Sexual objectification of men

It's generally accepted because

a) women can't rape men, so it's not as threatening

b) men aren't operating in a culture of being constantly told that the most important thing about them, is the way they look

c) what tethersend said - it's just another way of justifying objectification of women and then pretending that because it happens occasionally on the X factor to men, boys are subjected to the same amount of sexual harassment as girls are, they're bieng raped or sexually assaulted at the rate of 1 in 4, they're being denied promotions because they're not sexy enough/ too sexy, they're being made to feel afraid or embarrassed on the streets by women calling at them from cars... oh wait, that's not happening to men, is it?

It is as tacky and revolting as when it happens to women, but it is not as harmful to men as a group, because men as a group aren't asked to justify why Frankie on the X Factor is such a knob in the way women are a group are asked to justify Jordan being a knob. Frankie is not perceived as a representative of a large group of men, he is just perceived as Frankie, whereas Jordan is perceived as a representative of a large group of women and we are constantly being told to account for her.

And the sort of women who enjoy it, are generally not feminists as they are responding with a "sauce for the goose" reaction, rather than an analytical political one. Which is one approach to dealing with the constant sexism to which women are subjected, but I would argue that it's not a feminist approach.

Have any of the arguments on this thread been of interest to you DSM?

Also, what OrmIrian said, objectification of either sex is just stupid, because it's just plain tacky and superficial.

I dislike the sexual objectification of men but I don't think it's the same. I would probably be more vehement in my objection to it if it were backed up by a constant drip-feed of imagery and messages telling boys that their whole identity was connected to their looks.

When Action Man comes with twenty different outfits and the assurance that they will make him look "hot" then I'll start worrying.

As a rule, I think feminists are the least likely to sexually objectify men. Because obviously we're, like, awesome

I think it's a pretty bad thing to raise the sexual temperature of society by objectifying human bodies of either sex.

Whilst its undesirable, taken in the context of the whole of society it will only cause the most minor damage if it causes any at all. So whilst I wouldn't condone it I don't see it as a big issue.

Well capitalist sex is great for business though eh? If we can all project sexuality onto the 'unreachable celebrity world', then we will buy, buy, buy - whatever sh*t is sold to us - even voting more on the X Factor...

There are huge numbers of people who think feminists are just being fuddy-duddies complaining about the objectification of women. I would imagine that the kind of women that go phoar! about objectified men, are probably the same women that would call feminists fuddy-duddies. They are using a different tactic to cope with sexism, other than the direct calling-out and rejecting that feminists do - they are trying to 'out-bloke the blokes' - adopting blokey male-bonding techniques to scramble together a temporary feeling of superiority. But of course it goes against the grain of the status quo, so once the bonding through blokey posturing is over, they'll be back to 'oppression as usual'.

The objectification of women/misogyny/sexism surrounds us all the time. It is SO tiresome and commonplace it creates a hostile, oppressive environment for women, that puts all women in a state of inner conflict as to how much they'll bow to the pressure or resist it. It normalises sexual harassment, trivialises sexual violence, creates obstacles to women being taken seriously, or taking themselves seriously. It is bad bad bad and has countless knock-on effects that counters any moves towards equality.

Seeing a man objectified is shocking and memorable because it is not the norm - hence the OP wrote here. Although it is tacky and degrades the individual males being objectified, its not as though men as a whole are being degraded as a sex class by it.

So yes, it is unpleasant and bullying when done to men too, but its not anything they should lose sleep over, unless a day comes when the world is governed by women with revenge on their minds...

I felt the young guy on XFactor, Frankie, was exploited. His sexuality was entirely torn open (I realise it was his choice to get tatoos of girls names on his bum) but the producers really went with it and exploited it every week. Rotten if you ask me.
Similarly, at the audition stages of the XFactor (sorry for all these references) the female judges would encourage male auditionees to lift up their tops or give them a little kiss, if this had been the other way around there would have been (and rightly so) uproar. I'm not saying the individuals complained about it but it just normalises objectification.
Exploiting anyones sexuality is awful and objectifying people based on their looks and percieved sexual attractiveness is horrible. I think its done a lot in the media to reduce people, both men and women, to a version of twisted sexuality, where we must objectify.
I hate the way sex and sexuality must always be played out in public when they are in fact very private and intimate, belonging only to those who posses them and nobody else.

that's it exactly - 'oh, but women do it too!'

