Is it any wonder women are sexually objectified when so many celebrities volunteer to be?

[Notsosure1]

I’ve posted about this topic before , but after seeing two pop up shortly after scrolling, I am staggered by the number of articles that pop up on yahoo news that have headlines ‘celebrating’ (objectifying) female celebrities, young and old - here’s the first two of many -

‘Sabrina Carpenter is completely naked in new magazine cover, posing in nothing but thigh high socks’ (Cosmopolitan)

‘Stacey Solomon is the ultimate Bond girl in slinky swimsuit as she holidays without Joe Swash’
(Hello)

We’re trying to teach the younger generation of girls not to accept being viewed simply as sexual objects but there’s an abundance of mainstream female celebrities doing just that and are being cheered on for doing it. Talk about mixed messages. Yeah to body confidence and positivity, of course you can be viewed as sexy as well as intelligent, kind, independent etc. but I can’t believe there are still so many of these out there with such sleazy titles. There are a few focussing on men (I presume) but way down in number by comparison.

Am I over-reacting?

They are letting girls down - but remember she’s been a commodity since she was a teenager and has grown up in an industry where girls and women are presented in an overly sexualised way. It’s all she’s ever known, sadly, and I really feel for women who want to be known for their music and not their bodies.

I'm wondering how far a bloke would get doing this kind of stuff. Wearing thongs and feigning sex acts in front of pre teens.

Sam Smith net worth: $45 million

He’s a gay bloke though I believe, so still pandering to the male gaze.

That was exactly why I didn’t use him as an example!

There’s a lot of mixed messages in this world. One that gets me is how far we’ve come with #metoo and workers rights since the 70s so women can complain against male employees sexual advances etc, less catcalling in streets. but then we now have onlyfans etc making us into objects again. Women in the media being over sexualised.

i just watched a documentary about woodstock 99, when it turned into chaos and men were just doing what they wanted, raping and groping women without consequence. Now no woman deserves to have this done and it is 100% the mans fault, he has a choice. But the women were getting their boobs out, totally stripping off and acting really sexualised. It just didn’t help the message that we are not objects.

I mentioned him a few pages back as the only male cavorting about like this (maybe Lil Nas too, who is also gay, he dresses scantily but I haven’t seen him on stage) as it’s down to the same thing, the male gaze.

I know I’m a pearl clutcher, a boomer, not the target audience, etc but I can’t help feeling so disappointed in women like Sabrina. She’s beautiful, she’s talented (she can sing), why does she have to go down this over sexualised road, does she not think she can be successful without it?

An excellent point! 👏🏻

So I started following a few female singers I liked who are starting to get famous. They’ve always been just about the music. I noticed they were starting to post thirsty photos which attracted all the pervy old and weird blokes.. And when they needed sales to get into the charts they got there because of these creeps who weren’t in it for the music. Even their normal posts only got old men commenting, nothing from their young mostly female fanbase.
Quite a few of us started commenting saying why are you selling out, and one of them has stopped doing it

Good for you! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I really think this thread shows that a lot of ppl have been questioning this schtick for a while and that their fans don’t seem to be their target audience - which is so weird. What are they aiming at these dirty old pervs for? How are they getting payback from them to make it worth their while if they’re unlikely to be buying their records? Is it what the fans want? They want to watch a sexy young singer bc (as I mentioned before) it’s aspirational for them and their fantasy of what they themselves would like to emulate? And if so, why is that?

Well done on you (and those you mentioned) for holding them to account, as they are massively influential to millions of young, impressionable girls who are looking for role models. And well done on the artist who listened 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

They're not trying to get the attention of pervs, they're trying to get notoriety in an overcrowded industry.

Look at how Miley Cyrus was suddenly in all the headlines when she started twerking and wearing risque outfits.

The industry is just as competitive for men but I can't imagine Eminem twerking in his underpants to get attention.

I've heard that female singers are pushed in that direction by management. I believe that's why Sinead O Connor shaved her head.

Ahh thanks, I felt I was being harsh as I commented quite a few times saying why are you posting shots of your bum or your legs open etc. Of course all the sleazes defended her doing it.. “leave her alone and let her be a sexual being, she’s in her 20s!” and they were buying her online records and posting on her profile about it, probably with some bizarre belief they will be in her favour.
Her young female fans went to her concerts but not a sniff of them on her fb page.
She got what she wanted and got in the charts which has propelled her forward, but maybe as she doesn’t care about being huge hugeshe has tamed it down. Sex sells sadly 🤮

Perhaps we need to criticise the women who buy Cosmopolitan, Hello and other similar publications and/or view their online content then.

Sex sells sadly 🤮

Sad but true.

Women have been used to sell records of men (think background party girls in music videos, objects of desire or heartbreak, backing singers) as well as films and tv shows - there was a YouTube video someone had made pointing out all the sexual non-speaking parts of young female actors In Game of Thrones and said they were essentially ‘props’. You can’t really argue against that.

Women have been cast in these roles since the media began and we are still being represented in these passive, objectifying ways as it’s become a tradition and what ppl expect. It ‘works’, ppl accept this, why change it?

