Freethought & Rationalism Archive

luvluv · 06-22-2002, 07:05 AM

I realize I am opening an enormous can of worms here, but there some ideas I would like to explore. There is some offensive language in the coming paragraphs. I offer this as a warning. The language is purposefully blunt to make the point, but if the language is unacceptable to the moderators, I will edit it (or the moderators will).

Firstly, I would like to state my firm belief that the objectification of women as sexual objects constitutes the primary form for their exploitation, and that the perception of women as sexual objects is the pretext for discrimination against women in society at large. I therefore see the feminist agenda as tied inexorably to the elimination of the idea of a woman as a sexual object.

There are, however, many women who believe that women who submit to being objectified are, in some sense, empowered. They believe that objectification (in pornography, or in a strip club) is a way for women to "claim" the sexuality that has been denied them by men who in former ages forcibly restrained the sexual behavior of women.

I propose that the objectification of women forms a hard barrier between women and the true possession of sexual freedom. I propose that to the extent that women are objectified, they are prevented from coming into a real possession (perhaps the better word would be expression) of their sexuality.

There seem to be some women who, inexplicably, see the objectification of women as being a keystone to the expression of their sexuality. If it cannot be proposed that some women ENJOY their objectification, then apparently, women cannot enjoy their sexuality either. I do not simply propose that the two things (objectification and sexuality) are separate, I propose them as being mutually exclusive. To the extent that a person, in the act of sex, ceases to be a unique human being, with a real history, real emotions, real intentions, the extent that they become a body ONLY, to the extent that they are themselves merely the APPARATUS of someone else's gratification... it is to precisely to that extent that they cease to be involved in their sexuality at all.

Women can only come in to possession of their sexuality by first coming into possesion of THEMSELVES. To posses themselves, they cannot submit to being the bit players in someone else's fantasies. After all, to be objectified is to become a thing that is useful only in it's utility to another person. A thing can have no value in itself, it is valuable solely to the extent that it gratifies it's user. A thing can possess nothing, and therefore it cannot possess itself.

I come to a parallel on which I have some authority, or at least experience, to speak. African-Americans had, initially, the same problem in their initial attempts to establish a true identity for themselves. It was definitely true that some blacks so no other way to survive other than to attempt to embody the the image of the nigger: the ignorant, servile beast of burden fit only for work. To refuse to be a nigger, furthermore, was to place oneself in peril. For a slave or a sharecropper to assert that he was not a nigger, and to state that a nigger, furthermore, has never truly existed and was solely an invention of the American mind; was at various points in our countries history suicidal. Nevertheless, blacks in their struggle for freedom had to develop an organized opposition to the temptation to regard oneself as society regarded you. They knew of the primary importance of self-definition in the defeat of racism. For that reason they devloped the theory of Uncle-Tomism. They reserved their most fervent disapproval not for whites who called him a nigger, but for the black man who, for money or for safety, decided to act as if he really was a nigger.

I suggest a similar concern needs to be developed for women. A man should not even be able to get to a woman to question her decision to objectify herself: she should be already surronded by women taking her to task for playing the part of the whore.

It is equally self-destructive for women to seek to step into and embody the image of the whore as it was for African-Americans to seek to step into and embody the image of the nigger. To the extent that a black man ceases to even embody the nigger, even when it is convenient (as it occasionally still is) that is the extent to which that black man is free. For women to be free, they must refuse that a whore HAS EVER EXISTED, they must see it for what it is, a creation made by men in their desire to dominate and exploit. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a woman who really was, at bottom, a whore. There have only been women who, through force or through desperation, have allowed themselves to be treated as such, and who more tragically, have come to believe that they are such.

It is on these grounds that I have objected to pornography, and on these grounds, fantastically, that I have been accused of being a mysoginist. I love women and I want women to love themselves, and I see their refusal of their objectification as being unavoidable if they are to be free. I do not want to control women, I want women to be free from the image of themselves as a sexual object... because it is that image which controls so many of them. Far from wanting to control women, I believe that the abandonment of that image is the only way they will truly be free.

luvluv · 06-22-2002, 07:08 AM

Boy, I'm going to get banned.

seebs · 06-22-2002, 07:13 AM

I dunno, luvluv. I can't get away from the observation that, as long as sex is a physical act, it involves, at some level, interacting with the partner's physical nature. "physical nature" and "object" are close enough in meaning to be hard to separate out.

