I don’t think there’s any word more commonly misunderstood in feminist discourse– both by feminists and non-feminists– than objectification. This annoys me, because it’s actually a really useful concept.
Most important misunderstanding: objectification is not a synonym for attraction. Let me say that in shouty letters. OBJECTIFICATION IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR ATTRACTION. Feminists (at least, the sort I want to associate with) have nothing against attraction, not even the attraction of men for women. They’re against treating people like objects! A few moment’s reflection can see that those are two fundamentally different things.
For instance, consider a non-sexual example of objectification: the headless fatty phenomenon.
[A person with a belly whose head is cut out of the picture. I looked up 'Obesity Epidemic' on Google News and this was the illustration of literally the second article. The first was illustrated with doughnuts.]
“Headless fatties” are used to illustrate articles about obesity. Instead of presenting fat people as a diverse group with a variety of reasons for being obese and a bunch of interests, personality traits, and desires that are entirely unrelated to their weight, headless fatty pictures erase the humanity of fat people and reduce them to a single thing– their number on a scale. Instead of being, say, my queer, agender friend who likes hippos and Supernatural and arguing about which Avengers ought to bang each other, they become simultaneously an object of scorn (“ugly, undesirable whales who don’t eat anything but potato chips amd never exercise except to pick up a remote”) and threat (“you might become one of these terrifying beast-monsters… at least, if you don’t buy our diet plan”). This is the rankest objectification… and it has nothing to do with sexual attraction! Rather the converse, in fact, as the alleged fact that no one wants sex with fat people (ha. ha. bloody. ha.) is used as a reason why one ought to dislike them.
So let’s consider the thornier issue of sexual objectification.
Not all erotic imagery is objectifying. For instance, (super NSFW) Sex Is Not The Enemy and Male Submission Art are full of erotic pictures where you get a sense that the people involved are, you know, people who have personalities and lives beyond being sexy. If you like artsier stuff, Robert Mapplethorpe’s pictures work too (Google at your own risk). Whatever. But compare with this picture:
[A conventionally attractive ass and pair of legs, presumably belonging to a woman. She has sparkly high heels and a black... skirt... underwear... pants... thing.]
Which is basically just “here are some sexy legs, buy our stuff.”
Now! Objectification is not necessarily a bad thing: you are probably going to treat the barista making your coffee at Starbucks as a Caffeinated Beverage Delivery Object, and that’s cool. Even sexual objectification is not necessarily a bad thing. If I see someone with a hot ass, I’m going to primarily think about their ass, and not their unique and authentic personhood. And, you know, if there were only a few ads that were objectifying and they used a variety of bodies, I wouldn’t really have a problem with it. You don’t always want to engage with the model’s personhood, sometimes you just want to see what the sexy shoes look like with some feet in.
But it’s not just a few ads.
[Conventionally attractive,woman in swimsuit covered with muck, with Wash Me written on her stomach like you do on a dirty car.]
[Headless conventionally attractive woman in lingerie. Caption: "Enhance your confidence, among other things."]
[Vacant-eyed conventionally-attractive woman in jeans, sparkly belt, white semi-transparent midriff-bearing shirt, and pink cutoff jacket.]
I’m not sure if I’m more disturbed by the ad that wanted to show the lady was confident without actually depicting her doing anything remotely confident (I mean, I know they want to show off the lingerie, but couldn’t she be seducing the guy she liked or something?), or the creepy vacant-eyed person biting their thumb at me. Seriously, I have only ever seen that expression on people on mega-doses of interesting psychedelics.
Anyway! The problem here is that the pervasiveness of the “women as sex objects” thing sends the following messages:
- Women are supposed to be sexually attractive. Sexually attractive men are impossible.
- Women are only valuable for being sexy. Sexiness is the only worthy goal for women to try to achieve. Sorry, ladies, no one is interested in your brains or personalities or Nobel Peace Prizes. They just like your boobs.
- The only sexually attractive women are thin, young, white, perky-breasted, feminine and otherwise conforming to our ten million arbitrary specifications.
- If you do not conform to the ten million arbitrary specifications, you are a failure as a woman.
These are pretty crap messages, I think everyone can agree!
