These are comments by Heather N and avern on the post “Sexualization of the Male Body On Film“.
Heather N said:
I disagree with you that no body hair=objectification for men. I do agree that there is an element of a female gaze (or a gay male gaze) in these images…but it’s not quite as simple as you say. Body hair covers muscle definition, and muscles = power. Often these images of nearly nude men aren’t there for sexual titillation, but to portray strength and action. Even Daniel Craig as 007 isn’t objectified … so much as his role as an active subject with agency is considered sexy.
The Starz show, Spartacus, has a lot of interesting examples of this … particularly because it very deliberately courts a gay male audience along with a straight male audience.
avern replied:
I agree that the objectification of men is not a simply a matter of a waxed or natural chest, but only because Noah is incorrect that chest hair is currently considered unattractive. A waxed chest is more immediately seen as sexual because of a stereotypical association with porn stars and strippers, but hairy chests are seen as more manly which equals more attractive to those who find masculinity attractive, which is most women over thirty and almost every gay man I know.
“Often these images of nearly nude men aren’t there for sexual titillation, but to portray strength and action.”
Strength and power are intricately tied into sexually titillating images of the male body; look up the term “sporno” as coined by Mark Simpson. But the relationship between strength, power, and action and male sexual attractiveness makes the images above no less objectifying because those qualities do not concern an interior experience and most of the time lead audiences to disregard the interior lives of the male characters depicted.
Heather N responded:
“But the relationship between strength, power, and action and male sexual attractiveness makes the images above no less objectifying because those qualities do not concern an interior experience and most of the time lead audiences to disregard the interior lives of the male characters depicted.”
Yes, strength and power are intricately tied to sexual attraction of men. No, this does not make images of strength and power objectifying. A picture of a nearly-nude, powerful man still depicts that man as a subject (a person taking action, an agent, someone doing a thing). Strength and power are actions, they are qualities that a social subject has. This hypothetical man is sexy because of what he DOES — and, it does concern an “interior experience.” As I mentioned, the muscles symbolize power…not just physical, but in personality and character. There is an element of the representational … an image of a nude man isn’t only sexual because it’s an image of a nude man.
With objectification of women, it is precisely the opposite. Female imagery also often breaks a woman’s body down into parts. In the case of film, the camera will slowly pan up a woman’s leg, or over a woman’s breasts. In the case of still images, sometimes all you get is a woman’s butt or breasts, without any sense that the person depicted is a whole person. With depictions of men, even these nude men, usually the camera is more static, and THEY are the ones moving (again the ones doing something). And rarely are there shots sliding over body parts…a man’s face is almost always in frame.
So are these images of men sexual? You bet. Are they even exploitative in some ways? Yup. But very very rarely do you find an image of a man being actually objectified.
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The equation is simple, really. Women are objectified as sex objects, and men are objectified as power objects. It’s human nature. Most of the people doing the objecting to objectification are those who are NOT on the receiving end of the objectification, simply because objectification ironically empowers the objectified, and disempowers those who perform the objectification. Simple thought experiment: who has the power in a strip club? Hint, it’s the party who has well-paid bouncers to enforce the power dynamic. Or, follow the money. Similarly, who has the power in the movie house? Hint, it’s not the person who opens… Read more »
In the case of strip clubs it’s not a one-sided thing. In your average gentleman’s club, the men see the women as an object of sexual desire. The strippers see the men as objects of financial desire. The strippers don’t care about the man’s personality, his troubles, concerns, dreams, or aspirations, she just wants him serve as a living ATM that hands over the green when she opens her legs. A stripper won’t hang around a man who isn’t stuffing her with cash for very long. The objectification goes both ways with one side having physical force to back them… Read more »
This idea might hold water if there weren’t also complaints of women being objectified even if they are performing actions that show their strength and power. Classic examples… strippers doing their acrobatic magic on pole. Or lets take a less sexually centered example and use sports. Swimmers, gymnasts, beach volleyball player and so on get accused of being objectified while they are performing real action associated with them personally and not the fantasy action that Daniel Craig does in a 007 movie. I think this comes down to wanting to be seen, how one wants to be seen, exactly when… Read more »
From wikipedia on objectification.
Dehumanization seems to be exactly that.
You might be using the term sexual objectification then, not the same thing.
