this differently than men even if, as a man, you don’t see this as a big deal.
IDK, Maastricht, that sounds kind of 1950s-ish.
It is when I’m at the supermarket.
Thank you, you’ve put your finger into what was bothering me about it. Maastricht is talking about a woman thinking of herself exclusively in the context of being an object of desire or, worse yet, of décor, because a lot of what goes into “smile” and “look pleasant” isn’t necessarily about sexual attraction but is definitely and always about being decorative and, uh… un-bothersome to those who are more important than you are. A vase may be expensive but none has ever been important.
What is interesting to me was that you jumped from “we thought about sex all day long” to “we thought about sex visually”. There are people who are more visual and people who are more about narrative, and even people who are visually narrative (I expect it’s a good mindset if you’re a playwright or a movie writer, for example). We do know that there are differences in which thinking methods are more common that correlate with biological sex, but we also know that there are great variations between individuals within each group, that these differences are influenced by nurture and by social acceptability, and we don’t really know how much is nature, how much is nurture.
I’m a visual thinker to such an extent that I kind of consider Spanish my second language: when I’m trying to solve a complicated problem I think in pictures. The problem, whatever it is, gets turned into symbols that I move around until I get them to fit together, at which point the problem is solved and I have a new problem: translating my solution into Spanish/English/whatever so I can communicate it to other people. My current main business contact is the same way, and like me she’s female. My mother and one of my SiLs, as stereotypically “can’t read maps” as anybody could ask for. 2.SiL, in between. I’ve known women who couldn’t find an element of symmetry in a sphere (it only has infinite planes and infinite axis of symmetry, plus a symmetry center) and men who couldn’t follow a two-steps process diagram without getting lost.
Since I started the semantic part I’ll add in that my point was, as Archer says, “phrasing”.
Compare your two examples but use the F word in one and “have sex” in the other to get my point.
I understand the objectification associated with “that”, but just wanting to fuck someone, or grab their you know what I thought might also be seen as objectifying.
I’ve been keeping out of this thread because I found the OP objectionable; but I like a lot of what I see in response.
Re Broomstick’s comment, I was reminded of this video. Check it out from 1.05 for the next few seconds (“All you need to know about politics…”). For context, Loadsamoney was a monster created by Harry Enfield: boorish, sexist, totemic of Thatcher’s Britain, celebrating greed, laughing at the poor. Of course, as a comic Enfield has a certain mastery of words, and what he has to say from 1.05 is a carefully calculated vileness.
Pertinent, I thought.
j
Lighter aside: I was thinking, tracking down that exact piece of video is going to be a chore. But the first video I looked at, the first point in the sketch I clicked on, I nailed it to the second. Ooooo- scary. Just sayin’.
I doubt it would be an interesting thread. You’d have to be arguing either that lustful thoughts are wrong, or that you can have lustful thoughts as long as you clean up the language in your own brain. Both of which are patently ridiculous positions to take.
I’m sorry you misunderstood me. I see objectification regardless of word choice, and do not understand why you or the “some” mentioned by Mijin think “her” is OK when “that” is not.
I engage in conversation on these boards to further understand people’s positions (even my own), especially when they make a claim that I disagree with. If we both understand each other’s position and its implications, I will agree to drop the matter; learning that I am wrong or convincing someone else that they are wrong is not the primary goal of my conversations here. I’m not sure how you drew the implication that I do not value or respect women’s opinions when I disagree with them, but I hope you will give me the benefit of the doubt in the future.
~Max
I don’t think the issue is of whether one is okay and the other is not. “That” is both sexually objectifying and dehumanizing. Whereas, “her” might just be sexually objectifying, but not necessarily. Certainly what the other words are that surround “her” make a difference.
I have a friend who had an uncontrollable obsession with chocolate. She would think about it, fantasize about eating it, then couldn’t resist actually eating it, which she didn’t like because she was always trying to lose weight. She addressed this obsession by putting a rubber band around her wrist and snapping it every time those unwanted thoughts crept into her mind. I suggest the OP give this a try and see if it helps.
I don’t even understand why using “her” in context would be “less objectionable” than using “that”. To me, the semantic meaning of “damn, I’d like to fuck the hell out of that” is identical to “damn, I’d like to fuck the hell out of her” is identical to “damn, I’d like to fuck the hell out of that body”.
~Max
It’s not black and white, it’s black and grey.
NEITHER is OK. BOTH are objectifying. One is less offensive than the other, but BOTH are still offensive.
You bring up an interesting contrast between “have sex with that” vs. “have sex with her” and “fuck that” vs. “fuck her”.
In both cases “that” is less personal, less focused on the individual, that the word “her”. “Fuck that” can mean “fuck things in general” or “I’m done with this”. “Fuck her”, in contrast, is much more directed to a particular individual. Now, in context that may be better or worse but regardless “fuck her” acknowledges the other person as a distinct and separate indivdual.
Likewise “have sex with that” vs. “have sex with her”. Again, the later is more distinctly emphasizing an individual, particular woman.