So basically! If you’re one of those dudes who is all “my sexual desire is oppressing women!”, relax. Unless you think that women are primarily useful for sexual purposes (in which case GTFO my blog), it is cool to have sexual desires, to desire conventionally attractive women, and like porn. It is even cool to wank to objectifying imagery! It is not cool to make objectifying imagery that promotes crappy stereotypes, or to have the entire culture* only sexually objectify one rather tiny segment of the population. We cool?
So, to sum up:
1) Sexual desire =/= objectification.
2) Erotic or sexualized imagery =/= objectification.
3) Objectification =/= necessarily bad.
4) Objectification = treating people like objects instead of people.
*except Tumblr
About ozyfrantz
Ummm… a lot of pictures don’t show heads for privacy reasons. Sometimes the model doesn’t want to be identified. (For example, they don’t want to be famous, don’t want the image haunting their past, don’t want people who know them going “Just *why* did you pose for that? What’s wrong with you?” or “this could reflect badly on our image having someone who works for us doing that, so… fired!”, etc.) Also, occasionally the photographer doesn’t have permission to use a person’s image (especially in the case of random-person-off-the-streets shots), so they crop off the head, again, to keep the model from being easily identifiable, though probably that’s rather scummy. But either way, it’s not always about objectification.
I dunno, I think it’s hella creepy to take a picture of a random fat person off the street and use them to illustrate your post about the obesity epidemic. >.>
Also why it’s done and the effects of it are two different things, I think.
Yeah I HATE the random imagery like that, I’d rather they ask people or find models. Shouldn’t be that hard to find a model who’d be ok with taking a picture of their obesity as long as they remain anon, especially for money. They could have used my old body as long as I wasn’t identifiable, just gimme $$$$
“I dunno, I think it’s hella creepy to take a picture of a random fat person off the street ”
What makes you think it wasn’t a posed shot?
And anyway, privacy and objectification are two separate issues.
Um, I don’t think it’s about a privacy issue for the models. If that’s your justification for saying, “It’s not the culture, it’s the model being shy,” No. Look, girls are dying to break into this business, if one girl (who isn’t like a high-powered, uber-established name yet) stated, “I will only do this shoot if you don’t show my face,” And the ad agency/photographer wanted to show her face for their campaign, and the model refused? NEXT PLEASE! The majority of the time it IS about objectification, not all, but MOSTLY.
The reason why these ads are in women’s mags is to continue to feed the culture of insecurity that surrounds women. If only *thighs were thinner*I had bigger boobs*my stomach smaller*my eyelashes thicker* ETC ETC ETC. It keeps women in an insecure place so they feel like they *need* that eye cream, hair spray, perfume, shoes, wrinkle cream, lipstick, outfit, work out video, *whatever*. It reinforces that without >insert product here< we're just not cutting in it in the attractive department. And remember, being ATTRACTIVE AND SEXUALLY DESIRABLE is what it's all about (according to the ads).
Flip through one magazine and try to recognize the objectification. Once you have eyes for it, you'll notice it's overwhelmingly EVERYWHERE!
What always strikes me as odd is that the sexually objectifying images are often in magazines for women, magazines that few men tend to read so why are they portraying them so sexually? Is it to make the women think “Wow she is sexy, I want to be like that?”
Yes, and to buy the things in the ad.
Or perhaps “I know this is the kind of thing men go for, I want men to go for me, I should be like her”
I actually wanted to buy Steve Madden stuff as a teen, because the “objectified, super-skinny woman” in the ads was very obviously manipulated to a cartoonish degree, and I found it hilarious. The other ads for brand-name clothing just confused me. “Why doesn’t she have any muscles?”
Hilarious AND true!
Thank you Doug!
Pretty much. More of the Male Gaze and Myth of Men Not Being Hot. Sexually attractive men are pretty much relegated to homosexuality.
I don’t know if it’s ok to wank to objectifying imagery in the same sense as I don’t know if it’s ok to eat junk food. Like once in a while it can’t hurt, but ultimately you are what you eat and that goes double for behaviors with reward circuits reinforced by oxytocin (such as wankin’ it). I feel like it’s hard to be a good man when you are programming yourself to see every new female body primarily as just that, and not first and foremost a person.
Probably anyone who’s been around GMP a little has seen yourbrainonporn.com but if not check it out.
Sweet article, ozy!
“I don’t know if it’s ok to wank to objectifying imagery in the same sense as I don’t know if it’s ok to eat junk food. ”
Let me help you out here.
It’s OK to eat junk food.
I’ll let you figure out the rest for yourself.
