What is sexual objectification?

[Max_S]

@octopus

I don’t think it’s wrong to think of someone as desirable due to physical attraction. I don’t think it’s wrong to express interest and work to achieve a relationship. I think it’s naive to argue that humans are not animals and largely governed by biology.

Agreeable.

@octopus

I do think where morality comes in is that in a society like ours we have recognized that individuals have certain intrinsic rights and most of our brains have the structure to learn to navigate that environment. Even if those particular rights are difficult to articulate precisely we still generally recognize they exist in some form. So my interpretation of how to act, in so-called meat space, is that one should err on the side of treating others how a normal person would like to be treated.

Which “intrinsic rights”, even broadly described, do you think are in play when we discuss sexual objectification?

@octopus

Example. You are walking with a friend and notice someone with a nice physical feature. You whisper to your friend “hey she has a nice booty!” No harm.

I believe you imply that there is no harm because the “someone with a nice physical feature” did not hear you. Is there a right not to hear judgement of one’s physique while out walking? I don’t think so.

A better example might involve you whispering to the friend, “hey, that’s a nice booty!”. The lack of a personified possessive pronoun makes it more clear that we are discussing sexual objectification. Do you still think no harm has been done? I think you will answer the same way.

But there are other forms of communication besides speech. There is something in feminist thought called gaze whereupon the simple expectation that one is being looked at for scopophilic purposes creates a power dynamic that shapes one’s thoughts and actions. If you and others in society commonly look at a class of people (eg: women) for aesthetic purposes, and make small remarks to friends about others’ figures, that builds a social expectation that the class will be judged by their looks. The effect on members of the class is that they are under societal pressure to look good, especially when they are in public; they feel exposed and constantly monitor their appearance. This is a peer pressure and I have no doubt that a number of surveys of women confirm that women at least feel that their appearance is social currency. The assertion is that such pressure is a factor in certain harmful behaviors such as body shaming and anxiety.

The open question would be whether it is possible to prevent such harm while adhering to a rights-based moral framework. I’ve put a couple hours of thought into this over the past couple weeks. So far I haven’t made any progress.

I was thinking, maybe there’s a right to control one’s image? I mean it makes sense when talking about private photographs and such. But that argument doesn’t make sense when walking out in public, where the presumption of privacy and control over one’s image fade away. I think there was a court case about the privacy of one’s home not applying when the paparazzi takes a picture from a public vantage point.

@octopus

Example 2. You walk up to a woman in a setting where a sexual advance is completely unexpected and invade her personal space and say “hey you got a nice booty!”

I personally think that’s problematic. And in most cases I wouldn’t think that a woman’s approach would be as problematic. Which is probably technically sexist. But that’s ok.

Part of me can only concur with your condemnation of Example 2. It cannot be wrong to objectify a person to their face merely because it is unexpected; this creates a causal loop that goes back to the dawn of humanity and possibly earlier, when the first expectations of social interaction between the sexes emerged, probably by force. You are, in essence, saying it is right because it has always been right; it is wrong if it has always been wrong. Even worse, your logic fails to take a side when one person thinks a sexual advance is appropriate for the venue, and the other disagrees.

But on the other hand I agree with you, because when I think too much about it I believe the basis of morality is pure might.

~Max

[HMS_Irruncible]

Sexual objectification is when you treat someone entirely according to their sex appeal (or lack of it), instead of like a person.

People are sexually attracted to each other, it’s normal. When you see someone at work, or checking out a library book, or going for a jog, you shouldn’t also assume they are looking for your feedback on their sexiness.

Even when you’re doing the dance of courtship, even if you’re mainly interested in sex, you have to remember you’re dealing with a person and treat them as a person (who might not want to have sex with you).

People are people. Sometimes people have sex. People aren’t sex toys, nobody exists for your amusement.

[Kimstu]

@HMS_Irruncible

Sexual objectification is when you treat someone entirely according to their sex appeal (or lack of it), instead of like a person.

People are sexually attracted to each other, it’s normal. When you see someone at work, or checking out a library book, or going for a jog, you shouldn’t also assume they are looking for your feedback on their sexiness.

And your opinion on their sexiness has no bearing on how well they’re doing their work, or their library browsing, or their jogging, or whatever. Requiring somebody to meet arbitrary standards of “sexiness” in any activity not directly related to sex appeal, as you note, is also sexually objectifying them.

