This is a comment by Quadruple A on the post “Too Much Ado About Women’s Asses – Equity Doesn’t Enter Into the Picture“.
Joanna Schroeder originally said:
“Objectification is natural, it’s even necessary. If you feel desire over Ryan Lochte’s appearance, you’re naturally going to make an object of desire out of him – because he can’t be more to you. You can’t know him, you can’t build a solid foundation of friendship or love with him. This is normal behavior.”
Quadruple A responded:
Well we might all tend to ‘objectify’ persons to some degree. And whether we admit it or not when we appreciate beauty we do perceive a ‘more’ to it. That is really what we are expressing when we say ‘beauty’ in the first place because beauty implies some kind of ‘meaningfulness’ which is more than just saying ‘that appearance is pleasant to my tastes.’ We sense that physical beauty symbolizes an inner more imperceptible quality.
“Whether or not that quality implies some kind of limitation on the freedom of an individual obviously is a question of some not inconsiderable concern but the fact is that is how we perceive beauty. I think this appreciation for beauty can be appreciated by both sexes with regard to both sexes but there is a particularly different way in which female beauty is appreciated.”
Photo credit: Flickr / roland.lakis
I don’t objectify women. I consume magazines that have photographs of women, and photographs are objects. The camera does the objectifying, not me. : – ) Seriously, though, I’m still unclear on the boundaries here between objectifying and not objectifying. I’m not sure what it would look like to be physically attracted to someone, enjoy the appearance of that person, and even have a sexual fantasy about that person without objectifying that person to some degree. If objectification means *reducing* someone to being an object and only an object, then that is very dehumanizing, but also an extreme case. This… Read more »
I haven’t worked out the terms just yet, but I would make a distinction between “mild” objectification and “severe” objectification. (That makes it sound like acne or something. I welcome suggestions for better terms.) Mild, run-of-the-mill objectification is simply noticing physical features and letting that influence your thoughts about that person in any way. It is not incompatible with seeing that person as a human being or treating that person with basic respect. It could just be a matter of not knowing anything about a person besides what they look like, because you know that person by sight before anything… Read more »
What you call ‘mild objectification’ I wouldn’t consider to be objectification at all. Noticing a person’s attractive parts is normal and great! It’s presenting parts without a person attached that is a problem.
This is the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4zSRkBMPng
That video has nothing to do with the quote. It’s stuff about how nice guys don’t get laid. It is spam.
Didn’t Joanna Schroeder make the original comment attributed here to Austin Gunter?
Oh, good catch! Sorry about that. I thought you were quoting the original article. I’ve updated it to reflect the correct author.
Thanks!