Sexual Objectification

Great Debates
1

“C’mere”, my partner allthegood says to me, “I need to objectify you”. She observes that I like it. I observe that as a male person I don’t have to deal with it all the time as a constant backdrop, where it would become an irritation. “And an interruption”, she says, nodding. “I’m trying to work here, I’m walking down the freaking corridor, quit it”.

a) Being treated as a sex object is intrusive and irritating and a problem to the degree that it happens recurrently and interrupts you trying to do other stuff
Radical feminists protesting outside the Miss America Pageant threw girdles and push-up bras and nylons and lipsticks etc into a ‘Freedom Trash Can’. It got media attention. They weren’t permitted to burn things but the media ran with the idea that they’d lit them on fire, hence “bra burners”. My women’s studies teacher, Ros Baxandall, was there at the time, New York Radical Women. In 1987 she said “Women today want to be sex objects”. She wasn’t necessarily approving. But the discussion in the women’s studies classroom was that it wasn’t disempowering to be found sexy and alluring, but it definitely was disempowering when you were made to feel relegated to that, like it didnt’ matter if you could play the cello and compose for it exceptionally well and propose a good policy in the board room and smash a volleyball past the defenders and score points or write a damn good novel, because all that was eclipsed by whether you were sexy to look at or not. That any and every discussion of what you’d done got turned into a discussion of what a woman looks like.

b) Corollary to point a, being treated as a sex object is intrusive and irritation and a problem to the degree that being evaluated for sexual appeal overrides every other way in which one could be evaluated and considered
“This is Luis. He’s a nice person. He’s a good partner. He’s caring, he’s passionate, and he’s a good partner. I think it totally blows chunks that when he goes to the local gay bar no one wants to connect with him, and people say he’s disgusting. He’s 46, he’s not a gym rat, and personal styling isn’t what he does best. You people think you’re exhibiting gay lib power or something?”

c) Being evaluated as a potential romantic-sexual partner solely on the basis of your visual appeal as a sexual commodity is also problematic. Without saying that no one should sexually care what someone looks like, it does seem like way too much emphasis is put on that, and it’s not good for any of us.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on what sexual objectification is, distinguishing it fromhealthy visual aspects of sexual appetite and healthy forms of viewing someone mostly in terms of their appeal to your sexuality, and how those things differ. Throw rhetorical snowballs at established rhetoric, whether darwinist or feminist, mainstream or marginalized activist, and develop & explain your own take on it all.

Be sincere (I ask that of you) rather than baiting some other school of thought. Go at the question seriously, and let’s have a conversation.

2

We all have thoughts that go beyond polite conversation. We all (or most of us, anyway) experience sexual desire. I think sexual objectification becomes a problem when it brings in others without their consent. This can be obvious, like leering/whistling/catcalling at a woman on the street – but it’s not always so straightforward and obvious. Bringing up a sexual topic (even if only vaguely sexual) with coworkers, acquaintances, strangers, etc., when you’re not in an environment in which this is entirely expected (like an adult sex ed class, or an adult environment in which everyone is there voluntarily and the theme/tone is explicitly advertised/known as sexual), and in which they haven’t consented to such a discussion, is inappropriate – it can be effectively bringing others into your own fantasy life without their consent. Not sexual assault and not the end of the world, but still inappropriate. This doesn’t mean you can’t chat about your sexual escapades with your good buddies at the bar, if you want – you know them, and based on your/their history, everyone may be expecting this kind of thing – they’ve consented to the discussion.

Consent is paramount, in this and any other sex related issue. IMO, if you want to do, or even say, something sexual, ask all the same questions – has everyone present and to be involved consented (verbally or otherwise)? Does everyone present have the ability and understanding that they can withdraw their consent (and leave) at any time if they want with no repercussions beyond the personal (i.e. your girlfriend doesn’t have to consent to sex, and you don’t have to remain her boyfriend if you don’t want to, but there are no other consequences)?

There are grey areas, like there always are – in such cases, proceed with caution, care, and compassion. I know some folks might say “but I’m a forward guy, and my forward, aggressive approach gives me and my partners lots of fun and pleasure” – and maybe that’s okay sometimes. But if you read a situation wrong, you may violate someone’s consent without intending to. And if you’re not cautious and careful and compassionate, you may traumatize someone (and you may break the law and suffer serious consequences). I’d prefer not to have even the slightest chance of making that happen. If I missed some chances to intimately connect with some folks in the past, I guess that’s a shame, but it seems like a very small price to pay to help make sure I never make someone feel traumatized.

3

I think it is almost impossible for men to grasp how fundamental the fear of male violence and rape is for women. It is not, for most of us, something that comes up to the level of consciousness most of the time, but does inform almost every decision that women make, whether they acknowledge it or not. Where and when and how you travel, what you wear and when, what you say and how you say it and to whom, and what you do not say.

At any time, a woman’s safety, autonomy and sense of self worth can be taken from her, perhaps forever, by this “sexual objectification” so called.

What happens between consenting adults has nothing to do with this really. That is sexual play.

So really, women looking at men as sexual objects is nothing like the reverse. The only thing that is comparable is men sexually abusing or raping boys.

4

Ulfrieda how does the consenting version not get all poisoned by that ongoing dynamic in the background? (or does it?)

