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?

Also, about the original postings that drew the criticisms - one was a criticism of generalising about 'geeks' - which Sakura retracted - I would like to have a word for these people being discussed without perhaps needing to resort to the American jock/geek dichotomy- (which is simplistic of course). But trying to coin a name for them would surely be time-consuming and distracting - so convienience the jock/geek was used - can we think of a better term?

About 'all men', 'men', 'many men', 'some men'... I think in a feminist context they have certain meanings. 'All men' - would usually refer to 'men as a class', as would 'men'. 'Many men', 'some men', or 'a man' would be speaking about men as individuals or groups of individuals.

My particular bugbear in all of this, is when people insist you use 'many men', 'some men' or 'a man' -which precludes discussing men as a class and limits you to only speaking of men as individuals. In other words, it disallows you from actually discussing feminism from the perspective of class interaction. Which means your discourse is tethered to the superficial dynamics rather than exposing the underlying ones.

KRITQ's post says what I mean probably better than I did. FoodUnit you are just as much wanting to steer the conversation into what you find comfortable as I am. We all have ways of expressing ourselves, and I can't really see the point of having a debate where only one way is allowed.

Of course sometimes 'men as a class' is important to discuss, but when then thinking about our own personal experiences I think it is important to phrase them that way. These are anecdotes. They may be typical or atypical, but I really think it's not useful to go directly from 'I experienced this' to 'every man is like this' at the very least because it's generally not true. Discuss and explore the potential meaning, how personal experience fits with the political discussion, what ideas an experience might engender, yes of course. But coming up with wild statements of 'fact' is neither helpful nor conducive to further thought. I think it's actually rather derailing.

"coming up with wild statements of 'fact' is neither helpful nor conducive to further thought. I think it's actually rather derailing."

I'm not sure what you mean by wild statements of fact. Which particular comments on the thread fit into that catagory and got your goat?

As far as "I really think it's not useful to go directly from 'I experienced this' to 'every man is like this'" is concerned, I would agree with you, and I can't imagine anyone would disagree - but I don't think anyone did that did they? In this case you are describing both examples are about men as individuals. Neither is about men as a class.

"I can't really see the point of having a debate where only one way is allowed" I'd agree with that, but I don't know what debating technique you're using when you say someone is talking 'twaddle' or 'shit' - it seems like it is trying to close a debate isn't it?