To think Lad Mags aren't the real problem

[Mengog]

Over the last couple of years feminist groups and others have really doubled down on the campaigns against Lads Mags and Page 3.

Yet time and again I'm more shocked at the gossip Mags. This was sparked off by a headline about Cheryl Cole, calling her "a bag of bones" on Heat or something similar.

Not too long ago the front of FHM featured Kelly Brook on the cover with the headline 'Beautiful'. This was next to a gossip mag calling her "Fat".

AIBU to think the wrong magazines have been targeted?

(And no, it's not my area either, though the lack of historical awareness does get to me no end! )

But what is reality, buffy?

But yes. I think the 'I'm just interested in the real world' argument is pretty much the same as 'It's free choice'. They're both arguments that assume that everything is fixed and unchanging, and everyone can see what's going on quite clearly.

Therefore, we're being asked to believe simultaneously that nothing will change, and that we could all act freely if we wanted to.

It doesn't work for me, that.

But something in that sentence doesn't quite work for me. It implies that those of us who think that women ought to be freed from all this stuff related to appearance (I count myself in that group) aren't seeing the world as it is.

No. Are seeing the world the way it is and are wanting the world to be different.

I see the world as it looks to me, from where I am. And I'd like to advocate for some changes. I guess from where you sit, the world looks to you like a place that works by some pretty fundamental, natural rules? So you don't think the changes I'm advocating are ever realistically going to happen.

In principle, yes. In order to make the change in men's perception of women, and in women's assessment of other women, you need both solidarity across the sexes backing the cause, and a greater move away from traditional family values.

I'm OK with that, if that's your view. I just wanted to think through the whole 'see the world as it is' thing.

It may have been more accurate of me to say, 'are not overly discontent with the way our view of world currently is'.

JeanneDeMontbaston

Is it OK if I imagine your last post being read out by Laurence Fishburne? ;)

I would be only too delighted.

Ellie - here is an idea: people might see the universe in quite fundamentally different ways, because

a. the universe is infinite and we are finite so can only comprehend parts of it, and
b. the parts that we comprehend are essentially a kind of 'edit' of the universe - and like any edit, parts are cut out - and
c. it is not that there is sense perception and THEN understanding/editing of sense perception, but these edits occur simultaneously as we perceive - they are quite literally the 'thread' of our experience. So if we accept that:
d. our selfhood is predicated (or perhaps gifted) socially: we are who we are because of those around us, it is a relational matter; then
e. the 'edits' that we make when constituting our own experience depend to some extent on what are conditioned to comprehend, and factors like race, class, culture play a huge role in that

so

f. we may all experience the world in very, very different ways - which may be why we require such emphasis on methodologies for agreeing things (scientifically, politically) when it comes to coming to an accord.

I understand the construct, but I don't entirely agree, and I don't see where you are going with it. Is it just an observation of the mechanics of perception that you are trying to question?

I think women have been objectified by men since we know recorded time to have begun. This is not disputed. To a certain degree, anything predations written word is pure speculation and supposition, but in all likelihood, I'd suggest they are right. I'd suggest cavemen were objectifying cavewomen and speculating on their desire ability as a mate.

I'd also suggest that women have always known that men select partners based on visual clues as to their fertility, youth, health etc. and since time began have played to their advantages, and judged themselves and others around them as a way of measuring themselves.

This will not change. It is natural human instinct.

Now, the modern concept of 'media' has developed to, among other things, to stimulate those base instincts. To connect with us and try to convince us that they are required as part of being a modern human being. They are a product, and they must perform this function well in order to survive. If they do not sell, they cease to be and a lot of people lose a lot of money.

What is in question here is whether or not it is desirable for media to be playing to these base instincts in order to generate revenue. Whether it is moral. Whether it benefits people (either the reader or the person he passes in the street). Or whether indeed there is any valid arguable reason for such media to exist.

I'd suggest the answer to most, if not all, or those questions is NO.

But... We have freedom, and so long as freedom exists, there will be people who will make money exploiting the base instincts of human beings. You cannot remove or suppress the human instinct that is being appealed to in both men and women by these publications. The only thing you can do is introduce censorship.

Sorry, 'pre-dating' not 'predictions'.

Isn't there a distinction to be made between objectifying, and sexual desire?

To me they are not the same thing at all.

If I look at a woman and say 'cor, great rack on that!' I am objectifying her, because I'm treating her as a 'that', an object.

If I'm sexually attracted to a woman with said attributes, I wouldn't say that's objectifying (I wouldn't say it's evolution either, but one of the ways evo psych falls over is explaining same-sex desire, so for the purposes of this conversation, I'll pretend I'm a bloke. ).

It seems to me that attraction can be looked at in two ways: it could be I, He-Man the cavedweller, am genetically programmed to be attracted to busty women. Or, it could be that I, He-Man the cavedweller, am attracted to them because I grew up looking at the sexy cave paintings and they shaped by sexual preferences. And, of course, once we introduce the possibility that my cave-sexuality was shaped by images, we reintroduce the possibility of objectification, and come full circle.

We can't really know which is which, and I agree it's very likely that people have been feeling sexual attraction, and translating it into images/words (which have the potential to objectify) for longer than we have history.

But I don't think that means sexual attraction in itself is the same as objectification.

No. I don't think so. One is an expression of the other. If you look at a woman and you think, 'Cor, great wrack on that', you are verbalising (mentally) a desire response without actually knowing her. I see no reason to condem people responding on a primal level to other people's bodies, and I see nothing wrong with the mental process of recognising that you are responding to her body, and that you do not actually know her. Under you premiss, you have mentally objectified her, but I disagree.

