How can you tell when a man’s being presented as a sex object? Turns out there’s one simple, checkable criterion.
The male gaze is a tricky thing; it’s so pervasive that we tend to take it for granted, but at the same time it’s also surprisingly subtle. In some cases, it’s obvious when a woman is being presented as pure eye candy, being optimized for assumed popular taste:
Jesus H. Christ, seriously?
In other cases, it’s less obvious. At what point is a woman just being onscreen without the clear intent of being drooled over?
Maybe?
Interestingly, the situation is much more clear-cut when it comes to men. At this point in our cultural zeitgeist, there is a simple, one-step objective test for whether a man’s body in a film or TV show is being presented as a sexualized gaze-object.
Does he or does he not have any body hair?
Because if he does not, that means that a conscious decision was made to undergo a difficult and painful process to render his body visually attractive according to present aesthetics. Body hair is considered unattractive at the moment, but almost all adult men have it. Therefore, if you’re seeing a man’s skin on a screen, and he’s not fuzzy, he was almost certainly shaved, waxed, or otherwise depilated in order to more closely fit society’s current fashion for “attractive”.
Or in some cases, shaved, waxed, polished, and oiled.There are a few exceptions, but they’re few and far between, as in the “savage” appearance of Jason Momoa on Game of Thrones.
A primitive throwback to an earlier time, when ponytails on men were trendy.
Once you notice it, it’s impossible to escape; nowadays almost the only time you’ll ever see body hair on a man is as part of a joke about how hilariously, disgustingly unattractive he is.
Comedy’s highest achievement, clearly.This is such a useful test because there’s no way it can be accidental. Apologists for frequently-crass sexualized images of women have tons of reasons why she just happened to be wearing that top, or that was the most convenient camera angle, or whatever nonsense. But there’s no way a grown man’s entire body accidentally depilates itself. Chris Evans did not trip and fall into a vat of wax. Daniel Craig did not get distracted while shaving and forget to stop until he reached his toes. Magic Mike is not set in the aftermath of the big explosion at the Nair factory.
Mind you, there’s another side to this, too: there’s no casual skin showing in most TV shows and movies; certainly not male skin. When a man is not being overtly sexualized, there’s a simple way to tell: he keeps his clothes on. That speaks to a whole other set of weird and creepy assumptions about bodies and sex, but that’s a rant for a different day.
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I do not agree. Not all adult men are lucky enough to have a full hairy chest. On the contrary, only a few percentage have it (like the one of Sean Connery I mean…). And I know a lot of women who love hairy chested men! It is sexy and manly!
I’m in pretty good shape for 46, I think, and am (in my mind) unfortunately, hairy. I started shaving my legs a few years ago because I’m an avid cyclist and that’s kinda what we do. Before I started doing it, I couldn’t imagine it but once I started I thought it looked and felt great. Now, it’s easy to maintain and I let it grow back in the winter. This past year after trying to keep the torsoe under control with clippers, I bought a manscaper and I think I look a million times better. This isn’t the media.… Read more »
Oh so shaving is the key to spotting male objectification?
That must mean that women are 100% objectified ALL the time then because when’s the last time you saw a woman in media with body hair?
Society is an idiot! I’m a fuzzy manbeast who stores his sixpack inside a spare tire, and plenty of women find me attractive. At the same time, many of the beautiful women I have loved are considered unattractive by society’s so-called “standards”.
Please people. There is a huge difference between the bare chest (hairy or not) of a man and the bare chest of a woman.
Although breasts are not considered genitalia, they are viewed as such by men. A male chest is nothing more than a chest.
And a female chest is nothing more than a chest…
What was your point?
Would it be a fair argument upon your thinking to suggest that muscles are not genitalia but are viewed as such by women?
How about a mans wallet? Thats not genitalia but has been lusted after by women – do they view that as genitalia?
As chris rock once said ‘Ladies no one is never gonna not fuck you because your broke.”
When women can freely go top less in public like men can, then I’ll consider male toplessness to be as objectifyiny as female toplessness.