I think what you're trying to get at is the decision to view someone as *exclusively* an object in some context... Yes?

Anyway, I don't think this is all one-sided; consider, for a moment, the number of men in porn flicks who are never shown above the waist at all.

And yes, I generally agree that treating anyone as an object, and nothing more, is a bad thing. I'm not sure I would agree that any circumstance where someone is treated "as an object" is immoral; if nothing else, having someone hold something for you while you do something requiring both hands is, in a meaningful sense, treating the person as an object.

I think consent is a bigger part of this than you're giving it credit for.

(I would be very disappointed if you were banned for that post, BTW; it strikes me as appropriate.)

crab juice · 06-22-2002, 08:01 AM

Quote:

I love women and I want women to love themselves, and I see their refusal of their objectification as being unavoidable if they are to be free.

Hmm, I love women too and I see their being able to decide to be objectified as unavoidable if they are to be free. I would much prefer men to go to strip clubs and rent porn than have them catcall women on the streets. Would you have us all wearing hajibs, to avoid accidentally inflaming male lust, or to prevent us from purposefully flaunting ourselves? Or should we go all the way and step into burqas?

Your respect for women seems only to go as far as their agreement with your moral standards.

luvluv · 06-22-2002, 08:01 AM

"I dunno, luvluv. I can't get away from the observation that, as long as sex is a physical act, it involves, at some level, interacting with the partner's physical nature. "physical nature" and "object" are close enough in meaning to be hard to separate out."

Yes, certainly sex is a physical act but it is also an intimate one, occuring between persons. In my own definition, sex should only occur between people who want to know each other.

"Anyway, I don't think this is all one-sided; consider, for a moment, the number of men in porn flicks who are never shown above the waist at all."

Certainly but I wouldn't consider them as objectified to the same extent. They are treated more as a necessary pretext to the primary goal of objectifying the woman. He is Everyman.

"if nothing else, having someone hold something for you while you do something requiring both hands is, in a meaningful sense, treating the person as an object."

But it is not constructing a social mythology that their only, or their best function, is to hold things for you. The objectification is ever-present in our society; it's on television, in magazines, films, women are surronded by images of them that states that their highest achievement consists in being considered sexually attractive.

"I think consent is a bigger part of this than you're giving it credit for."

I don't know how women can consent with the overall projection that they are sexual objects. That is the decision of the advertising executives and other institutional powers that exist largely outside of the control of the individual woman. Her consent in that context is not required. Furthermore, when a single woman consents to being made into an object, other women who did not give their consent are caught up in that decision. That there is an abundance of women who consent to being objectified is often translated into the belief on the parts of men that all women are objects. Further, even if one consents to be objectified that does not make objectification a good thing. I could consent to being treated like a nigger, but that would not excuse someone treating me as a nigger... it would only be a testament to my lack of self-respect.

If you are talking about consent to being used in pornography, I think consent has nothing to do with the destructive power of objectification. If you mean consent between committed partners, sex games and the like, then yes I agree that consent could eliminate the destructive content. But in the context of sex games both partners know that it is a game, one does not consider one's body a commodity to be bought and sold and even, temporarily, OWNED, by the consumer. When one sells one's body to someone solely on the basis of monetary gains, one has become a commodity, a thing. When lovers play games, they never become commodities.

"(I would be very disappointed if you were banned for that post, BTW; it strikes me as appropriate.)"

Thanks I was kind of starting to feel like an a-hole for posting it. If it gets too ugly I'm just going to delete it, but I hope we can talk about it without it getting to that point.

luvluv · 06-22-2002, 08:04 AM

"I would much prefer men to go to strip clubs and rent porn than have them catcall women on the streets"

I would suggest that strip clubs and pornography REINFORCE the view of women that makes it possible for men to catcall women on the streets. I would further suggest that the people who go to strip clubs are the SAME PEOPLE who catcall women in the street. I see no evidence that pornography and strip clubs reduce the amount of catcalling on the street level. I want both catcalling and strip clubs done away with, I want us to see women primarily as people and treat them with respect. I see their objectification as an obstacle to that.

bonduca · 06-22-2002, 08:10 AM

Would you define the "sexual freedom" that you would ideally like women to attain?

luvluv · 06-22-2002, 08:21 AM

I also want to discuss how even our modern day vernacular surronding the sex act reduces the intimate expression of sexuality to the exchange of a commodity.