Now, if you say 'Cor, Great rack on that.', then you're a dick. Unless the woman respons positively to an interpretted advance, in which case you're a lucky bugger.

At the heart of the concept of 'objectification' is the taking of offence. Offence is not given. It is construed by the person being offended, and assumed to have been present and imposed upon them. You take offence at things. That is wholly separate to how human beings respond to sexual stimulus.

Yes, expressing said curt statement is both abrupt and rude, and yes, it can be argued that in any sense of what people in our society have been brought up to be taught is polite, it could be reasonably assumed to have been intentionally aggressive. Offensive even, if the speaker had sufficient intelligence typos have reasonably been expected to be able to make such a judgement call.

But no, you cannot say that the act itself per se is specifically an act of objectification in the sense that it is being discussed on this thread.

Ah, see, this may be where we disagree, then.

I think you've misread me, though. I gave the 'great rack' example as an example of objectifying - you're telling me it is objectifying, so we agree - but you seem to think we disagree?

I don't agree at all, though, that taking offence is at the heart of objectification. I think objectifying someone is an action - it's when I say something, or do something, that treats the other person as an object. It's as simple as that.

And I don't think it is really to do with being polite. When I'm attracted to someone, wanting to know them as a person isn't 'polite' - it's sexual attraction!

I'm slightly lost on your last sentence, though - run it past me again?

That all comes down to your definition of an 'object', and the reason I specifically said, 'objectification in the sense that it is being discussed on this thread', is because 'objectification' as it is being discussed here, is framed as both wrong and offensive to women (whether they are offended or not).

In its most aggressive form, 'Look at the rack on that' is a contraction of the sentence, 'Look at the rack on that body.' And I contend that mentally separating the physical body (which we either are or are not sexually attracted to immediately), from being residing within it (which we either will or will not know, and will or will not grow to love and respect), are instinctive and not specifically, wrong, evil, malicious, etc. I believe there has to be intent, not merely instinct. And I further believe for it to be 'wrong' that intent has to be deliberate and with understanding of the intent.

If you think your bank manager is a cunt, I don't think you are objectifying him. I think you are describing his personality. If you think he's an ugly cunt, again, I think you are discibing his appearance and this personality. But that would still be supposition on my part that you had met him and knew his personality. You may have made a snap judgement about him whilst he parked his car, of failed to be polite to a passer by. It could have been a conclusion you jumped to based on a glance or impertinence in the gait of his walk that day. I have no idea. But if you describe him as an ugly cunt, I don't see that as objectification. I see that as descriptive hyperbole.

On a thread where in question is already framed as to a persons 'intent' in thinking or saying something, and that 'intent' is already presented as degrading and detrimental to womankind, I find it very difficult to make blanket judgements about such 'intent' without knowing that it actually exists. To do so is just as morally questionable as the are meant to believe this objectification is.

Autocorrect is shite.

I'm sorry, but I completely disagree, and I think what you're saying isn't really tenable.

The contraction issue is irrelevant. Both are objectifying, obviously - the issue is one of grammar.

I don't think separating a physical body from the mind within is instinctive. I think when you fall for someone, you want to know what they are like as a person. And I also disagree that 'cunt' is an inherently negative term.

The bank manager issue is not really the same thing - why do you compare the two? Comparing a person to a body part can be rude, but it's not the same as objectifying them.

Anyway...
"Time for bed." Said Zebedee.

Night.

If you do not know someone as a person, you can only be sexually attracted to their body. Your premiss is that that very act is objectifying, because it is just a body, and that like it or not, we all have internal processes that evaluate the body and make decisions on its desirability.

If we think, look at the rack on that, we have verbally internalised that process. Just like thinking, where the fuck is that lift? I can see that it is viewing the body for what it is, a body, an object. But I cannot see that it is 'objectifying the person' in the frame it is being presented in this thread. 'Objectifying women' is being presented here with very specific intent, and in the case of a man thinking, look at the rack on that body, I don't see that the intent that is being assumed to exist by women, actually exists.

You are selecting an act which happens instinctively when a man has no idea who the person is, and attributing intent to that act. That is the fallacy as I see it. You need to demonstrate that the intent that this thread implies is present, actually exists.

Now I need to really go to bed or tomorrow's little merry-go-round will be tortuous.

But I don't think 'look at the rack on that'.

That was my point.

Like most people, if I'm sexually attracted to someone, I want to know them and treat them as a person.

It is separate from objectification.

The first is natural - the sexual attraction - and the second, I think, is not.

I'm slightly confused by the way you're gendering this. I don't think it's only men who're sexually attracted to women. Nor do I think it's only men who are conditioned to translate that into objectification.

But I do think men think different to women. I think the thought process follows a different path, and I think that is because our motivations to pair bond are different.

At the instinctual level, the motivation to pair bond for men is the distribution of their genetic material. The motivation the pair bond for women is to one of nurture.

The motivation in the thought process itself creates both different attraction triggers, and different thought processes. It all happens in microseconds at a subconscious level, and is only vocalised after it has already taken place.

And, as was said upthread, evopsych massively falls down at its heteronormativism...

See, I don't think that is true, TBH, ellie. And it doesn't explain happily childless men, or women who go through life having lots of sex but very few relationships, except to pathologise them.

And yes, heteronormativity ...

I do think that's probably true, ellie. I'm with you on there being some basic gender differences, on average. Of course these group differences don't "explain" the lives of every individual. And they certainly don't mean that we have to accept and feed into society's obsession with women's bodies (or at the least the specific manifestations of this).