I guess you didn’t see “Man of Steel”. Henry Cavill was highly sexualized and they let him go au natural when it came to body hair and I heard a lot of women declare it to be quite a relief. It was sexy, it was hot and it was nice to see a ” real man” on screen. Sometimes Hollywood is put of touch with what people really want or don’t realize not everyone buys into their prepackaged idea of beauty.
The men are shaved down because the muscles look more pronounced that way. I wouldn’t look into it too deeply
Sexiness and hairlessness go together with sanitation. Not that I am trying to provide a means of justifying waxing ones chest or bikini zone, but when you look at the historic state of affairs: hair meant lice and disease.
What started as being attractive because it was less dangerous has developed into being attractive because we don’t know another socially acceptable “attractive.”
Who needed an objective test to prove that the actors in Magic Mike were sexualized? Really bad example.
Body hair is unattractive? I missed that memo.
What’s happened is that capitalism’s basic drive to make profit has invented products and shaped perceptions so that now women are paranoid about their natural state and spend money changing it. Having successfully oppressed women, the process begins all over again on men.
It’s pernicious nonsense and people of both sexes should be encouraged to find the strength of character to be themselves. THAT’S sexy.
I happen to like men with body hair (I’ve also dated a man who naturally didn’t have chest hair.) to each their own, but I really don’t understand the current fad.
Are there no men in Hollywood who are naturally hairless on their chest and back? I know several in real life. I think the folks writing about objectification misunderstand the word. Objectification isn’t “thinking someone is sexy”. Objectification is when you think someone is so sexy that it doesn’t matter they are a real person, it doesn’t matter if they have a story, and it doesn’t matter what that story is about. So long as the movies in which these shaved and waxed men appear are ABOUT the shaved and waxed men, they are still the SUBJECT of the story,… Read more »
Although, it is cherry picking to say that only smooth skinned men are sexualized. The hairy chests of Hugh Jackman (in Wolverine, and most everything else) is revered. And Henry Cavill made a very big stir by portraying the first Superman with chest hair.
When we speak of the issue of ‘objectification’, we speak of rendering the personhood of someone inert in order to conceptualize them as a means to an end…objectification, in other words, is about value. But who’s value? Speaking of sexual attraction, women are objectified along certain lines following the things that men find desirable in a woman (not including lgbt concerns here, for the sake of clarity) and the opposite can be said of men being objectified by women. This raises the question, then: do men and women want the same things in each other? If the answer is no,… Read more »
This is a nice, honest attempt at explaining a phenomena which is often ignored or completely misunderstood. I appreciate your point of view. However, if you think that only shaved/smooth male bodies are prone to sexual objectification in the media and elsewhere, you need to remove your hetero-normative filter and venture into the objectification of the male body in gay culture. I would say that approximately 90% of it revolves around the presence of body hair. In fact, the entire realm of gay culture and its subdivisions (twink/jock/bears/otters…) is probably around 95% linked to the degree of hairiness and its… Read more »
Noah, I like that you’re talking about media sexual ideals of men and the pressure it puts on guys, but please, don’t use “sexualization” and “objectification” as if they were interchangeable. They are not, and the distinction is important.
Objectification happens when you reduce a person down to a single attribute, useful or desirable to a third party. Objectification can be sexual, but we also run into societal problems with presenting humans as maternal objects, purity objects, violence objects, what have you.
Male sexual objectification does sometimes happen in media, but it’s relatively much more rare.
PS – we do, however, present men as violence objects on a very regular basis.
As violence objects? More as violence agents, women being the violence objects. Not saying it’s right (because it’s not), but that’s the majority of what I see on TV and movies.
Sorry, you must not be watching American TV and movie since nearly every fighting/action scene is a man fighting or killing another man. If a woman is involved, she is also usually beating and/or killing a man.
Nice attempt at victimization though, Kay.
Really? Make objectification rarely happens? I bet you own at least one vibrator or dildo or other replica of a dismembered mans genitalia! How much more can you objectify men than sexually satisfying yourself with a replica of a dismembered penis bought at your local grocery store?