The key, here, is “as a thing.” The thing about things is that they don’ t do anything. (see what I did there?) Were I to say that “all gay men like the colour pink,” that dehumanizes them. I have ignored their individuality and their autonomy…I have ignored their humanness. It doesn’t objectify them, however…because I have still treated them as a group of people who are subjects…I just acted as though all the subjects were identical. And yes, my comments were about sexual objectification…because that’s what the article was about. The difference between sexual objectification and other forms of… Read more »
because I have still treated them as a group of people who are subjects…I just acted as though all the subjects were identical. If you ignore all their nuance and personality and personhood, they are still objects. The same way to an actuarial graphic manipulating person working for an insurance company, I’m just a dot who has certain qualities and risks and is worth a certain premium. But hey, they recognize I’m a person… And yes, my comments were about sexual objectification…because that’s what the article was about. The difference between sexual objectification and other forms of objectification is the… Read more »
“I can’t see the pizza person as sexual object (unless I have weird exhibitionism fetishes), I can see them as a pizza-distributing machine that exists only for my mouth’s eating pleasure however.” Yes, you CAN see the pizza guy as a pizza-delivering machine, as an object that provides pizza and has no character, personhood, or agency. Of course you can. But our cultural narrative doesn’t spin it that way. That’s not how we see him/her…that’s why we tip pizza guys and gals. You CAN, in theory, objectify anyone. Of course you can, but we don’t. We objectify certain groups of… Read more »
So strippers and prostitutes are not objectified, even sexually, because they’re doing something, and people primarily go see them for “what they do” (even if, like actors, looks is part of the job).
That’s the logical conclusion.
No…because again we’re talking about cultural narratives. What a prostitute does, in the mainstream culture’s consciousness, is be an object with which the client has sex. A stripper is also objectified, again because of the way we frame what they do as merely for the gaze of the client. They are a thing to be watched and observed…the fact that they are a thing with moving parts does not make them less of a thing in the mainstream cultural narrative surrounding strippers. You’re saying, I think, that (via my argument) because a stripper is doing something to be a stripper,… Read more »
So basically every single actor in existence is objectified because our culture HEAVILY recognizes them as an actor on screen to entertain. A stripper is DOING something on stage, she is acting sexually, culture sees her as stripping in an erotic dance which relies on watching her, just as I watch the actor/ess’s in a movie. One could argue they are recognized for their actions yet many b/d grade actors are NOT noted for their acting ability. What about porn stars? They are seen to DO SOMETHING just as actors are, are they objectified? Is entertainment objectification better than sexual… Read more »
Things don’t do things they have things done to them? What sorts of things do you live with? Clocks are not people, but they keep time, that is a thing they do to fit their purposes. Trees and plants grow and change with the seasons, they are still objects, living objects, but still objects, and most people think of them as objects in the landscape. Coffee makers brew coffee; that is an action. Objectification is about stripping the person of their humanity; you are de-anthropomorphosizing the person. Most people don’t think of a tree or a blade of grass as… Read more »
I’ll just quickly explain. The point of a “social object” is that their ability to do anything is denied, or hidden at least, in the stories we tell about them. Also, their ability to make a decision “to do” is denied…to take action. A coffee maker brews coffee…but it does not make the decision to brew coffee and it cannot brew coffee on it’s own. It requires intervention from a “social subject.” So yes, taking away their humanity is certainly part of it. Objectification is a form of dehumanization. But that’s not all there is to it. As I said,… Read more »
I never said that objectification and dehumanization are synonymous; they are not. Dehumniziation is the RESULT of objectifying someone. Stereotyping is another action that results in dehuminization; stereotyping someone is not the same action as objectifying someone. You can dehumanize someone without objectifyng him/her, but you can’t objectify someone without them being dehumanized in the process of objectification; if the person is not dehumanized then you didn’t objectify them. You have explained nothing with your explanation. My point with the coffee maker is that it is still an object even though it is doing something. I wasn’t saying that having… Read more »
Okay, I didn’t get to go fully into my objection to the emphasis on the doing/done to dichotomy. I have a moment now to break down further the problems with this line of thinking. You argue that a coffee maker is a regular object and different from when a person is represented as a “social object” because a coffee maker will always require an external input to perform an action while a person represented as a “social object” is depicted devoid of his or her ability to perform. The problem with this line of thinking is that to argue that… Read more »
“Using objectification in the grammatical “subject = doer” vs “object = done to” misses the dehumanization part of feminist theory which says its about reducing someone to “what can you do for/to me”, an actor showing his buff abs or pecs is not doing it for himself more than the actress showing her breasts. They’re both objectified as “people worth looking at, but nothing more” if only for the moment they’re shown this way.” Except the feminist concept of subject/object is very closely linked to the grammatical concept of subject/object. The reason we use the word “objectification,” instead of simply… Read more »
The men who are objectified are usually the deaths. In the last week I’ve seen probably 100+ men die on screen, maybe 2 women? Many of those men are just the stereotypical badguy, they exist TO DIE. But it also depends on how you see them, what is objectifying to others doesn’t make me see them as an object, I don’t see objects dying on screen, I don’t see a breast by itself, I see a breast attached to a HUMAN. Their part in the story is minor and usually for one use, the nudity, BUT so are extras, so… Read more »
Objectification is being stripped of your full humanity in the eyes of the person objectifying you. Seeing you as working for one purpose and for them (not for your own wants and desires). We ALL objectify people we interact with on a daily basis. We see the grocery staff as people who’s “function” is to ring our stuff, make us pay for it, and put it into bags. We objectify the grocery staff because we don’t care if they have people in their lives, if they can afford to go to university, or wether they are atheists. We only care… Read more »