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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Sexual objectification of men

203 replies

DSM · 17/11/2011 12:14

Maybe not feminism, but not sure where else to post..

Am I alone in being uncomfortable with the sexual objectification of men? Was just watching this morning where holly willoughby was interviewing some young chaps from the new twilight film.

Commments such as 'within the first minute you had your top off and I though 'oh yes, there it is'' and 'we've all been waiting a long time to see your sex scene'. There were many references to their bodies, their beauty and the fact they get naked, all met with 'phwoarr' type comments.

I felt like the men were being objectified, and if it had been a man making those comments to a woman on daytime tv, all hell would break loose.

Why is it accepted from female-male? Surely in the interest of equality this kind of behaviour shouldn't be acceptable to/from either sex?

Am I over reacting?

OP posts:
sakura · 24/11/2011 06:19

okay, I retract the word geek. What I'm arguing against is a system that gives men advantages, reproductive advantages, that they would never have if we lived outside of a patriarchy. ANd this is an extremely important point to consider... because if women had true equality a lot of men wouldn't get the opportunity to reproduce. Think of all the women out there who fall into marriage (or have arranged marriages!), or all the women who don't make it to the abortion clinic, or the women who conceive through rape. IN a system of equality there would be no prostition. Women wouldn't be coerced into having sex. If women had real political and economic power in the world, many of them would probably decide to have less children, or no children at all

THis very thought sends chills down most men's spines! They see their reprodutive future sliding out of view. So they bandy together against women and regard women as the enemy (hence all the killing of women that goes on).

But their worldview is distorted. Women are not the enemy, other men are! (idiots)

I suppose my ultimate point is, there is no such thing as a feminist man. Men have just got too much to lose if women were liberated.

messyisthenewtidy · 23/11/2011 20:44

Sad it's already been done. Anti-FeministBingo
Had fun reading it tho. .

FoodUnit · 23/11/2011 19:24

Great idea :)

messyisthenewtidy · 23/11/2011 17:53

Food Unit - love the anti-feminist bingo! Permission to start a new thread gathering stock MRA phrases?

mumwithdice · 23/11/2011 17:21

EleanorRathbone WRT geek, I agree. I think it's a term that means different things to different people. Sakura meant looks-is that right? and I interpreted it as more internal.

FoodUnit I can't be sure except where DH is concerned and one other female friend. I'm only going on the way they've always treated me and the fact that none of them have ever made telling throwaway remarks.

BTW, I really like this discussion.

EleanorRathbone · 23/11/2011 16:42

Yes exactly. Anyone who has ever done internet dating knows that.

Or anyone who have ever met any people.

Grin
FoodUnit · 23/11/2011 16:40

Well really attraction is another thing all together.

Although the patriarchal capitalist marketing would have you believe 'sexiness' can be represented in a photograph, its obviously b*llocks since we have all 5 senses not just the eyes/visual, mental rapport, chemistry and 'a certain je ne sais quoi' that make up attraction.

EleanorRathbone · 23/11/2011 15:41

I think geeks is an unfortunate turn of phrase, it implies clever guy to me - Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory is weirdly hot but I'd class him as a geek. I think women would still be attracted to oddball, wimpy, kooky type men if men had to compete for them, as males have to in nature, but the wimpy types would have to compete on other terms than the good looking "phwoar" types - like for example, they'd have to be nicer, or more amusing, or better company or whatever.

I don't think men who don't meet the beauty standard most women prefer, would be totally condemned to celibacy on the fall of patriarchy. Grin

LeninGrad · 23/11/2011 15:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FoodUnit · 23/11/2011 14:40

ColdTruth
Of course you weren't able to entirely obscure it without an outright lie, but you did try to create the distraction from male perpetration of violence, by bringing male victimhood of male violence into it. Obscure/distract - it amounts to the same thing really..

Also, I think 'it was also a comment made about speaking in generalities' is a bit vague and meaningless - trying to blur the point until its inscrutable.

ColdTruth · 23/11/2011 14:23

No where did I obscure men being more violent, I even agreed with part of Sakura's statement (which is clear to see in the quote you call antifeminist) it was also a comment made about speaking in generalities but it seems you will see what you want to see even going as far as linking my name to being antifeminist. Bingo away

FoodUnit · 23/11/2011 14:09

ColdTruth

Bingo!

Cor I didn't even mention that one - a name like 'cold truth'... is a typical antifeminist MRA moniker. It suggests delusions of privileged access to objective truth and a cold drive to convince others of it.