Producers and executives are very aware that young men have always been the primary audience in terms of ticket sales in cinemas - certainly throughout its history. So a lot of chauvinistic fantasy was created to cater for this market and entice them to spend their money and fill the seats - hence the passive, non-threatening, attractive female inclusion. The 80s went through a long spell of nerd fantasy where they spun the yarn of unattractive but ‘decent’ adolescents scoring dates and sexual encounters, if not relationships, with sexually attractive peers or older women. They predictably went down a storm. However, this crept on throughout the decades where they presented normal Joe Bloggses winning the girl against the odds and after competing successfully with conventionally more attractive and richer alpha males. Unfortunately, this has led to a generation(s) of dissatisfied males who feel they are owed their own happy, Hollywood ending, and when they don’t get it they turn nasty. This hatred and entitlement isn’t aimed where it belongs, the other men who took advantage of their dreams and yearnings and made a hefty fortune out of them, but irrationally, at the women they feel they are owed. Hence the women-hating incels culture that is now rife. Men hate women for rejecting them or for imagining they will reject them. They’re too thick and twisted to realise that it’s other men who they should be angry with who sold them the lie. Meanwhile hoping women are getting their lit off in film and tv while their male counterparts sit back fully-clothed, or discretely hidden (yes I’m looking at you Oppenheimer!!!) and enjoy the view and inevitable revenue these sleaze magnets attract.

We need to break the fucking mould and the sooner the better!!!

LOL! The Beatles performed in SUITS! While mostly standing quite still (a bit of head jiggling notwithstanding).

Attractive men can be seen as attractive men while mostly just existing, comfortably and nonchalantly. There's largely no pressure on even the famous ones to expose themselves in public or perform humiliation rituals. For the most part, women don't expect or need any of that shit.

You’ve phrased this so well and made excellent points. Your 3rd paragraph is exactly what I’ve been trying to say with the added highlight about feminism being repackaged to make it palatable (and beneficial) for the patriarchy 👌🏻

I agree, where’s the pressure to hyper sexualise themselves? Not that there should be any, which should hopefully go without saying, but at least if they were presenting themselves in a similar fashion it would level the playing field.

I SO wish they hadn’t got rid of the 😄 reaction -

mostly standing quite still (a bit of head jiggling notwithstanding).

😂😂😂😂🤣 marvellous!

And it's not "sex", per se, that sells. It's the female body, packaged and commodified for men, that sells. The female sex "object".

As for "looking sexy"... How many heterosexual men ever dress with this goal in mind, or even put any thought into appealing visually to women? And "sexy" isn't usually the woman in question's personal idea of what is "sexy", which might be hairy armpits and a mullet. "Sexy" in this context always means "conforming to the mainstream cultural ideal of what heterosexual men find sexually stimulating on the most base level".

And surely someone will be along with the old saw about men being "visual". But men are used to having their tastes catered to by women and society, and feel entitled to this; they are encouraged to be "visual" when it comes to women by the arts, the media, the pornography industy, the music industry, the film industry, the fashion industry, etc. They all serve women up en masse for men's consumption; it has always been thus. As a class, men have the power and the luxury to expect or even demand "visual" satisfaction from women. Meanwhile, we women mostly have to take what we can get when it comes to men. It's the power dynamics between the sexes: the ruling class and the servant class. Women perform the "sexy", and men are, hopefully... half-decent? Solvent? Not serial killers?

With men, they're either attractive or they're not. And being attractive is enough for a man. Society generally doesn't consider that an attractive man needs any embellishment or modification. Being attractive - fit, healthy, good skin, teeth and hair, nice features - is generally not enough for a woman to be deemed "sexy".

Also to add - the boybands of the modern era aren’t in the same ballpark as the young women. (I think I missed Take That’s arses in jelly episode! Thankfully) It’s usually a tops off deal and that suffices.

Interestingly, if they weren’t wear thongs or appear naked with their bits slightly covered, and thrust depicting sexual movements it would probably be seen as threatening and not seductive. Why is that? Have we been conditioned to view male sexuality as aggressive and something to ultimately be feared as women are less threatening physically, or just more desirable in general?

There are ways to counter this of course by making them appear tender and vulnerable, but you don’t see those type of music videos or performances on stage while they are also nearly naked. Women on the other hand are the opposite, with them (up to now) being seen as sexually powerful and in some cases aggressive themselves.

But now we’re seeing a swing back to being shown to be submissive 🤷🏼‍♀️ is this meant to be an ironic statement or is it ultimately feeding into the male fantasy where they have done a 360 on us, and after our annoying proclivity to enjoy having any type of power have steered female artists into ‘pretending’ to be submitting themselves to men, or disturbingly, sexual abuse and violence.

Aaarrrgghhh

Absolutely agree!

So you're saying that teenage girls didn't fancy any of the Beatles or have raging hormones? That girls and women aren't sexually attracted to pop stars or actors? That they don't have groupies. That we're dead from the neck down and don't do "that shit"? It's amazing the human race is still going.

I agree with you op, but I think this came long before celebrity culture. Women have always been judged for their looks, right back to when women had no rights and their only passport to a home and income was to attract a man who could provide these things. We have come a long way, but this pick me attitude among women has somehow persisted, in a time when women can provide for themselves, many seem to feel the need to be attractive to men, and to remain so into old age. Like you op I wish these women, many of them very successful, would wake up and not splash their bodies all over the media, but as long as men are men there will be money in it so I can't see things changing any time soon.

Er, no, that's not what I was saying. You clearly didn't understand my post AT ALL.

It's the other way round.

Well said!