5

I wouldn’t say poisoned but I would say affected, of course. Nothing between men and women is uncomplicated or easy to understand, in my experience.

6

I think also there’s a point about reducing your perception of a person to a stereotyped sexual fantasy rather than the individual that they are. Sometimes that can be a roleplay they can both join in with, but allowing it to dominate a relationship means it may not be much of a relationship for long.

And if it gets in the way of any other sort of a relationship (work colleague, or whatever) it can indeed be toxically limiting to both parties: one is never taken quite seriously enough for the purpose at hand and may become the object of outright harassment, the other never sees the best of what the other may be capable of.

7

I haven’t had the opportunity to change my opinion since that thread from last year, “[THREAD=882031]What is sexual objectification?[/THREAD]”

My basic stance is that sexual objectification literally refers to thinking of a person as a mere object of sexual desire. Under this definition, which I suspect is different from Ulfreida’s, I think some forms of sexual objectification are “healthy” (morally acceptable) while some are not. I think sexy talk between two consenting partners, concerning each other and sometimes others, is generally fine. I think male gaze is the product of immoral sexual objectification which causes tangible harm, and that seems to be your chief concern in this thread.

~Max

8

Can you define what you mean by “radical feminists” in your third paragraph?

9

He is referring to women’s liberation movement demonstrators at the Miss America Pageant on September 7, 1968 in Atlantic City. You can read about it in WaPo, for example.

~Max

10

I’m curious what made them radical. He notes that they were not permitted to burn items and they complied, that doesn’t sound radical to me. The SDMB has a well documented problem with misogyny I think one of the endemic problems here is to frequently dismiss feminist concerns as fringe and thus inconsequential. Hence my question: what made these feminists “radical” as opposed to just feminists?

11

They self-identified as radical. OP says his teacher was at the demonstration and a member of the “New York Radical Women” group. At the time, feminism or anti-sexism was considered radical. But the New York Radical Women also had splinter groups such as “Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell”, and that was the non-radical splinter group.

I shit you not.

~Max

12

Feminism was more fun then.

I remember going into a women’s bathroom on the Cal Berkeley campus around then. to hear some concert my parents dragged me to, and in my stall was the grafitti “Up the matriarchy through parthenogenesis!” I was about eleven years old and I hadn’t encountered the word matriarchy or the word parthenogenesis before.

13

How are men supposed to approach a woman they may have interest in? If every woman I approach sees me as a rapist/violent predator what am I to do?

14

Whack-a-Mole: I think you overstated Ulfrieda’s case. She didn’t say that every woman thinks every man is a rapist. She said, in essence, every woman has to be aware of the possibility that the man she’s next to, right now, is dangerous to her, specifically in a sexual way. Just as you and I, when on the subway or bus, have a low-level awareness that nearly everyone nearby us might be physically dangerous. It doesn’t mean that I think “everyone is an enemy.”

If you’re interested in someone and want to ask them for a date, well, there are non-creepy ways of doing that.

15

Did I overstate it?

“I think it is almost impossible for men to grasp how fundamental the fear of male violence and rape is for women.” ~Ulfreida

16

Which is not the same as “If every woman I apporach sees me as a rapist/violent predator…” By making the two the same, you are overstating the case that Ulfrieda made.

If you’d added the word “potential” to your phrasing, you’d be a lot closer. And if you do add the word “potential,” then my answer is valid: just ask, in a non-creepy way.

17

Do you understand English?

Let’s assume Ulfrieda’s claim is literally true.

Women have a “fundamental fear” of men.

Who is overstating their case?

18

Dear Whack-a-Mole: Maybe you should discard the notion that you should be the one to do all the approaching. Be uncertain. Wait. Maybe you’ll be the person that someone else approaches. At least if a woman approaches you you won’t be contending with the fears that Ulfrieda details.

Or not. Perhaps you fear that if you do that, nothing will happen. Because that’s not how things work. I don’t mean to put words into your mouth but if you were to say that, I would not contradict you. Because although there are alternative spaces and alternative ways of doing this thing, I think it is correct at a generalization level that, yeah, that’s not how things work.

19

This is…weird.

I am 53 years old. I have been around the block. I have approached and been approached and most any combo you can think of with a huge variety of success and failure. Read…pretty normal stuff.

I’ve even been married.

What do you think you are trying to teach me?

20

Yes, you overstated it. My point was simply that women must always make that calculation, and men do not. Even men who seem perfectly okay can turn out not to be. You don’t ever want men like that to get you alone, especially where they control the exits. Since you don’t know who that might end up being, it behooves you to be cautious, particularly when you first get to know someone male.

Don’t worry, almost all women are trained to be cautious. Men train them, by staring, making unwanted sexual comments, sniggering, copping a feel, or worse. Women experience this from a young age.

So women are always walking a tightrope men don’t see. And yet mostly they manage to date, marry, navigate the world. And they manage to trust men worthy of trust. Part of being a trustworthy man, in my opinion anyway, is being open to noticing some of these things, and calling other men on it when they see it.

One of the ways men argue against this reality is to posit some black and white world where they Just Can’t Win. But that’s not how it is, and everyone knows this. Everything between the sexes is hedged, fraught, and filled with misunderstandings, and yet since we both of us want something from the other, we have to continue to negotiate. Sometimes we even find joy, empathy, acceptance.