Look… do you see women who are actually around you in your daily real life as “female bodies” or as people? Because that’s the basic issue here in my opinion. As long as you can seperate the narrative and aesthetic conventions of porn from your real life interactions with women, you’re doing just fine.
As always if you feel that masturbating to objectifiying imagery is a problem for you, go ahead and change your habits in any way that appeals to you. Or maybe have a talk about this with a counselor. But human brains are perfectly able to distinguish between fiction and nonfiction, so there’s no need to worry too much.
Given that Obama, Kissinger and some others got a Nobel Peace Prize, that’s not really an achievement
Other than that, I agree with your article. Thank you for it!
“Women are supposed to be sexually attractive. Sexually attractive men are impossible.”
You probably want to rethink this. Boys/men make up about 25% of people with eating disorders.
I actually met one recently, a fellow in his 20s. Rough stuff and as someone who has struggled long term with body issues I hate that it is infecting the younger set and boys. Makes me wonder what’s at the crux of it, sexual objectification or something else like general societal pressure to conform plus a culture that demonizes real pleasure is lieu of corporate fast food type hedonism while expecting a near totalitarian approach to beauty.
One possibility is the perception that an exemplary man can be attractive while most women already are. Also, there are plenty of nonsexual reasons for wanting to look good, whether ‘good’ is actually achievable or not.
I’ve heard that many people with the affliction are overachievers like A students so it may have something to do with trying to achieve perfection. Lucky for me, I’m a slacker, but then again that might be why I’m about 40 pounds higher than my BMI.
I”m sure that much of mine was due to overachieving, but was also part of a system where my mother placed an extremely high value on thinness, so much so that if I gained weight she was pretty awful about it. That and all the ballet classes. I was a good dancer but not “ballet beautiful” though thin, it was a heartbreak hearing that you weren’t worth much but your look. Whatever the reasons, its a shitty thing for men or women to go through, and I wish I wasn’t still influenced by how my body might look or what I might be eating.
My mother was the same. She couldn’t stand, and can’t stand to this date overweight people and she has been borderline anorexic her whole life. It was definitely a control thing for her. It was the one thing she could control in a life spent away from her family. She loved to say that being overweight was the triumph of greed over sanity… Imagine growing up in a house like that. Every meal has a judgement attached to it, good or bad, healthy, unhealthy.
I have never been overweight but I doubt I’ve gone a day without weighing myself, judging every meal I eat and feeling bad about even a tiny spoon of sugar in my coffee (why can’t I be like my Danish friends who drink it black!) etc. I have actually got a size 6/8 body, curvy in the right places but I mostly only feel good about my body when I’m drunk or playing sport where having a strong body is helpful! Logically I know I shouldn’t give myself such a hard time about it, i know that the stupid images i see on tv or in magazines are warping my expectations. I wouldn’t actually want to be more than 5 pounds thinner and yet I give myself such grief over a couple of pounds gain it’s ridiculous. In my head i have a number that if I hit (even at christmas or whenever) I cut out carbs til I get back under it. It could be a day or a week but carbs don’t pass my mouth. Ironically, whilst my mother hates fat she has always tried to feed me. Just this weekend she came to stay and has not stopped trying to get me to eat… She has a real love/hate relationship with me, i.e. she mostly hates me (!) so she probably wishes I were fat so in her eyes she’d have a real reason (in her eyes) to dislike me.
Judging women’s worth on their looks is one of the biggest reasons I am infinitely happy to have had boys not girls. This site is obviously mainly for men but I can’t overstate how much it sucks that women really are judged first and foremost on how they look. How would I teach a daughter to deal with that when I still at the age of 35 struggle with it?
Incidentally Julie I was a gymnast and by 11 was considered too big by my teachers. (mind you they could have been referring to the boobs that had come in!) It is hard as a young girl to be told that especially when I was thin, just not thin enough. I concentrated on tennis instead! Best move ever.
Ugh. My mom recently lost weight to get back down to the (healthier) size she’d been as a young woman, and now my size-6 ass gets told on a regular basis that “you need to exercise more, get your weight down.” Because my stomach protrudes a bit.
I have yet to find a young man who has a problem with that teensy bulge.