People often refer to their sexual explotations in, to quote John F. Kavanaugh, "thingnified" terms: "I hit IT" "She gave IT up", "I gave him A PIECE". People don't even refer to sex as giving themselves to another person, or as another person giving themselves to them. In objectifying sex we inevitably reduce it. People who call for sex to be, in it's best form, an act between people who desire intimacy with each other, are not anti-sex they are pro-sex.

I say this because I want to explore the concept of "compartmentalization". People operate under the notion that they can commit their bodies to a task while totally excluding or protecting their souls (or for those who object to that term, their emotions) from that same physical task. I propose that THIS ACT is much more an act of repression than the repression advocates of marriage are accused of. It is emotional repression. I suggest also that this is impossible. It was impossible for black slaves to completely divorce their forced labor from their concept of themselves: through being forced to do beastly work, many of them began to consider themselves to be beasts of burden. Degrading work, degrading use of one's physical body, effects the emotions. Any attempt to shield oneself from this fact can only be achieved by the repression of your emotional self, which in my mind is more damaging than the repression of your sexuality.

Further, the notion that one can "compartmentalize" oneself further reinforces the conception of oneself as an object. Only objects can be seprated and then returned to a state of wholeness. Persons cannot be taken apart, or take themselves apart, and remain whole.

Sexuality is not the giving of "it" or a "piece", it is in it's best form the giving, freely, of onself.

The Other Michael · 06-22-2002, 08:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
<strong>Boy, I'm going to get banned.</strong>

Hi luvluv,

Speaking "ex cathedra" from under my shiny new moderator (3rd class) hat, I don't see any problem with your post in re being banned.

Thank you for warning people at the beginning that you were going to use terminology that you thought might be offensive.

However, I think the context is appropriate for the term - you are certainly not (IMO) using it to denigrate an individual or class of individuals, or in an ad hominem attack, but rather as a descriptive device.

You claim some experience or authority at the beginning of paragraph seven - you might want to bolster that claim with some facts/background.

The above is in no way an endorsement for the arguments you are putting forth - just that I don't think you've overstepped the bounds of propriety in presenting them.

But if my fellow(ette) MF&P moderators strongly disagree with me you might want to start looking for some padding for the rail we have handy to use for running you out of town.

cheers,
Michael

[ June 22, 2002: Message edited by: The Other Michael ]</p>

luvluv · 06-22-2002, 08:24 AM

bonduca:

I would like women to consider themselves as people, who are not ashamed of or alienated from their sexual selves. I don't want them to be defined by their sexuality but at the same time I don't want them denied it. I want all people to realize that sex is a part of the relationship between two people. It is not a commodity to be sold or to be degraded or taken advantage of. I don't want women to be frigid or virgins, I want them to enjoy their sexuality but to reserve it for people they care about and who care about them. Anything less degrades them, their partner, and the act.