Male objectification definitely happens often, Marc. And it’s good to see an article addressing it. But I’m going to have to go ahead and laugh at the example you’re attempting to use. Vibrators and dildos are shaped the way they are…..because that’s the shape of things that fit best into a vagina and stimulate it and the other female sex organs. If you go to an online sex toy shop right now, I’m willing to bet the majority of vibs and dildos you look at will be only vaguely penis shaped, will probably have little animals on them (dolphin and… Read more »
Since it seems to come down to voting on the truth, i as a man agree with Laurel. Men are usually more agentic and women are usually more objectified in mainstream media. Women are more often seen *only* or mostly as their physical appearance, while with men it’s usually more of a combination. And that’s a man voting so it counts more.
I used to shave my entire torso for my ex-girlfriend. It felt humiliating. The people I train with also tell me that I should shave, but the only thing that is shaved on this body nowadays is facial hair, the middle of the unibrow, and the hair on my head. To be honest, I wouldn’t hold it against or even not date a woman if they had hair on them. If they’re comfortable with that, that’s their thing. Same with men. The problem is when we look at the naturally/intentionally hairless individuals as the ideal, sexually and aesthetically. It then… Read more »
Hi Alan
Well said. I hope you never shave your torso for anyone again.
This is who you are. We all have hair, but some more than others. Just like some are green eyed , some have brown or blue eyes. The more hair, the more sensitive to touch 🙂
I wonder if this shaving of men’s bodies is ideals that originates from porn.
I love a man “natural” no matter how much hair he has.
Glad you do not go through a process you hate anymore. I remove hair when I want to now (in my 30s) as opposed to obsessively like in my early 20s. I am generally complimented on a more natural appearance, and met with a high level of attraction to it, rather than against it.
I didn’t even think twice about sexualising men’s bodies in movies. Noticing and over-thinking this sort of thing is just a sign that you’re not comfortable with your own body. Yes, some women also expect guys to look like that too, but the problem is both men and women not being able to separate “aesthetically pleasing” to “what you should look like”. But who cares what other people think anyway, it’s your body, so you should be happy with it.
Wait, really? So I should just be comfortable with myself? That’s easier said than done for most people, especially when you’re shirtless and many people rib on your for being hairy because you’re not the ideal sexual male.
It’s also an issue when it’s being floated around as such because, like I mentioned earlier, it causes people to be uncomfortable with themselves and to do things only to please others.
Hairlessness (or minimal body hair) has probably been the dominant cultural aesthetic for both male and female for the last two decades. I am sure that most men, and probably most women, would not find it appealing if women let their leg, arm, underarm, under-you-know-where, eyebrow, and everywhere else grow. Women have been hating their body hair and enduring every type of razor, wax, threading, depilatory process for decades now in an effort to be smooth and attractive to men. Is it any wonder then, that women want smooth guys.
‘Body hair is considered unattractive at the moment, but almost all adult men have it. Therefore, if you’re seeing a man’s skin on a screen, and he’s not fuzzy, he was almost certainly shaved, waxed, or otherwise depilated in order to more closely fit society’s current fashion for “attractive”.’
Replace man with woman and it’s considered normal, yet this statement is still true no matter which sex it refers to
I just hope you’re not going to import the “objectification” argument from women’s rights to men’s right because, just like feminists, if you’re going to take on sexuality you’re taking on a force of nature! Women love to look and to be looked at Men love to look and to be looked at. There was a time when we though any kind of sexualized gaze was degrading, hopefully things are changing. We can see people as handsome or beautiful, without thinking that’s all there is to them or that we are entitled to “get some”. We should take the whole… Read more »
Yes! Well said….I love this response. Very evolved.
Keep the articles coming, this just confirms men+hair=sexy. I will try not to objectify with my eyes… I need a boyfriend. MEN YOU’RE ALL HOT! But keep it natural please! Trimmed, but natural.
Seriously.. Hairy Chris Evans is a 100 times sexier , cause he looks like a real guy you’d wanna sleep with..
just remember capitalism is concerned only with the product. it was inevitable that economic forces would wake up and start creating sexual objects out of men. it sells.
Attention ladies! I just saw a promo for ABC’s monday night lineup called, get this ‘Man Candy Monday’! Yup, no objectification going on here!