[octopus]

So many questions! And none of them easy. Of course, in a medium such as an internet forum and particularly in one so pedantic and quarrelous as SDMB it is impossible to give an answer that will satisfy most, but why not try?
Your last sentence of your post is correct. Everything stems from “might.” Might takes many forms but basically the law of the jungle is the ultimate law. However, society seems to function much better when the concept of intrinsic rights is promoted. What these rights are happen to be disputable and ultimately axiomatic and ironically can only be enforced by violence. The subject of intrinsic rights is vast and what they are isn’t settled. But a few of the properties that these rights suggest is that humans have value, an intrinsic dignity, and sovereignty over themselves.

@Max_S

Which “intrinsic rights”, even broadly described, do you think are in play when we discuss sexual objectification?

Dignity. In the framework of an intrinsic right discussion humans have the right to not be reduced to an object. What constitutes reduction to an object is an endless debate.

I believe you imply that there is no harm because the “someone with a nice physical feature” did not hear you. Is there a right not to hear judgement of one’s physique while out walking? I don’t think so.
A better example might involve you whispering to the friend, “hey, that’s a nice booty!”. The lack of a personified possessive pronoun makes it more clear that we are discussing sexual objectification. Do you still think no harm has been done? I think you will answer the same way.

It may seem contradictory and ultimately everything at some point is contradictory or circular in nature but I don’t think one has the right to not see or hear something that causes offense. What’s the point of free speech, free press, free religion, freedom of assembly if the only things that can be broadcast or believed in are universally approved of? That precondition makes any necessity of a guarantee of liberties to be superfluous.

I also don’t think that the concept of intrinsic rights is as robust and universal as many would naively believe it to be. Which is why it is very counterproductive to undermine the concept for short term partisan advantage using farcical and disingenuous arguments and demanding adherence to illogical double standards.

Harm done? Miniscule. There is harm done if one considers that act of vocalizing that particular sentence to be objectification. However, in a framework that includes intrinsic human rights the cost to suppress speech is far higher than the cost of objectifying free speech. So from both an utilitarian or a libertarian view point comments such as that while less than ideal are natural. Biological law is still supreme and reproductive strategies are essential. If you don’t propagate the species all of this nonsense is moot anyways.

But there are other forms of communication besides speech. There is something in feminist thought called gaze whereupon the simple expectation that one is being looked at for scopophilic purposes creates a power dynamic that shapes one’s thoughts and actions. If you and others in society commonly look at a class of people (eg: women) for aesthetic purposes, and make small remarks to friends about others’ figures, that builds a social expectation that the class will be judged by their looks. The effect on members of the class is that they are under societal pressure to look good, especially when they are in public; they feel exposed and constantly monitor their appearance. This is a peer pressure and I have no doubt that a number of surveys of women confirm that women at least feel that their appearance is social currency. The assertion is that such pressure is a factor in certain harmful behaviors such as body shaming and anxiety.

Sexual capital is a real thing. Many women use it shamelessly. Sometimes, I think the loudest howling about a particular form of capital comes from those who possess the least amount of that capital. Is it fair? Life isn’t fair. It never will be. Should efforts be made to mitigate some of the largest negative outcomes from the hand life dealt you? As long as those efforts aren’t overly counterproductive I don’t see why not.

The open question would be whether it is possible to prevent such harm while adhering to a rights-based moral framework. I’ve put a couple hours of thought into this over the past couple weeks. So far I haven’t made any progress.
I was thinking, maybe there’s a right to control one’s image? I mean it makes sense when talking about private photographs and such. But that argument doesn’t make sense when walking out in public, where the presumption of privacy and control over one’s image fade away. I think there was a court case about the privacy of one’s home not applying when the paparazzi takes a picture from a public vantage point.
Part of me can only concur with your condemnation of Example 2. It cannot be wrong to objectify a person to their face merely because it is unexpected; this creates a causal loop that goes back to the dawn of humanity and possibly earlier, when the first expectations of social interaction between the sexes emerged, probably by force. You are, in essence, saying it is right because it has always been right; it is wrong if it has always been wrong. Even worse, your logic fails to take a side when one person thinks a sexual advance is appropriate for the venue, and the other disagrees.

But on the other hand I agree with you, because when I think too much about it I believe the basis of morality is pure might.

