Objectification

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I was talking with a friend of mine about the idea of objectification. After some time, we had some consensus and I thought I'd share some of the ideas we came up with.

1) "Objectification" is the act of one person using another person in a manner where only the aggressor party benifits. The non-aggressor is in sense treated as "material" and hense the phrase "objectification": the act of making someone into an object.
2) Objectification is most commonly discussed in references to Romantic relationships.

From this point we talked about the more common social dialogue on objectification. We agreed we hear one very frequently.

3) Men often objectify women for sexual desire. Further Women, are not characterized as objectifying men for their sexual desires. This conclusion wa based on perception, NOT reality. We certainly acknowledged that there must be some population of women that seek to objectify men in this way.

After drawing this conclusion, we started wondering if the act of objectification was simply a male triat or if women objectify others as well and we just don't readily recognize their behaivors as objectification. So we started talking about what that might look like.

If men objectify to meet their sexual desires, we figured that we should investigate what female desires are and then we might have a clue as to where if anywhere women objectify men.

A quick note: We didn't have enough time to think about how this would look with same sex couples, or in non-romantic settings.

4) We hypothesize that emotional desires are what women are willing to objectify men for. The most obvious example that came to mind for us was the senario where a woman may find herself in a relaionship where her sexual desires and security are present, but emotionally in deficit. In this senario the woman may outsource to another more compassionate male to augment her needs/desires. the second party male in this case we theorized is being objectified as his needs/desires are not met. This senario we desribed as being what some refer to as the "emotional affair."

We believe there may be other behaivors that exist for both males and females, and so I thoutght this might make a interesting topic for the crowd here at A2K.

So the question: In what ways do people objectify other people? Is sexually objectifying someone a greater offense than emotionally objectifying someone?

T
K
Objectify.

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There are many situations in which someone becomes an "object." An employee may be an object, in those situations in which the employee is seen only as a tool rather than as a person. This is why there are minimum fair labor laws to assure that people are allowed meal breaks, that there are minimum safety and health requirements, that there are overtime payment requirements--otherwise, there is nothing to stop a capitalist from reacting to an employee simply as a tool or a machine form which one takes as much use as possible before discarding the no longer useful tool.

Additionally, there are many people who treat other people as objects, based on social classes or racist attitudes, or other prejudices. In such a situation, the cab driver or the cleaning woman or the doorman becomes invisible. Or someone may become invisible because they have brown skin, or because they are female, or because they are Catholic.

I think you are a little too focused on gratification here. In healthy relationships, there will be times when a man does things for the woman's gratification without expecting a return, or the woman does things for the man's gratification without expecting a return--and that is altruism, that is a product of the experience of the emotion of love. "Friends with benefits" is a prime example of how this might work. A person in a sexual context becomes an object when he or she is not seen as a person, but only a vehicle for the attainment of gratification. In that case, he or she becomes a whore to the desires of the person who is "objectifying" them.

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Thanks for the reply Set.

So do you then agree that gratification can be saought out by a female in similarly reckless ways? What about my notion of the cheating emotionally?

I'll have to learn some more about "altruism" before replying to the rest of your post.

Thx
K
O

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I suppose when we use statistics, we ignore the human side and turn everybody into numbers. Thats doesn't mean statistics isn't useful. Sometimes it isn't necessary to look at the individual motives of every single person.

my 2 Cents

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Coolwhip wrote:

I suppose when we use statistics, we ignore the human side and turn everybody into numbers. Thats doesn't mean statistics isn't useful. Sometimes it isn't necessary to look at the individual motives of every single person.

my

I wish I had some statistics to present. I'm just playing with the notion.

T
K
O

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Katie Ramsland, a forensic psychologist, has done an extensive study of a number of serial killers and the "reduction of identity" and identification of a victim by the murderer as a non-human, mere object of desire, pain , repression (insert favorite description here), is a character"flaw" OF SERIAL KILLERS. Her work on ANdrei Shikatilo is course material in forensic psych. Be careful as to how far objectification is followed. It has A Path that can turn to pathology somewhere.

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The basic question needs to be ask. You refer to "objectification" in the context of a sexual relationship as an "offense".

Why are you so certain it is a bad thing?