06-22-2002, 07:05 AM	#1
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	On the objectification of women I realize I am opening an enormous can of worms here, but there some ideas I would like to explore. There is some offensive language in the coming paragraphs. I offer this as a warning. The language is purposefully blunt to make the point, but if the language is unacceptable to the moderators, I will edit it (or the moderators will). Firstly, I would like to state my firm belief that the objectification of women as sexual objects constitutes the primary form for their exploitation, and that the perception of women as sexual objects is the pretext for discrimination against women in society at large. I therefore see the feminist agenda as tied inexorably to the elimination of the idea of a woman as a sexual object. There are, however, many women who believe that women who submit to being objectified are, in some sense, empowered. They believe that objectification (in pornography, or in a strip club) is a way for women to "claim" the sexuality that has been denied them by men who in former ages forcibly restrained the sexual behavior of women. I propose that the objectification of women forms a hard barrier between women and the true possession of sexual freedom. I propose that to the extent that women are objectified, they are prevented from coming into a real possession (perhaps the better word would be expression) of their sexuality. There seem to be some women who, inexplicably, see the objectification of women as being a keystone to the expression of their sexuality. If it cannot be proposed that some women ENJOY their objectification, then apparently, women cannot enjoy their sexuality either. I do not simply propose that the two things (objectification and sexuality) are separate, I propose them as being mutually exclusive. To the extent that a person, in the act of sex, ceases to be a unique human being, with a real history, real emotions, real intentions, the extent that they become a body ONLY, to the extent that they are themselves merely the APPARATUS of someone else's gratification... it is to precisely to that extent that they cease to be involved in their sexuality at all. Women can only come in to possession of their sexuality by first coming into possesion of THEMSELVES. To posses themselves, they cannot submit to being the bit players in someone else's fantasies. After all, to be objectified is to become a thing that is useful only in it's utility to another person. A thing can have no value in itself, it is valuable solely to the extent that it gratifies it's user. A thing can possess nothing, and therefore it cannot possess itself. I come to a parallel on which I have some authority, or at least experience, to speak. African-Americans had, initially, the same problem in their initial attempts to establish a true identity for themselves. It was definitely true that some blacks so no other way to survive other than to attempt to embody the the image of the nigger: the ignorant, servile beast of burden fit only for work. To refuse to be a nigger, furthermore, was to place oneself in peril. For a slave or a sharecropper to assert that he was not a nigger, and to state that a nigger, furthermore, has never truly existed and was solely an invention of the American mind; was at various points in our countries history suicidal. Nevertheless, blacks in their struggle for freedom had to develop an organized opposition to the temptation to regard oneself as society regarded you. They knew of the primary importance of self-definition in the defeat of racism. For that reason they devloped the theory of Uncle-Tomism. They reserved their most fervent disapproval not for whites who called him a nigger, but for the black man who, for money or for safety, decided to act as if he really was a nigger. I suggest a similar concern needs to be developed for women. A man should not even be able to get to a woman to question her decision to objectify herself: she should be already surronded by women taking her to task for playing the part of the whore. It is equally self-destructive for women to seek to step into and embody the image of the whore as it was for African-Americans to seek to step into and embody the image of the nigger. To the extent that a black man ceases to even embody the nigger, even when it is convenient (as it occasionally still is) that is the extent to which that black man is free. For women to be free, they must refuse that a whore HAS EVER EXISTED, they must see it for what it is, a creation made by men in their desire to dominate and exploit. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a woman who really was, at bottom, a whore. There have only been women who, through force or through desperation, have allowed themselves to be treated as such, and who more tragically, have come to believe that they are such. It is on these grounds that I have objected to pornography, and on these grounds, fantastically, that I have been accused of being a mysoginist. I love women and I want women to love themselves, and I see their refusal of their objectification as being unavoidable if they are to be free. I do not want to control women, I want women to be free from the image of themselves as a sexual object... because it is that image which controls so many of them. Far from wanting to control women, I believe that the abandonment of that image is the only way they will truly be free.

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06-22-2002, 07:08 AM	#2
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	Boy, I'm going to get banned.

06-22-2002, 07:13 AM	#3
seebs Contributor Join Date: May 2002 Location: Saint Paul, MN Posts: 24,524	I dunno, luvluv. I can't get away from the observation that, as long as sex is a physical act, it involves, at some level, interacting with the partner's physical nature. "physical nature" and "object" are close enough in meaning to be hard to separate out. I think what you're trying to get at is the decision to view someone as exclusively an object in some context... Yes? Anyway, I don't think this is all one-sided; consider, for a moment, the number of men in porn flicks who are never shown above the waist at all. And yes, I generally agree that treating anyone as an object, and nothing more, is a bad thing. I'm not sure I would agree that any circumstance where someone is treated "as an object" is immoral; if nothing else, having someone hold something for you while you do something requiring both hands is, in a meaningful sense, treating the person as an object. I think consent is a bigger part of this than you're giving it credit for. (I would be very disappointed if you were banned for that post, BTW; it strikes me as appropriate.)

