Objectification

There is a reason I posted this in the Relationships and marriage part of the forum. I'm intrigued by everyone's input, but I think perhaps, I'm looking for an answer/input to a much simple question. Perhaps, I did not ask the correct question to get the dialogue on the subject I was interested in.

EB - The what happens between mutual consenting adults is their bussiness still applies here. I'm not talking politics right now. I'm looking for people with relationsip experiance.

Set - I think I am using the word "objectify" similar to the way you described femists using it. Even if they are choosing the wrong word, they are describing a real phenomenon right? I'm trying to play with the notion that perhaps women "objectify" men in ways as well, just not in the way we have become accustomed to hearing the phrase "objectifying"

I hope I cleared p what the topic is.

T
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O

Deist,

I am still looking for real world examples that don't involve murder that qualify as objectification. I don't understand what you are talking about (and I have relationship experience ).

I my younger (single) years, I was fanatical about salsa dancing. Dancing is at its core a mating ritual and the Salsa dance scene, although it is fun and technical and cultural and all that, plays up this aspect.

Everyone dresses and dances in such a way that would be beneficial for attracting a mate.

It was common for a young man, after dancing with a suggestively dressed young lady and buying her a few drinks, to invite said lady back to his place for a night of carnal indulgance.

It was not uncommon that this would be the last time this couple would have any more than passing social interest in one another.

Is any of this an example of objectification...

... the lust?
... the suggestive dress?
... the buying drinks ritual?
... casual sex?

Please explain if this is what you mean.

How about this. Slightly more to what I'm speaking about. Whould you classify the following (by yours or anybody else's definition) objectification.

A single woman in a community with several men decides that she does not care to work for her living. She stategizes a way to find a finacially well off mate and persues him. She finds a male, and while she is not romanticaly or sexually attracted to him persues him for his financial security.

Is she objectifying the man? My instincts tell me that in this specific situation she is. Specifiaclly he is being treated as a resource and not as a person.

T
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and nobody got murdered.

Perhaps a facilitated approach to this discussion might help.

If you have ever felt objectified in your interactions with the opposite sex, please post your experiance.

You are describing the traditional marriage.

Financial and social security have long been primary reasons for marriage. It seems to me the desire for financial security in inseparable from romantic attraction. Mating rituals have developed from the need to raise children... and financial security and social security is a big part of this.

There is quite a bit of literature deals with the tension between the romantic attraction of lustful passion and the romantic attraction of social acceptance and financial security. Often the moral of the story is that choosing social acceptable and financial secure path of marriage is preferable to following ones passions.

I don't think this is good example of anything that could be labeled "objectification".

We also lack historical data. Elizabeth Borden is usually assumed by modern readers to have been the murderer of her father and step-mother. But because of attitudes toward women in the Victorian era, she simply was not treated the way suspected murders would be treated today. Although the police put a guard around the house, she was left to her own devices inside the house for three days, and was seen to burn several objects (as her sister testified unofficially years after the trial), including the dress that she was wearing on the day of the murders. Basically, the defense had a no-brainer brief to fill, with twelve good men and true who simply had to be convinced that Lizzie was frail and delicate flower. The prosecution had an uphill battle against the prevailing attitudes toward women in that day (Lizzie came from a wealthy family, with a successful and respected father--so, quixotically, people were unwilling to believe that his daughter could have committed murder).

So, it is possible that there have been many more women who murdered, or were perhaps even serial murders, but who simply were not suspected, or, if suspected, were prosecuted, or were not successfully prosecuted. It would be impossible to ferret out such examples today.

Further complicating the issue is the gender roles to which i referred earlier. Women in society have generally not been conditioned to solve conflicts with violence; men for much of history have been so conditioned. A thousand years ago, men were encouraged to be aggressive and violent. Many men who would be condemned today as sociopathic or psychopathic would, in the middle ages, have been gainfully employed as men at arms. The king of England known as Richard Lionheart had two great pleasures in life, buggering adolescent boys and hacking people up with a two-handed broadsword. Today he would be seen as at least a sociopath, if not actually a psychopath. What is known today as a serial killer could easily have slaked his lusts in Europe or on crusade in the middle east in centuries gone by without necessarily attracting unfavorable attention, and might well have been praised for his "courage" and aggression. Many modern scholars have noted that sociopath individuals in the early history of North America could easily leave settled communities and pursued their murderous lusts on the frontiers--no one would have been likely to have spent much time counting how many Indians were killed, and whether or not they would have considered the killings to be murder. When Phil Sheridan commented in the 1840s that the only good Indian he had ever seen was dead, he was simply voicing a point of view widely held in Canada and the United States.