~Max

It’s not possible to eliminate harm regardless of moral framework. Furthermore, the definition of what is objectification and what harm it imposes is very difficult. On a personal note, when I was dating my wife-to-be part of the purpose was to see and make a judgement on a variety of traits that I felt were important to long term compatibility and child bearing. Is selecting for intelligence, emotional stability, risk tolerance, ambition more or less objectifying then selecting for hip size or color of eyes? If it is objectification I don’t see anything wrong with it.

[WillFarnaby]

Neo-Puritanism

[Max_S]

@WillFarnaby

Neo-Puritanism

Sexual objectification is Neo-Puritanism? What?

~Max

[HMS_Irruncible]

@octopus

If it is objectification I don’t see anything wrong with it.

You could have just posted this sentence and saved yourself 29 minutes and half an Adderall.

Also: The “If By Whiskey” fallacy.

[octopus]

@HMS_Irruncible

You could have just posted this sentence and saved yourself 29 minutes and half an Adderall.

Also: The “If By Whiskey” fallacy.

What’s the adderall for? Care to elaborate?

[Max_S]

@octopus

Harm done? Miniscule.

I will admit that by all accounts, the act of whispering some sexually objectifying language to a male friend does not directly harm the woman who you are objectifying if she does not hear you. The principal concern which I was leading to is that repeated acts, mere whispering among boys and men, can create a societal pressure for girls and women to conform to a certain image; that this pressure is scientifically correllated with tangible harms such as body shaming and anxiety.

Assuming that the correlation is causation, the mere act of objectifying women, even behind their backs does, en masse, indirectly harm girls and women.

@octopus

However, in a framework that includes intrinsic human rights the cost to suppress speech is far higher than the cost of objectifying free speech. So from both an utilitarian or a libertarian view point comments such as that while less than ideal are natural. Biological law is still supreme and reproductive strategies are essential. If you don’t propagate the species all of this nonsense is moot anyways.

This is something I want to explore. Let’s say that the aggregate cost of sexual objectification of women in society is a reduction of the female life-span by some ten years (I just made that up). The proposal is that people stop objectifying women outside of appropriate contexts, such as dating, sex, maybe performing arts, depictions of datin/sex/performing arts, etc. The enforcement mechanism would be social rather than legal, much like a racist today might quickly lose friends or a job by expressing blatantly racist sentiments.

So on the one hand society embraces the freedom to objectify women in all contexts, but the female life-span is reduced by about ten years. On the other hand we could have “normal” female life-spans, but in non-sexual contexts people might find that society chills their freedom to objectify women.

That’s a trade I’m willing to make, and as such I will be teaching my future-children that it is wrong to sexually objectify women in non-sexual contexts. So wrong that sometimes you have to do something about it, like tell the person to stop.

How do you approach this hypothetical?

~Max

[octopus]

@Max_S

I will admit that by all accounts, the act of whispering some sexually objectifying language to a male friend does not directly harm the woman who you are objectifying if she does not hear you. The principal concern which I was leading to is that repeated acts, mere whispering among boys and men, can create a societal pressure for girls and women to conform to a certain image; that this pressure is scientifically correllated with tangible harms such as body shaming and anxiety.

Assuming that the correlation is causation, the mere act of objectifying women, even behind their backs does, en masse, indirectly harm girls and women.
This is something I want to explore. Let’s say that the aggregate cost of sexual objectification of women in society is a reduction of the female life-span by some ten years (I just made that up). The proposal is that people stop objectifying women outside of appropriate contexts, such as dating, sex, maybe performing arts, depictions of datin/sex/performing arts, etc. The enforcement mechanism would be social rather than legal, much like a racist today might quickly lose friends or a job by expressing blatantly racist sentiments.

So on the one hand society embraces the freedom to objectify women in all contexts, but the female life-span is reduced by about ten years. On the other hand we could have “normal” female life-spans, but in non-sexual contexts people might find that society chills their freedom to objectify women.

That’s a trade I’m willing to make, and as such I will be teaching my future-children that it is wrong to sexually objectify women in non-sexual contexts. So wrong that sometimes you have to do something about it, like tell the person to stop.

How do you approach this hypothetical?

~Max

Being polite to save half the species from an early death doesn’t seem that rough of a trade off to make.

[Max_S]

@octopus

Being polite to save half the species from an early death doesn’t seem that rough of a trade off to make.

That’s what I was thinking, too. I believe this is pretty close to the consensus position of most feminists. I have no doubt some would go further, though.