"They hide behind the 'oh its a bit of laugh for us girls, its not like when a bloke says stuff or leers at a woman'."

Yes, exactly- and worse than that, it is then used as evidence that women are equal to men and that any oppression is imagined.

I'm not especially bothered about the sexual objectification of men but tethersend said something that got me thinking.

"The objectification of men is patriarchy's way of justifying the objectification of women and making it more palatable under the guise of 'equality'- when in fact, it's anything but."

On televison and printed media the constant barrage of reference to a guest or presenter or some celeb looking or being or acting sexy. Is just tiresome. It devalues everything to a lowest common denominator. It happens to men and women. However, it is noticeable that female presenters, especially young ones on programmes aimed at the youth audience, have increasingly been encouraged to adopt a 'ladette' pose of in your face oggling and lewd references to blokes physical appearance as a sort of badge of office.

They hide behind the 'oh its a bit of laugh for us girls, its not like when a bloke says stuff or leers at a woman'. No doubt their producers and senior TV executives (usually blokes) encourage it to lift the ratings though.

DSM - RE your last post, nobody said that
Everyone is agreeing that, no its not ok to objectify anyone in this way.

"So it's okay for the power dynamic to shift?"

But it doesn't.

It makes me uncomfortable. I always cringe when I hear such a comment. I used to work opposite a firestation and I hated the fuss my female colleagues made over the men. I want to be taken seriously at work and that isn't going to happen if I show signs of being a gibbering wreck every time a man in uniform walks past.

Dominant sex? Really? I would disagree.

But as I've said, a few times now, objectification in either direction is NOT acceptable. It's very harmful.

Obviously it isn't acceptable to treat anyone in an unpleasant manner. But the impact of calling a person who is generally popular a nasty name is usually less than the impact of calling a person who is being bullied a nasty name. For the bullied person there is no respite from that bullying, so your name calling is going to become part of their world view that the world hates them. For the popular person, the remark may hurt, but they can be reassured that the rest of the world does not agree with the remark.

That is surely what we mean by institutional sexism, isn't it? Sexism is entrenched in the institutions of our society, so any sexist remark is reinforced by the social structure.

On an individual level, if I see somebody making a horrible remark to anybody, I am going to make a judgement that the remark maker is mean spirited. Who they are making the remark to is not going to change how mean spirited I consider them to be. But when looking at the impact on the person the remark was made to, I would take all aspects of what I knew about that person into account when considering how hurtful the remark might be.

Also, what SAL said about groups with power being able to act.

I also think part of the issue with sexualising men is that it makes women less humane if the sexualisation of men happens often enough for it to change women's perceptions. I think that once you start to think of any group of people inhumanely, it becomes very easy to switch that inhumanity across to any group, including vulnerable ones that don't have the power to protect themselves than men collectively have. Young men and boys (under 18) for example, could be harmed by this perception and the behaviour that follows from it.

It's not 'more acceptable' - but without power to ACT on racism/sexism all you can do is TALK about it. So it's not as harmful to a member of the privileged group as it would be to the oppressed group. Sticks and stones etc.

It's good that you believe in equality, no feminist would condone sexism, or racism for that matter. But they would analyse the power dynamics at play.

& what tethers said

no it's not acceptable in either direction.

However men don't have a long long history of being objectified at the expense of everything else about them, and women generally don't have power over men to the extent that men have over women. So I could be a leery female chauvinist pig who sees men only as objects but it's less likely I'll be interviewing them/managing them/granting funding for their studies/judging them in a courtroom/giving them housekeeping whiled they sahp/raping them, with my subconscious belief that they're not quite human - objects in fact.

There's an argument in which men say 'I'd love to be objectified, so I don't get why women don't like it!'. But your (men, generally) preferences don't trump mine, you don't get to decide on my behalf what I should or should not like.

The objectification of men is patriarchy's way of justifying the objectification of women and making it more palatable under the guise of 'equality'- when in fact, it's anything but.

Just before I read this I walked past a branch of Gilly Hicks, with the usual topless male model (standing next to a fully dressed female model) to entice girls/women in to buy clothes.

This presumably represents enlightened progress as no one seems to raise an eyebrow (although a lot of girls seem to like having their photo taken with him).