There is simply no statistical basis upon which to make even a reasonable guess, although, once again, based on gender roles as society inculcates them, i think it likely that more men would be serial murderers than women.

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A focus on serial killings, however, is as unrealistic as a focus on sexual relationships. The objectification of people can take many other forms than murder or sexual exploitation.

I only pointed out the use of the term as feminists have used it in the context of many feminist writers focusing on men as serial killers, while ignoring that women could do the same, or actively claiming that only men can be serial killers. It was not my intention to suggest that the concept of objectifying people is unique to a feminist point of view, although i suppose that one might reasonable assert that the concept and term "objectify" arose from feminist literature.

You seem to be narrowly focused on sexual relations. Outside of murder and rape, as many others in this thread have pointed out, it is not necessarily reasonable to see the adjustments and compromises which people make in their sexual relations as instances of the objectification of the other. Men and women--or men and men, or women and women--might well and often do, from affection, offer to their partners sexual gratification when they themselves are not necessarily interested in a sexual act. That does not mean that they are being objectified by their partners, nor does it mean that their partners are not seeing them as "persons" simply because they desire sexual gratification.

You also seem to ignore the extent to which there are so many other examples of people seen as objects and not as persons. The capitalist may see employees as just so much machinery for the generation of more capital. The socialist may see the populace as simply a proletariat whose existence justifies their imposition of a political agenda. When you buy that burger at the fast food joint, do you see the teenager behind the counter as a person, or just as a vending device from which you get what you want after you have inserted sufficient money? Personally, i always try to make eye contact, and greet the person, because i like to flirt. That has nothing to do with sexuality, and i am as likely to joke around with a teen-aged boy as with a girl. It is pleasant to make a brief and shallow, but friendly contact with people, and most (but not necessarily all) of these people with whom i deal in service positions seem to react positively to friendly banter and courtesy.

It is possible to treat people as objects in many more ways than simply in matters relating to sexuality, which actually happens to be a bad example. Murder and rape don't even necessarily involve sexual impulses, although the murderer or rapist might experience sexual stimulation or gratification. But murder and rape are about power, and usually not about sex--although certainly when it is a case of murdering or raping a stranger, it is a case of making a object of a person.

I understand objectification the way you meant.
I just read and could not help but reply. I think it is very real. I think we women use emotional objectification the same way men use sexual objectification.
I will give you an example. I experienced a very sad situation in my family. My 28 yr old sisterinlaw, very deare to me. was dying of cancer while pregnant. My husband had just lost his Dad. just couldnt burden him more. i think I started objectifying a male collegue Oncologist emotionally. As much as I hated unloading on him, could not help it. Your thread just madem e realize I actually was objectifying him. I do not think he enjoyed it either as nice as he is I think he felt used. It served my orpose for 2 years. I needed a support mechanism to go through that time. With her death as many things changed I also realized what I had been doing to this lovely person whom I would love to have as a friend not as an object. Unfortunately I think he would be too scared to be a friend now because it was never a 2way street as any friendship should be. Therefore all attempts at inviting him over or getting to know his family are kind of politely redirected. So I think we should be aware of this phenomenon and try not to use it if possible.

I think there are cases where it is absolutely necessary to objectify another person.

Take a surgeon for example; if he gets too emotionally involved he might loose focus on the task at hand. Resulting in suffering and maybe even death. Or a soldier; if he is going to consider the impact his actions will have on the enemys wife and children, he will become an inefficient soldier. Those are two examples where, IMO, objectification is vital and necessary.

I hope that wasn't off-topic, I had troubles figuring out what this thread was meant to focus on.

Why trouble understanding the concept?
Like anything in life, Objectfication cannot be seen as black and white. Yes, in many life situations it may be necesary to use it, but originally we were discussing it in context of relationships and wether women use emotional objectification the same way men use sexual objectification? I think we do!!!!