Obviously I made the ten year thing up, but the APA/Counseling Psychologist paper in the OP does list studies showing harms correlated with sexual objectification.

I wish we had some women who could come and weigh in on this topic, because it seems like you and I are eye to eye.

~Max

[Max_S]

@QuickSilver

I think what happens between two or more consenting adults in the privacy of their own lives is none of anybody’s business. Even with that stipulation plenty can go wrong. Interpersonal dynamics are not always a level playing field. People get hurt. People experience regret. People’s emotions are often complex and unpredictable. Trying to classify people’s attitudes about sex into well defined philosophical behavioral categories is folly. They may think they are one thing only to discover they are something else under variable or unpredictable circumstances.

To quote Bill Maher: “Doesn’t anybody just fuck anymore?”

I don’t believe I ever responded to this. What do you think about octopus’s example, where a woman is walking in a park and one bystander says to another, “hey, that’s a nice booty!” Or if it matters to you, in one hypothetical the woman hears the remark, and in another she doesn’t.

~Max

[Shodan]

@Max_S

That’s what I was thinking, too. I believe this is pretty close to the consensus position of most feminists. I have no doubt some would go further, though.

Obviously I made the ten year thing up, but the APA/Counseling Psychologist paper in the OP does list studies showing harms correlated with sexual objectification.

Women already live longer than men, at least in the West and in societies with the same standard of medical care. Due, I expect, to reductions in maternal mortality (and other things as well).

But ISTM that to at least some extent, sexual objectification is built into the male brain. Men are more visually oriented when it comes to mate selection, and are generally the sexual aggressors, in the sense that they are the pursuers more than they are the pursued. And that is reflected by the fact that they sexually objectify women more often, and in general. To what extent we can eliminate that tendency thru social pressure is not a settled question.

@octopus

Being polite to save half the species from an early death doesn’t seem that rough of a trade off to make.

It doesn’t seem like a bad trade off to me either, but that is different from expecting men to not objectify women. I am talking about something mentioned earlier, where I see a woman with some sexually appealing characteristic, in a non-sexual context like she is browsing books in a library, and I react as I do, with the mental observation of “nice [sexually appealing characteristic]”. I don’t try to hit on her, since I am too old and too married, but I am having the objectifying thought nonetheless.

But I am polite, and I don’t stare or say anything or do anything to make her uncomfortable - I just appreciate. That is what I would call “being polite”, and I don’t see how that harms her. Or I don’t see how the harm is avoidable. If it adds to social pressure or body shaming or whatever, much of the pressure is coming from the fact that many of the markers of female attractiveness are nearly universal - the waist to hip ratio of 1:3 and clear skin and nice teeth and so forth. Maybe there are some societies where those are not markers. Not many, though - for most people/men, most of the time, there is (probably to some extent biologically-based) agreement on what constitutes an attractive woman.

So I expect that social pressure to be polite, or to be a gentleman as I would put it, is as far as can reasonably be gone to reduce the harm of objectifying women, in the sense I am using.

A gentleman doesn’t ogle, he would never approach a woman unknown to him, unless he can guess - correctly - that such attentions would not be unwelcome. That’s part of the onus of being the sexual approacher rather than the approachee. You have to guess right and take your chances. If you get caught staring, you are suitably ashamed, and you learn to do it better next time.

Is that fair to women? Maybe not. Is it fair to men? Same answer. Tough beans - it’s how the occasionally awkward, often entertaining, and ultimately rewarding courtship dance happens. Look, but don’t touch (or stare). And you need a level of social awareness to be able to determine who you may and who you may not approach. Saying “I will wait to be approached”, for men, is part of what makes for incels - or at least an unproductive dating life.

Regards,
Shodan

[QuickSilver]

@Max_S

I don’t believe I ever responded to this. What do you think about octopus’s example, where a woman is walking in a park and one bystander says to another, “hey, that’s a nice booty!” Or if it matters to you, in one hypothetical the woman hears the remark, and in another she doesn’t.

~Max

I don’t think that censorship of what two consenting adults say to each other about another adult is desirable. In any number of scenarios one can correct/admonish the other if the comment is inappropriate or crosses a line. Or not. In no scenario would it be appropriate to make that comment to the party about whom the comment is made, because that certainly crosses a line of appropriate behavior in polite society. Even if the third party might welcome the comment as a compliment, it’s still too much a presumption to make. As with so many things in life, best to err on the side of civilized social conduct.