I’m sorry for your experience. Taste is such a wonderful sense and we only have a few that it’s almost a crime not to feel that you’re able to enjoy it. As I told Julie, I may have enjoyed mine just a tad too much. I would like to say that athletic women are hot. I’ve known quite a few female martial artists and they are also some of the hottest women I’ve seen. One of the ladies actually gained weight and dropped dress sizes.
Julie, I can empathize coming from similar “critiques” of my build vs my technique. The upshot was “too skinny for hip-hop, too much booty for ballet” .
Luckily, I eventually got to a place where I said, “Fuck it…I’ll do and enjoy both”.
Well I’m sure it matter for me anymore. I’ll dance if I want and I’m in my 40s so not many people are looking at me anyway!
From what I’ve heard about eating disorders, a lot if it has to do with control. The one thing that you have the most control over is your body, even if the control is self destructive.
As well, I’ve heard of anorexia being seen not as an attempt to be attractive but as a way of denying sexuality. Anorexic women lose the curves associated with femininity. Perhaps with men it’s a denial of brawn and muscularity?
I wiggled me rump and you all came running!
Objectify that!
I’ve always equated “objectification” with “fetishization”, but that’s another term that gets misconstrued a lot, and later I started thinking about objectification as a method of dehumanization. This is still a term that carries a negative connotation though, so the easiest way to discuss it, to my thinking, is to pint out the millions of people who objectify sports stars. This type of objectification turns a human being into something close to a worshiped idol. We don’t care what Wayne Rooney may have to say, we just want him to play spectacular football. We, in fact, expect anything he says to be rubbish, and only care that he perform feats we wish we could perform ourselves. If we are fans of is team, we may hang posters of him in our bedrooms, and if we are not fans, we might purchase the same posters to burn in effigy. In a lot of ways, the concept of “objectification” relates to the idea of monkeysphere (seriously, look it up). Unless we get to know someone personally, or at least engage in the illusion that we know them personally, ANYONE can be objectified, and in way more ways than just as sexual objects. This happens with more than simple images as well. Ask a teenager, any teenager, to do “sexy voice”, and I guarantee it comes out mostly the same way every time. In a way, objectification is a shorthand mechanism our brains use to navigate “knowing” too many people.
The words that I had come up with to describe this situation were “objectification” and “reductionist objectification.”
The idea being that, for sex to occur, at some point, both parties have to see each other as sexual objects, insofar as they have to see each other in a sexual fashion. This doesn’t really become bad unless it becomes reductionist, and all one or both parties see is the other person as a sexual object.
This actually isn’t even necessarily that bad if both parties are consenting to acts where connection beyond sex really aren’t needed. If it becomes chronic, unavoidable, or hinders the building of emotionally intimate relationships where emotionally intimate relationships are wanted then there is a definite problem.
Martin Buber, in his book I and Thou, makes it clear that we “objectify” or “treatment people as objects” all the time — and that there is not necessarily anything wrong with that. In his language, we all live in the
world of “I-It” and “I-Thou” is an event, an occurrence that sometimes happens in a relationship when I-Itness falls away and we find ourselves in a different type of “meeting” with an individual. I-Thou does not mean “treating someone like a person instead of an object.” That’s a misunderstanding of what Buber was trying to tell us. We treat others as objects all the time and there’s nothing we can do about that. When I go to the grocery story, I don’t have an “I-Thou” experience (at least in all likelihood) with the person who scans my groceries. When I take my car to a mechanic, I don’t have an I-Thou relationship with him or her. In fact, I don’t even want one. These people are “objects” in the sense that they are human beings who are performing a service for me, a service in which they also treat me as an “object” (known as a “customer”) and they benefit financially by their service. In terms of objectification of women by men, I think it’s possible to degrade a woman by treating her as an object. But we are hard-wired and programmed by evolution to find others attractive and sometimes those we don’t really know personally are even more attractive. (Think of the “new boy” or “new girl” in high school and the attention they often got, especially if they were somewhat attractive). I’m an ardent feminist and have been so for many years but I have always had difficulty understanding why a few feminists (certainly not all) get upset just because a man finds a woman or a picture or a video sexually arousing. I think this represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how we are all — women included, by the way — wired by evolution. Also, keep in mind that some men and some women actually enjoy “sexual games” that involve various forms of domination and submission. If those “games” were the reality of the relationship, they could be degrading and problematic. But as sexual games played only in the bedroom, they can be very arousing and contribute to the enjoyment of sexuality for some couples. Also, sexual fantasies shared by a couple can be very “objectifying” of
imagined “strangers” or whatever who have very “objectifying” sex with someone in the couple’s fantasy. My view is that our culture needs to loosen up a bit. I find it disturbing when certain feminists join with religious fundamentalists in our culture’s suppression of sexuality. Is it true that women (and men) can be treated in a degrading, inhuman manner in politics of sexuality? Absolutely. But simply being “turned on” by a person or a picture– whether male or female — is not, within itself, degrading. In my view, we need more acceptance and celebration of sexuality instead of the repressions that come in many forms — even from liberals at times.