Do women not want to be sex objects?

Why do women dress to show off their sexuality then?

One mor ething, i cant find a faithful girl to save my life, and in fact i meet lots of women interested in nothing but sex.

I actually enjoy intimacy in my relationships, and its amazing how hard it is to find. I am beginning to think that relationships are a simple natural dominant/submissive thing. I think women and men are the same when it comes to sex, i think we both want sexual domination over the other.

Ive been used hella times for sex, im not even great looking id say average.Im not dumb i didnt start grovelling etc, i knw it was for sex, but i still felt sort of bad. Like all i was good for was sex, even though my entire life i have been searching for a girl i can simply enjoy a conversation with, but it seems to be a little hard when i want to talk about breaking the lightspeed barrier etc..

Ive been objectified, but according to the rest of us males i should be thankful the girl left as soon as sex was over.

But unlike other men, i like having the person there when i wake up. But then again i have only met a few girls who i would want to wake up to.

bringing me back to the point, if a woman is being objectified, DONT PUT UP WITH IT!

How do you get objectified if you dont want it? all women, you need to get some balls and suck up the emotional loss of a bad relationship and look for a new man if he only wants you for sex.

This little rant seems wrong on so many levels.

I know I do not. most of us dress for other women not men. Even if I do dress up it is to get attention not to be objectified seuxally.

If women dress to get attention, they might want to think about what kind of attention they want.

What do you mean here? What don't you want men to do when you dress up?

Dressing up does not equate to showing sexuality. I do not know the true American meaning of dressing up, but where I grew up dressing up meant showing your individuality, creativity, values and reflect the kind of person you are. I have always loved dressing up. I stitch my dresses. I love compliments from my friends ( mostly females). I do not think I ever got the wrong kind of attention because I have always been modest and the way I dress uo shows that.
Have I tried to objectify men emotionally, Yes !!!
Is it as wrong as men using women as sex objects Dont know !! Hope not !!

EB - The traditional marriage! I can't disagree. However, if this is the case, I certainly question the wellness of a traditional marriage. It would seem that the traditional marraige is not healthy for either party.

Set - I'm not really concerned with sexual relationships. I'm more concerned with the emotional side of this issue. I only cite some sexual references because they are familiar in this dialogue.

As for women dressing up etc. I personally feel that many women dress up for themselves. A large part of our sexuality is internal. I know I've stood in front of the mirror a few times in my life and thought I looked damn good. I will say that we often measure our own sexiness in reference to social projections of sexuality. It's not unheard of for a woman to dress for herself, but but her construct of what is sexy is based on what arouses men. We can't default to any specific construct of what is sexy. I don't subscribe to the idea that women should expect to be objectified because of fill in the blank.

T
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Diest, Breaking the institution of marriage is not healthy either. Again it is subject to what is your definition of healthy.

Why Dressing up and sexuality come together in a discussion ? help me understand. To dress up should means to cover up, to me a more appropriate place for showing your sexuality is when you are not dressed up or dressed up in a night gown. Don't you think that mating rituals should be a lot more than a show of sexuality. That to me is very primitive. Are we going backwards. I was just in the mall with my kids and Husband. I left my kids and husband in the food court for 5 min. when I camee back he looked so disturbed and said, I wish you saw what taht kid wass wearing. I am glad you are back because that was hard for me. Not just me everyone else was staring too. Poor guy said I try not to look again but it is close to impossible. What kind of mates is that kid going to attract. Would that lead to a healthy Anything?

Sorry for digressing !!

Meh. Our sexuality goes much deeper than what we do when we are naked. For example, men are often sexually threatened by certain colors. A man may avoid wearing certain colors because of what they feel it projects about their sexuality.

I'm not sure what you mean by breaking the institution of marriage. Things only break when they're too rigid, sez me.

T
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O

The problem with your posts is that you keep using terms without clear meaning.

What does "using women as sex objects" mean? When I try to imagine what I would do if I had a object to be used for sex (i.e a "sex object") I would probably want to do a lot more than look at it.

You are using the term "sex object"... but I think what you are really trying to say is that men shouldn't look at women.

I don't agree that men shouldn't look at women. Is this what you are saying?