Sexual Objectification
I wanted to post only after I finished up my new layout for the website (for some reason, it’s a brilliant shade of purple), but there’s this really pressing issue that’s been on my mind for some time, specifically the issue of sexual objectification. For all my feminist foot-stomping and expressions of disgust at how males have managed to internalize such notions, the same can be said for females, quite frankly.
Female-oriented (or any least, populated) communities seem to be the worst offenders of this. Any photo of a male celebrity would always be followed up with someone saying ‘I’d hit that’ and another swarm of other females agreeing, openly discussing their sexual fantasies with each other (also, Yahtzee). No one calls them on it, and yet these very females get on cases where males start saying the exact same things when presented with a female celebrity.
Of course, the usual arguments can be thrown around - females have every right to boggle at men’s bodies, females have had a history of oppression so we’re entitled to have revenge, the guys can do it so WHAI CANT I - but this isn’t about gender equality. This is about sexual objectification, in and of itself, employed by both genders. I personally find sexual objectification abhorrent, in all forms, male or female. I don’t support one or the other, and yes, I do condone my gender for it.
Just because women has had a history of oppression doesn’t mean we can subscribe to the same things men did. Frankly, I don’t think that this is even a valid psychological reason for the sudden surge of male objectification - it’s just another kneejerk “politically correct” answer as to why female objectification is condoned and yet male objectification is accepted. I frankly don’t think feministic revenge goes through the minds of 15 year olds when typing out ‘I WANT TO DO BAD THINGS TO THIS MAN’ on the Internet.
Perhaps the female sex drive was greater than I assumed. Perhaps I did subscribe to some form of projection bias; I don’t see the sexual attraction in men, I don’t gush on end, and therefore the rest of the female population have the same beliefs as I do. I’m wrong, obviously, but that doesn’t make sexual objectification any more right.
Should men be honoured by their sexual objectification status in the female community? With the evidence that men think about sex more often than females, it feels like men wouldn’t be as insulted as women are. But I’m not a man, so I don’t know. Maybe Johnny Depp does take comfort knowing that he’s in the sexual fantasies of prepubescent girls everywhere.