I agree that we are hardwired to check people out, (both men and women, well i certainly do as a woman) however it becomes a problem when women (or men) who do not pass the initial test, i.e. are not attractive enough to necessarily ‘objectify’, are then dismissed as not being worth further examination. So yes, have a look but if someone is not all that good looking why not try and find out if their personality redeems their lack of looks?
Personally I love to look at men and all types of me. You really can find something attractive about most people. Often I’ll see a traditionally very attractive man and not be as attracted to him as I would someone else. I love men who look capable, confident. I like men who look smart, introspective, prone to listening to indie music and reading books that do not feature in Amazons top 100 list. I like looking at men with good bodies but not so good that I know they spend hours in the gym every day to get that way. A few visits a week to the gym is enough! I really do like looking at all sorts and would say I probably check out men as much as men supposedly check out women but one thing I don’t do is write someone off completely simply because they are not my ‘type’. I might not want to have sex with them but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear what they have to say. I really feel like his does happen to women. Many men switch off if they are not attracted to the woman at all.
“If you like artsier stuff, Robert Mapplethorpe’s pictures work too (Google at your own risk).”
This is a totally off interpretation. Mapplethorpe’s work is notable for being cold, devoid of vitality, and exacting. He turns his men into sculpture, objects that exemplify form at the complete expense of humanity. When I view his photographs, I see an artist who completely “owns” his subjects. You never get the slightest sense of their personalities or experiences, only what shapes they can make in a well-lit studio. He can take a fisting scene and turn it into a bloodless still-life.
Camille Paglia is much more honest about the intentions and consequences of notable gay artists. There’s no more objectifying of a gaze in art than a gay man’s toward other men.
It may not be synonymous for attraction for you or the people that you accept as feminist, but it is both the most common use of the word overall and what the word is understood to mean by most people. If want to use the word differenlty than most people then you are free use the term differently but you can’t blame people for misunderstanding you.
So, say you met someone who told you they loved oranges, and you bought them some oranges, and they told you those fruit weren’t oranges. Their whole family, their whole town, calls apples ‘oranges’. Do you stand around and let them call apples ‘oranges’ or do you explain to them that the common nomenclature is ‘apples’? Or do you just sit around, letting them get the name completely wrong?
If people are using a word incorrectly, that is a failure of education. If people learned the correct meanings of words like ‘objectification’ then we’d all have less arguments about them.
I agree. That’s what my post was meant to do.
And further more: when you insist on using biggoted language because the “original/real meaning” is something non-biggoted you are participating in biggotry and helping real bigots who can claim that their views hold wider support than they really do.
Um…I spent my childhood almost entirely in the company of die-hard conservatives (i.e., not feminists) and you are literally the first person I’ve ever seen to argue that “attraction” is the correct definition of “objectification” in my 26 years.
Attraction means you would like to have a romantic relationship or sexual encounter with a person. Objectification means that you are viewing a person as a Thing from which you are getting a product or service (not necessarily sex). While there can be overlap between the two, they are definitely NOT synonymous.
For example, I find my boyfriend attractive because of his cute smile, sure, but also because of his intelligence, fun-loving personality, and delightful tastes in music. I don’t view him as an Object To Get Sex From, but as a person with his own wants and needs. My attraction to Summer Glau, on the other hand, is more objectifying, as I basically am interested in her looks and the roles she gets hired to play on TV. Her personality has little to do with it.
Attraction can be objectifying, but in a healthy, stable relationship, it isn’t.
I didn’t actually say that attraction and objectification are the same, in fact I didn’t say what I thought objectification does mean. So I should probably correct that. The way “Objectification” get’s used is as a vaguely defined sin associated exclusivly with male sexuality. I have never seen objectification used about anything other than sexuality except by people opposing the claim the Objectification is about male sexual desire. I have seen it used about expressions of female sexuality, but only when it’s expressed in ways more commonly assosiated with male sexuality. Until I actually see the term used in other context nearly as much as about male sexuality I’ll continue to view it as a slur against men.