Is this just another puritanical example of passing judgment the sexual behavior of others?

Why can't the "whatever happens between consenting adults" standard apply here?

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It would help me to have some real world examples. The terms "aggressor" and "non-agressor" are problematic.

Let's consider a man in a strip club. The man is getting something out of the deal (or he wouldn't be there). But the woman is getting compensated and in a real way, the woman has more power in this situation.

Who is the aggressor?

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EB - I don't think that all sexual encounters are objectification, but I do think that they should be in some form mutually benificial. I'm actually trying to explore the non-sexual interactions that could additionally be objectifying. For instance Set used the example of the doorman, the maid. I just think we objectify each other in more ways then just sexual.

I do suspect however that objectification is a negitive thing, but I suspect you are just playing the devils advocate, correct?

I'm pretty far from a puritan.

T
K
O

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ebrown_p wrote:

It would help me to have some real world examples. The terms "aggressor" and "non-agressor" are problematic.

Let's consider a man in a strip club. The man is getting something out of the deal (or he wouldn't be there). But the woman is getting compensated and in a real way, the woman has more power in this situation.

Who is the aggressor?

Hmmm.... Forgive the terms aggressor and non-agressor. I only used them for convieniance sake.

In the situation you describe above, my instincts tell me that both parties go into this situation fully understanding the exchange. I understand why my terminology whould be a hard fit. Perhaps this example is outside of the scope of this discussion?

T
K
O

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farmerman wrote:

Katie Ramsland, a forensic psychologist, has done an extensive study of a number of serial killers and the "reduction of identity" and identification of a victim by the murderer as a non-human, mere object of desire, pain , repression (insert favorite description here), is a character"flaw" OF SERIAL KILLERS. Her work on ANdrei Shikatilo is course material in forensic psych. Be careful as to how far objectification is followed. It has A Path that can turn to pathology somewhere.

Statistically, If I'm not mistaken more men are serial killers correct? If serial killers are exercising a higher level of objectification, does it then follow that the answer to my original question about whether objectification is more of a male trait?

Is there a female equivilant to this? Did the Dr Ramsland have anything on gender and objectification? Perhaps the pathology of female sociopaths?

Awesome input by all.

T
K
O

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I am not being Devil's advocate (at least not without purpose).

I am questioning your use of terms. I think making broad statements using terms like "aggressor" can be misleading. The fact that you are making a judgment about what is an "offense" (which can only be interpreted as a bad thing) raises a red flag.

I don't have any problem with being "objectified"-- if the term is being used in the sense of a taxi driver or doorman. I have all sorts of non-personal human interactions. I can be polite... but the fact is the bank teller is doing a job and I am getting money and neither of us matters at all to the other. I don't have a problem with this.

Objectification in a sexual relationship may be different-- or it may be the same.

People pay for sex and people receive money for sex. This is a mutually beneficial deal that doesn't involve much caring (other than for carnal pleasure or money).

Many of us have had sexual relationships with people we don't care about other than the sex.

I guess it is the describing these relationships with value-laden words like "offense" and "aggressor" that bothers me. Unless some kind of physical force, or extortion is going on... these words shouldn't apply.

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Diest TKO wrote:

Statistically, If I'm not mistaken more men are serial killers correct? If serial killers are exercising a higher level of objectification, does it then follow that the answer to my original question about whether objectification is more of a male trait?

Is there a female equivilant to this? Did the Dr Ramsland have anything on gender and objectification? Perhaps the pathology of female sociopaths?

Female serial killers tend not to be studied. There is a theme in the study of violence against women to the effect that this is a unique behavior of men, and that women don't do that kind of thing. One of the problems with this is that women are not usually physically superior to the men in their environment, so in order to kill, they would usually poison. There are a few notorious examples of this in the criminal history of the United States. There was one woman whose name i don't recall, who is believed to have killed a few men (at least three of them her husbands) and several children, by poisoning them. The problem you will have is that a successful poisoner would have gotten away with it in most eras of history. Poisoning became such a problem in Imperial Rome, even in the Republican era before the Principiate Empire, that the death penalty was freely used against anyone who was even found in possession of poisons. It is believed that Julia, the wife of the Emperor Octavian, aka Caesar Augustus, poisoned all of the competitors for the Imperial throne until only her son (by another man) Tiberius was left. Some have even speculated that she slowly poisoned Augustus.