But isn’t this already something the majority of functional and well adjusted adults familiar with? Sure, plenty don’t follow generally accepted social patterns of behavior. We recognize them as assholes.

In short, we’re wired to appreciate each other in sexual sense. We are not wired to behave like assholes. Not most of us, anyway.

[Kimstu]

@Shodan

But ISTM that to at least some extent, sexual objectification is built into the male brain.

Well, sexual objectification is built into the human brain, and in fact into the brains of all species that practice sexual selection. Why are, e.g., male birds and fish growing all those colorful fins and feathers and so forth except to stimulate female birds and fish into regarding them as sex objects?

@Shodan

I am talking about something mentioned earlier, where I see a woman with some sexually appealing characteristic, in a non-sexual context like she is browsing books in a library, and I react as I do, with the mental observation of “nice [sexually appealing characteristic]”. I don’t try to hit on her, since I am too old and too married, but I am having the objectifying thought nonetheless.

But I am polite, and I don’t stare or say anything or do anything to make her uncomfortable - I just appreciate. That is what I would call “being polite”, and I don’t see how that harms her. Or I don’t see how the harm is avoidable.

I don’t see how it harms her either, unless of course you are letting your “appreciation” impair your ability to cope with whatever non-sexual role she may be engaged in.

Namely, if you’re just a discreet peek-sneaking bystander mentally and undetectably objectifying a fellow library browser, that’s one thing. But if, say, you’re interviewing candidates for a job in the library, and your “appreciation” of one of them is so distracting that all you remember about her is her great [sexually appealing characteristic], then arguably your reaction is harming her even if you managed to keep her from being aware of it or feeling uncomfortable about it.

In circumstances like that, you don’t get to just shrug and say “oh well, the male brain is wired that way and the harm is unavoidable”. If sexually objectifying women gets in the way of your interacting appropriately with women in non-sexual contexts, then you should be removed from your interviewing job (or whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing in those contexts) in favor of somebody who can handle such situations more competently.

[MrDibble]

Note that the idea that men are more visually stimulated than women might not be accurate at all. Men might just be more willing to say so:
[INDENT]In conclusion, the present study provides comprehensive metaanalytic evidence that the neurocircuitries associated with sexual arousal do not differ in men and women independent of their sexual orientation. Visual sexual stimuli induce activation in the same cortical and subcortical regions in both men and women, while the limited sex differences that have been found and reported previously refer to subjective rating of the content.[/INDENT]

Intuitively, this is also borne out by our lack of strong sexual dimporphism.

[Kobal2]

@Kimstu

Well, sexual objectification is built into the human brain, and in fact into the brains of all species that practice sexual selection. Why are, e.g., male birds and fish growing all those colorful fins and feathers and so forth except to stimulate female birds and fish into regarding them as sex objects?

I think you’re missing the salient point. Objectification doesn’t lie with considering people as potential sexual partners ; but rather exclusively (or primarily) as sexual partners/eye candy. The notion that your sexual attraction to someone overrides other context between the two of you.

[Max_S]

@Kobal2

I think you’re missing the salient point. Objectification doesn’t lie with considering people as potential sexual partners ; but rather exclusively (or primarily) as sexual partners/eye candy. The notion that your sexual attraction to someone overrides other context between the two of you.

Actually I think Kimstu addressed that in the second half of the post.

~Max

[Urbanredneck]

Related to the topic:

Episode of Mythbusters where they prove that a woman having larger breasts can earn bigger tips at a coffee shop.

Funny thing is they find out even women tip a large chested woman more.

[Max_S]

@Urbanredneck

Related to the topic:

Episode of Mythbusters where they prove that a woman having larger breasts can earn bigger tips at a coffee shop.

Funny thing is they find out even women tip a large chested woman more.

To bring this on topic, what do you think are the psychological, philosophical, or moral implications of adjusting the waitress’s tip on account of her breast size? Do you think that is sexual objectification?

And of course, Mythbusters did not undertake a rigorous study. The clip linked shows one female barista collecting tips over three days, working the same shift with the same clothes. The first two days she collected $72 with an average of 90c per customer. The third day she augmented her breast size and collected $98 with an average of $1.23 per customer.

I mean, that is trivially a scientific experiment; but without many, many more trials I wouldn’t use Mythbusters to support wide reaching psychological, philosophical, or moral propositions.

~Max