Also: I don’t see conservatives viewing the term more positivly as meaning anything. The belief that there is some sin associated with male sexuality is very much a socially conservative belief.
Yes Men “objectify” women, women are “attracted” to men it’s so simple.
You know, I watched the entire Sex & the City series and what I saw were men being introduced by their earning potential, jobs, assets & love making ability often times before the actor even spoke.
Now you might say that this is a fictional representation of courtship to which I’ll respond yes, and the reality of the matter is more inhuman. Women get away with monetizing a Man’s worth by “Gazing” at the car he drives the clothes he wears, his shoes, his jewelry his associates ect..
And yet it’s Male sexuality that’s more often demonized by objectification..? Pfft
“I don’t see conservatives viewing the term more positivly as meaning anything. The belief that there is some sin associated with male sexuality is very much a socially conservative belief.”
As a liberal, I see conservatives practicing objectification in many ways – most of them having nothing to do with sexual relations. People are tools to play a role, enact a rite, or produce profit. The successful man manipulates and uses people to achieve results, win competitions, and prove status. Only within the family, or in abstract moral systems like religion, is the emphasis on Buber’s “I-thou.” Otherwise, it’s a game of tangibles, which is very much “I-it.”
It’s just a play with words.
Mostly done in order just to enable criticism of men and some of their preferences.
I’m going to second the idea that cutting off the head protects privacy. Its probably not best to read malice into doing so when it may very well be to protect the picture taken of a person. Especially with the ever improving facial recognition software.
Then why not just get a model for the shoot so you could show their head?
Perchance the model wants to protect their privacy as well? If you aren’t getting someone who wants to do professional modeling as a life-long career choice, but just a quick way to make a buck they might not want to be identified either.
Removing the head is, as far as I know, mostly done to dehumanise. It sounds horrid, but in an article that specifically handles the subject of obesity, it’s not favourable to let your ‘models’ keep their heads. It distracts from the ‘actual topic’ you try to focus on.
That is, if you completely forget the ‘actual topic’ here really is ‘actual people’, not ‘walking fatwarehouses’. People just tend to be more empathic and understanding towards those with faces (.. obviously). I was trying to come up with another bodily thing in which case it’s also favourable to cut off models’ heads.. but I couldn’t come up with any. The first one was “… stretchmarks?” and while I can completely understand just showing a close-up of marked thighs, after a couple o’ thoughts I would have really appreciated it if things like that got a more human approach, instead of an almost clinical one. Would have made me a lot less anxious about mine. Probably.
But the thruth is it does distract from the core topic of those articles. Because.. those articles are objectifying in their nature, an sich. Objectifying makes things less just less confusing for a decent amount of people, I’m afraid.
Oh, I’ve got one. Check out how many of the results for “pregnant woman stock photo” are focused on the belly and/or don’t include a face at all.
http://www.google.com/search?q=pregnant+woman+stock+photo&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=-vzzT7DiL4aC4gT5g4jeBg&ved=0CEQQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=509
I have to disagree about Mapplethorpe. Some of his subjects are objectified to the point of abstraction.
Aren’t some of the subjects also underage?
Ahhhh! The nuance here is super-important! Thanks for sorting it.
The pervasiveness gets lost a lot in the focus on the me-centric “how I interact with people” narrative. I think the guiding principle–which ties closely to eschergirls–is the fact that the background buzz of sexual objectification _demands_ that women be sexy at all times, and that this demand distorts reality in media.
Maybe then, the issue isn’t the objectification ITSELF, but how it encourages its messages to bleed into places where it doesn’t belong?
I’ve seen multiple posts around the internet about “fetishization of The Other”, and it really meant “men who find exotic women sexy”. And most of these were the same people who decry “slut-shaming”. When I made a post about this on my tumblr, I got a few responses about how it has “echoes of” imperialism and colonialism and suchlike. Nothing about how the act itself is wrong, IIRC. Just that it looks like something that’s wrong.
Generally good article. It’s certainly a gripe I’ve had my share of trying to explain to people. Just one little bit stood out to me:
“Women are supposed to be sexually attractive. Sexually attractive men are impossible.”
Have you seen a CK ad in the last 20 years?