FoodUnit · 23/11/2011 14:03

ColdTruth the statement in a vacuum is not antifeminist. However I meant 'antifeminist bingo!' - by that I mean that there are several stock responses antifeminists come out with, and you can turn it into a game of bingo.
eg- women are killed by men not by other women.... then:
'ur NO! ACTually, more men are killed by men than women actually'..
BINGO! a stock phase - one of the many retorts that is supposed to obscure the fact that men are more violent than women, by trying to focus on men as the victims of male violence rather than the perpetrators.

There are quite a few of them. I'll illustrate by saying Bingo! if I hear any more on this thread.. Wink.

LeninGrad · 23/11/2011 13:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sakura · 23/11/2011 13:12

mumwithdice there are no female geeks, trust me. There really aren't. All women can get a man to reproduce with them, if they want to. Yes, the misogynistic patriarchy tries to divvy up women into "pretty" and "ugly" but that's not true anyway. It's just a lie to get women to feel vulnerable. Every woman has got something going for her.
Not so for men. Without the big P, not all men could reproduce. As Dworkin said, the men who are against feminist the most are the ones at the back of the bar, the men no woman would willingly go into labour for.

sakura · 23/11/2011 13:09

O, an example of male privilege: a woman is more likely to get a custodial sentence for a first offence than a man. The system privileges all men over women.

sakura · 23/11/2011 13:06

Nesbo No, I don't actually think beauty is most desired by men. I think vulnerability is, and all their talk of beauty is all just makes them look better in their own eyes. For example, it's not just ugly men that visit prostitutes you know. Lots of married men do, lots of "eligible" men, lots of rich, popular and famous men fuck "toothless bawds".
We're talking about men who could and can get beautiful women...
...but beauty is not really what gets them off.

ColdTruth · 23/11/2011 11:19

I have no idea how that comment was antifeminist I suppose you probably just label anything antifeminist if you disagree with it even if true.

FoodUnit · 23/11/2011 11:05

OtheHugeMjanatee I was referring to the 'antifeminist bingo -score!':
"yes murderers are generally men but they generally kill other men actually"

mumwithdice I too associate with many geeks - including DH, but he needed a lot of training in feminism (which he now totally gets - apart from the occasional ignorant comment stemming from male privilege - but you can't win 'em all). I have met some card carrying misogygeeks too, complete with 'Fathers for Justice' friended on FB. They are everywhere - one was even at my wedding reception- and you don't know you've met one until you mention domestic violence, porn, prostitution or other violence against women - you will be met with aggressive rebuttal and refutation of it all, using the misogygeek MRA stock responses. So I wonder if you can be sure you've never met them? Try raising one of these subjects as a test ;)

Nesbo I'm afraid you've got it wrong when you say Your "toothless bawds" were/are "fucked the most" because they are available/obtainable to the greatest numbers. Unfortunately when punters select the women they want to buy, it is very commonly for the power imbalance. Many deliberately choose the most visibly drug-addicted - even holding up a bag of heroin and saying "what will you do for this"... I know this not through a feminist discourse, but actually through training at a centre for street-based prostitutes, I was really shocked that it was so overtly about abusing power.

KRITIQ · 22/11/2011 22:59

Make that "with the intention of reproducing," aka - people shag, marry, partner up with members of the opposite sex for many reasons, not just to produce offspring (so surely attraction can't all be about seeking someone with the right genetic characteristics.)

KRITIQ · 22/11/2011 22:57

And, not all women "mate" with men (nor other way round) with no intention of reproducing.

molly3478 · 22/11/2011 18:15

I also think most women do reproduce with men they find attractive unless they married purely for money. I would be shocked if most people didnt tbh

Nesbo · 22/11/2011 16:34

Jeez, I do try try not to get sucked back in, particularly when things descend in a bit of a Pom-bear worthy rant, but anyway...

Sakura, surely in your last post you have just illustrated that where beauty is prized the most beautiful are surprisingly the most unobtainable in spite of being the most desired?

Your "toothless bawds" were/are "fucked the most" because they are available/obtainable to the greatest numbers. They lack the currency of beauty which has traditionally allowed women to pick and choose the partners at the 'top of the pyramid'.

Your suggestion that it is something other than their availability (ie that they are somehow secretly more desired by men) seems quite a leap.

mumwithdice · 22/11/2011 15:36

This is an interesting discussion, but, as a female geek, I'm a little uncomfortable with the geek-bashing going on on this thread. In my experience, geeks of both sexes are divided quite sharply into two categories, extremely misogynistic and extremely welcoming to anyone at all. I've been lucky enough to meet only people who fall into that second category.

A tiny probably worthless tuppence but I had to say something as it's been bothering me.

SinicalSal · 22/11/2011 15:19

Gender imbalance is not the only one, true OtheHugeMjanatee, but among peers the man is always higher up. The uneducated inarticulate unemployed working class man is more priviliged than his sister. Sarkozy is more privileged than Merkel - not that she isn't doing all right, from what I know.