If you’re a girl who objectifies good-looking men, then you’ll be interested to visit TubeCrush.net, which features photos of hot-looking guys taken surreptitiously as they ride the London Underground. And if you’re a guy (and my hand is raised) and you think it’s hilarious to read photo captions salivating over a guy who “reminds us of one of those Action man/Ken dolls you see in the shop. He looks very fit and clean in his box, but you just want to get him out, play with him and make him dirty,” then you’ll be interested in the site, too.
Oh, and if you think objectifying men is just as bad as objectifying women, then you’ll probably be up in arms.
*Sigh*
Let’s be honest, men will never, ever, in a million years have it as bad as women when it comes to sexual objectification. The overwhelming majority of men, I imagine, would be honored (if slightly startled) that a woman had seen fit to take his picture on public transportation and send it into a website for publication. It’s just so outside the usual male experience.
Does this represent a double standard? Sure. But is it mostly harmless? Absolutely.
Salon.com’s Tracy Clark-Flory tackled some of the women’s issues with TubeCrush.net:
I bristle at the suggestion that women who sexually objectify men are necessarily “copying” mainstream male sexuality (maybe they’re, I dunno, expressing how they really feel). In fact, I’m often tempted to celebrate mildly piggish female behavior—to a point—just because it at least contradicts the stereotype that female sexuality is adequately represented by, say, Twilight fan-fiction. (And isn’t fan-fiction just another mode of objectification, anyway?) I also happen to think that sexual objectification isn’t always a bad thing; it’s all about context and consent…It’s also interesting to think about the difference between candid shots taken for a street-style fashion blog versus a sexy-person-on-the-train blog: Why does the former seem so much more innocuous and reasonably objectifying?
As someone who falls drastically short of George Clooney in the looks department, I don’t have to concern myself with the possibility of turning up on a website like TubeCrush.net. Too bad. Otherwise I might get treated to the following kind of caption, which describes the guy in the photo at the top of the story:
Date: 9th May 2011
Line: Piccadilly Line
Submitted By: Binky (we hope this is your real name)
Well Binky managed to make it out of Chelsea and on to the tube to find this prime cut of footballing beef. We would say he is the Chateaubriand of Tube Crushes, and would suggest that he is probably best served medium rare, with just a little pink on the inside.
The Chateaubriand of Tube Crushes. Come on, that’s awesome.
Women, it appears, aren’t the only ones who enjoy this site. As someone named “Tom” commented on one photo: “The “A” train in New York NEVER has anybody this sexy!!!”
Well, Tom, maybe somebody should start a website called NYCtraincrush.net. After all, guys in New York deserve to be objectified, too.
(Related article: Hot Guys Reading Books GMPM)
About Cam Martin
Vocalyze
A group of women once gathered on the sidewalk in Paris and hooted and whistled at male passers-by.
They were not only startled, but most looked downright scared.
It’s laughable that women find these men studmuffins. We men are much, much worse. You wouldn’t want to see our pictures. Hee, hee
Because hypocrisy is always amusing and harmless.
It is only viewed as harmless because people view women’s desires as harmless. I think most men would be startled and annoyed that a bunch of shiftless women went around taking pictures of them. The underlying assumption here is that men so want sexual attention from women that they have zero boundaries. That is just not true. And keep in mind the reason this is considered wrong when men do it has nothing to do with direct harm caused to the person. After all, the men are not touching the women or bothering them in any manner. However, they are using women’s images for their sexual gratification without the women’s consent. If it is wrong for men to do it, then it is wrong for women to do it as well. The notion that it is cute, endearing, or different is just a half-assed excuse.
More bait and switch.
The overwhelming majority of men, I imagine, would be honored (if slightly startled) that a woman had seen fit to take his picture on public transportation and send it into a website for publication. It’s just so outside the usual male experience.
Does this represent a double standard? Sure. But is it mostly harmless? Absolutely.
Way to decide for all us (despite the “overwheliming majority of men” quantifier) that such treatment would be harmless.
Let’s be honest, men will never, ever, in a million years have it as bad as women when it comes to sexual objectification.
Once again you’re using the “but women have it worse” argument to try to counter the validity of complaints. Meanwhile this type of argument is supposedly okay while the folks that would try to say its just as bad would be wrong. So its wrong for someone to attempt to make the equivalency but its okay to preemptively accuse people of making the equivalency in order to shut them out?
Well Binky managed to make it out of Chelsea and on to the tube to find this prime cut of footballing beef. We would say he is the Chateaubriand of Tube Crushes, and would suggest that he is probably best served medium rare, with just a little pink on the inside.
No that would not be awesome that would be f’d up. Well awesome for you maybe. And that’s cool but that doesn’t make it okay to try to say that such things are harmless for everyone. I’m pretty sure most of the people here would agree that talking about a woman (most women anyway) would be wrong. Come on, literally talking about him as if he is a cut of meat? One main reason I have for not talking about women and men like that is because I wouldn’t want anyone talking about me like that.
Just to clarify:
I’m pretty sure most of the people here would agree that talking about a woman (most women anyway) would be wrong.
Should be:
I’m pretty sure most of the people here would agree that talking about a woman (most women anyway) in that manner would be wrong.
People who find Steven Greenstreet’s “Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street” appalling while at the same time thinks the TubeCrush.net are A-OK and great are plain hypocrites and shouldn’t be taken seriously in this matter.
Neither the men nor the women of those sites have consented to have their pictures published on that consent. The fact that some arbitrary percent of the men and the women would consent to have their pictures published in such a consent gives no-one the right to assume that all of them would.
What the h*ll does this article do on GMP? Is accepting hypocrisy in disfavour of men a requirement of being a good man?
I mistyped consent instead of context two places in my above comment. Replace where appropriate. The location of the mistyped are left as an exercise for the reader.
I find this kind of horrifying, mainly because I definitely would NOT be okay with someone posting my picture on the Internet without my consent and discussing me as though as I’m a piece of meat. This kind of objectification might be outside the usual male experience, but that doesn’t make it cute or flattering or funny. It’s still a clear-cut double standard.
If you are interested in empowering the voices of women visit http://themanhuntproject.com today and post your comments.