It may be the case that women are less prone to this sort of sociopathic behavior--but we really don't have a statistical base from which to extrapolate a comparison. If it is true, it likely arises from the cultural differences in the outlook of males and females, as well as the relative physical weakness of women.

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I have no response to this thread, I just saw Set and wanted to say HEY!!!!

You may go back to your regularly scheduled conversation now. Thanks.

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I would tend to agree with Set. Woman can objectify other people. It just plays differently.

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Hey, onyxelle!!!!

I was listening to a radio program once't, and the "expert" who is to speak on serial killers says: "Of course, we can dismiss the poisoners--all serial killers are men." I wanted to yell at her, "Hey, why should we dismiss the poisoners ? ! ? ! ?" Of course, yelling at the radio doesn't do a lot of good.

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Ok... being a serial killer is an example of "objectification". Going to a strip club is not.

There is a whole lot of things that aren't either of these things. I still don't understand why "objectification" is a useful term.

Can you give more examples of objectification that don't involve pathalogical murder?

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Diest TKO wrote:

Coolwhip wrote:
I suppose when we use statistics, we ignore the human side and turn everybody into numbers. Thats doesn't mean statistics isn't useful. Sometimes it isn't necessary to look at the individual motives of every single person.

my

I wish I had some statistics to present. I'm just playing with the notion.

T
K
O

I think Coolwhip's post breezed right past you.

Unless i'm reading it wrong I think the intent was that in using stastics, "people" are reduced to "numbers". Stastics (about people) is objectification.

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Diest TKO wrote:

EB - I don't think that all sexual encounters are objectification, but I do think that they should be in some form mutually beneficial.

I am not convinced there is an inherent basis for your view that all sexual encounters should be in some form mutually beneficial. Here are few reasons you might consider:

1) You use of the word "should" would appear to be from an ethical/moral perspective and you have yet to explain why all sexual encounters need have an ethical/moral perspective and/or "should" have an ethical/moral assessment. Witness what ebrown_p asks

ebrown_p wrote:

Why can't the "whatever happens between consenting adults" standard apply here?

2) Your view would appear to exempt the concept of mutually neutral as opposed to mutually beneficial.
3) Your view would appear to exempt the concept of singularly beneficial. in combination with singularly neutral as opposed to mutually beneficial
4) Your view appears to presuppose mutual benefit as an idealization but as of yet you have not justified/rationalized this idealization as opposed to - for one example - point 2).

fishin wrote:

Statistics (about people) is objectification.

As to Diest TKO's perspectives on objectification I suggest it's impossible not to objectify for the simple reason that we cannot have experience/knowledge in the truly objective sense but must by default have experience/knowledge only in the subjective sense, thus making all our experience/knowledge an inherent objectification.

Wikipedia wrote:

Objectification is the process by which people assign meaning to things, people, places, activities, (or, in the case of self-objectification, themselves), and thus become part of cultural constructions which inform and guide behavior. This term also refers to behavior in which one person treats another person as an object and not as a fellow human being with feelings and consciousness of his or her own, in other words as, as without agency. In this sense, it is a synonym of reification.

The term has been used by feminists in reference to the mass media purported portrayal of women as sex objects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectification

That "the term has been used by feminists in reference to the mass media purported portrayal of women as sex objects" is perhaps using the word wrongly and/or overly simplistically.

This here thread got me thinking about such things a little bit
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=100042&highlight=

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Setanta wrote:

It may be the case that women are less prone to this sort of sociopathic behavior--but we really don't have a statistical base from which to extrapolate a comparison. If it is true, it likely arises from the cultural differences in the outlook of males and females, as well as the relative physical weakness of women.

There might be a relatively significant number of questionable deaths in which the mother plays a pivotal part in her child's demise but of which there is insufficient evidence for legal recourse and thus no statistics.

I suggest there cannot be any official statistics if the crime is not demonstrable/convictable and the domestic environment may not lend itself well demonstrable/convictable crimes of this sort.

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