Sexual objectification of men

[DSM]

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?

But actually, "ugly women" is an interesting topic.
In "Intercourse" Dworkin shows us that the women who were fucked the most by men throughout history were not beautiful, they were ugly. Prostitutes were "toothless bawds" , often unhealthy bags of bones. For all their talk, men are not interested in beauty in private. Oh, yes they like a pretty girl on their arm, but it's not beauty that turns them on, not really.

So if we look at who have been fucked by men the most, it's not beautiful women, it's vulnerable women. Which goes back to Sheila Jeffreys' point above. Vulnerability turns men on, not beauty. Isn't that a little sadistic, though? Because if you fuck a vulnerable woman, a poor woman, or a woman with a drug habit, or a woman on death's door, she may still become pregnant, and more easily die from health-related complications.
Is this the turn-on???? Is the potential for harm the turn on?

FoodUnit Was that directed at me?

Also, @ sakura: Being a poor or powerless man is not the same as being an "ugly" woman (not that I think any women are ugly) because that man still benefits from male privilege, which places him above all women.

I'm trying to picture a meaningful sense in which an undereducated, inarticulate, unemployed working-class man with minimal skills could be perceived as more privileged than, say, Angela Merkel, or indeed Justine and Helen at MNHQ, or even me - a fairly average thirtysomething middle-class working woman - simply by dint of being a man. It just doesn't reflect my experience.

Somehow I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this though

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.. .

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Or anyone who have ever met any people.

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.

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