06-22-2002, 08:01 AM	#5
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	"I dunno, luvluv. I can't get away from the observation that, as long as sex is a physical act, it involves, at some level, interacting with the partner's physical nature. "physical nature" and "object" are close enough in meaning to be hard to separate out." Yes, certainly sex is a physical act but it is also an intimate one, occuring between persons. In my own definition, sex should only occur between people who want to know each other. "Anyway, I don't think this is all one-sided; consider, for a moment, the number of men in porn flicks who are never shown above the waist at all." Certainly but I wouldn't consider them as objectified to the same extent. They are treated more as a necessary pretext to the primary goal of objectifying the woman. He is Everyman. "if nothing else, having someone hold something for you while you do something requiring both hands is, in a meaningful sense, treating the person as an object." But it is not constructing a social mythology that their only, or their best function, is to hold things for you. The objectification is ever-present in our society; it's on television, in magazines, films, women are surronded by images of them that states that their highest achievement consists in being considered sexually attractive. "I think consent is a bigger part of this than you're giving it credit for." I don't know how women can consent with the overall projection that they are sexual objects. That is the decision of the advertising executives and other institutional powers that exist largely outside of the control of the individual woman. Her consent in that context is not required. Furthermore, when a single woman consents to being made into an object, other women who did not give their consent are caught up in that decision. That there is an abundance of women who consent to being objectified is often translated into the belief on the parts of men that all women are objects. Further, even if one consents to be objectified that does not make objectification a good thing. I could consent to being treated like a nigger, but that would not excuse someone treating me as a nigger... it would only be a testament to my lack of self-respect. If you are talking about consent to being used in pornography, I think consent has nothing to do with the destructive power of objectification. If you mean consent between committed partners, sex games and the like, then yes I agree that consent could eliminate the destructive content. But in the context of sex games both partners know that it is a game, one does not consider one's body a commodity to be bought and sold and even, temporarily, OWNED, by the consumer. When one sells one's body to someone solely on the basis of monetary gains, one has become a commodity, a thing. When lovers play games, they never become commodities. "(I would be very disappointed if you were banned for that post, BTW; it strikes me as appropriate.)" Thanks I was kind of starting to feel like an a-hole for posting it. If it gets too ugly I'm just going to delete it, but I hope we can talk about it without it getting to that point.

06-22-2002, 08:04 AM	#6
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	"I would much prefer men to go to strip clubs and rent porn than have them catcall women on the streets" I would suggest that strip clubs and pornography REINFORCE the view of women that makes it possible for men to catcall women on the streets. I would further suggest that the people who go to strip clubs are the SAME PEOPLE who catcall women in the street. I see no evidence that pornography and strip clubs reduce the amount of catcalling on the street level. I want both catcalling and strip clubs done away with, I want us to see women primarily as people and treat them with respect. I see their objectification as an obstacle to that.

06-22-2002, 08:10 AM	#7
bonduca Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: . Posts: 1,653	Would you define the "sexual freedom" that you would ideally like women to attain?

06-22-2002, 08:21 AM	#8
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	I also want to discuss how even our modern day vernacular surronding the sex act reduces the intimate expression of sexuality to the exchange of a commodity. People often refer to their sexual explotations in, to quote John F. Kavanaugh, "thingnified" terms: "I hit IT" "She gave IT up", "I gave him A PIECE". People don't even refer to sex as giving themselves to another person, or as another person giving themselves to them. In objectifying sex we inevitably reduce it. People who call for sex to be, in it's best form, an act between people who desire intimacy with each other, are not anti-sex they are pro-sex. I say this because I want to explore the concept of "compartmentalization". People operate under the notion that they can commit their bodies to a task while totally excluding or protecting their souls (or for those who object to that term, their emotions) from that same physical task. I propose that THIS ACT is much more an act of repression than the repression advocates of marriage are accused of. It is emotional repression. I suggest also that this is impossible. It was impossible for black slaves to completely divorce their forced labor from their concept of themselves: through being forced to do beastly work, many of them began to consider themselves to be beasts of burden. Degrading work, degrading use of one's physical body, effects the emotions. Any attempt to shield oneself from this fact can only be achieved by the repression of your emotional self, which in my mind is more damaging than the repression of your sexuality. Further, the notion that one can "compartmentalize" oneself further reinforces the conception of oneself as an object. Only objects can be seprated and then returned to a state of wholeness. Persons cannot be taken apart, or take themselves apart, and remain whole. Sexuality is not the giving of "it" or a "piece", it is in it's best form the giving, freely, of onself.

06-22-2002, 08:24 AM	#10
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	bonduca: I would like women to consider themselves as people, who are not ashamed of or alienated from their sexual selves. I don't want them to be defined by their sexuality but at the same time I don't want them denied it. I want all people to realize that sex is a part of the relationship between two people. It is not a commodity to be sold or to be degraded or taken advantage of. I don't want women to be frigid or virgins, I want them to enjoy their sexuality but to reserve it for people they care about and who care about them. Anything less degrades them, their partner, and the act.

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