It’s a subtle difference, but it matters. One long-standing complaint in the world is the question “What do women want?” which implies there is just one thing, or a list of things, ALL women want universally and if you just figure that out you’ve “solved” the “problem” of women. “What do women want, and how do we deal with that?” vs. “What does this person want, and how do we deal with her?” Again, it is subtle, but the latter much more recognizes a woman as an individual human being rather than something more interchangeable with other women.
Thus - “have sex with that” is less acceptable (which does NOT make the other “OK”) because it de-emphasizes the individuality and uniqueness of the woman in question. That’s what makes her more of an object and less an individual human being.
Now, this woman at least (because I’m an individual and don’t speak for all women) doesn’t go around analyzing conversations in detail in this manner, and in fact it took a couple of days of me thinking about the thread, sort of on the back burner bubbling away, to lay all that down in a manner that makes sense to me (and I hope makes sense to other people). But, being a woman in a society that still has many patriarchal features I have no choice but to be sensitive to such subtleties because, to put it bluntly, it’s part of the rape-avoidance kit. Which is another thing men don’t really put any thought into but we women think about avoiding rape pretty much on a daily basis, to the point we’re hardly aware anymore about how much “avoid danger” impacts how we move in the world. Most men aren’t rapists, but the “penalty” for being wrong on that is so steep that avoiding it informs a LOT of our choices and actions.
I can imagine my husband saying "My wife, I want to have sex with her" but I can’t imagine him saying "My wife, I want to have sex with that". One type of phrase (have sex with her, fuck her) I can imagine, in certain context, being said with affection. The other (have sex with that, fuck that) I really, really have a hard time imagining said with any affection.
And, again, this is just one person’s opinion - I do not speak for all women, to be honest I just speak for just one woman, myself. Other people (of any gender you care to name) can and likely will have a different opinion.
I think you misunderstand me. I think you DO value my opinions, otherwise I would not engage with you and I don’t think you’d have responded in such a thoughtful and reasoned manner. One of the two frustrating things about discussing such topics is that, first of all, people seem to want to make everything binary - good/bad, yes/no, black/white - when a lot of this involves spectrum. As I said, the two phrase are not “bad” and “OK”, they’re “bad” and “less bad” but neither is OK. Second, people tend to assume that if someone describes something they approve of it. That is not the case. Just because someone acknowledges the existence of something does not mean they either approve or disapprove of it (although how they describe it might give some indication). If we truly want to fight ignorance here we have to sometimes drag some icky stuff out into the light so it can be examined and dealt with.
So, when I say “this is how you’re coming across” it is not to say “you are wrong”. I am first asking you to clarify what you are saying in a different manner. Second, I am trying to tell you that even though you have zero intention of belittling my position I feel the manner in which are communicating has done so.
Mansplaining is unconscious sexism in the same way that unconscious racism crops up. It’s done by people who have good intentions without realizing that what they are doing is devaluing the observations of someone with significantly different life experiences. I know that’s not your intention - that’s why I use the term “unconscious”. The problem is that you’re still devaluing my position based on “I don’t experience the world that way”. Of course you don’t, you’re a man and I’m a woman. We don’t experience the world in exactly the same manner. But in order to discuss these issues you have to give as much weight to my experience of life as you do your own.
All that said - I am well aware that the average man thinks a lot more about sex than the average woman. I have no doubt that many men I have worked with, associated with, lived next door to, chatted on the bus with have had sexual thoughts about me. In some cases, they have actually told me that. I know that men look at and think about touching and fucking tits, ass, vaj, and every other conceivable part of my body. In some cases this is entirely impersonal - they don’t know me as an individual, they just see a woman they find attractive on some level or in some attribute the gears in their brain grind away. In other cases, there is actual affection there. In between your ears it’s your playground, as long as your sexual thoughts don’t pose a hazard (and a number of people have mentioned sexual thoughts as so distracting they could pose a hazard) it’s your business. What matters is how you conduct yourself in society and towards others. If a man can have lustful thoughts about a neighbor or co-worker but keeps his hands to himself (unless explicitly invited to do otherwise) and can interact with that person as an equal human being then great. If a man can sit across from a beautiful woman and listen fully to what she says to him, or treat her as a social or professional equal, that’s the goal. If, however, a man says her beauty “distracts” him to the point he doesn’t hear what she says, or he focuses on his lustful thoughts rather than doing the job at hand, then HE has a problem… and she does, too, especially if he is in a position of power over her. And if a man is driving a car and lets his lustful thoughts be that distracting we ALL have a problem because he’s not really paying full attention to driving and that poses a risk of accident, which can affect not only those in the car but those around it, which is my biggest objection to the OP of this thread, more so than the phrase “have sex with that”, because while he’s thinking so hard about fucking that he’s not paying attention to what he’s doing - driving a car - and risks fucking up himself, his wife, and anyone he might happen to hit while distracted.
I realize I just made a long post about the topic, but I’m going for the TL: DR version here. I understand that to you, Max S., there is no difference. There is a difference to me and (apparently) some other people. So here’s a slice of my prior post that I think gets to the heart of the matter. See if it works for you: