Women as lust objects

It's almost two separate questions though. One is about lust. The other is about porn and views of women. Lust existed long before porn. Objectification existed before porn too.

 

"This week, results of a study were published at the University Of Amsterdam about how internet porn affects young minds and makes them view women as lust objects. It appears that it does. My question to the Senate is....: is this bad? "

You were right LOH. And i think the answer is yes, porn does do this. If a study has proven it then it's very plausible. But it's just a shame that this idea is transferred into real life onto women who chose NOT to use lust for a purpose (whatever that may be).

So, my answer is that porn leading to the objectification of women as 'lust objects' is not bad, so long as the consumer of porn recognizes that the porn actor is playing a role, like a waiter plays a role, and so they should not objectify all women in the same manner outside of the scope of the commercial transaction context, just like they shouldn't treat a wairer the same way outside of the context of the commercial transaction.

This is a nice idea but that doesn't always happen. In fact, I think I could safely bet that a majority of the time this doesn't happen. I'm sure there are the few exceptions who enjoy commodities from the 'adult industry' then go back to their life and it goes on as normal with their girlfriend/wife happy with how they are treated. But we don't live in a utopian society where everyone can tell the difference between porn as a consumer product and real life sex practices or attitudes towards the opposite sex. Just like there are many who can't tell the difference between right or wrong. Not everybody has the logic or common sense to do so.

Therefore, yes porn can make people see women as lust objects but I believe it occurs within consumption of adult goods AND in real life.

I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on this topic though. These are just my thoughts and observations.

 

It was the way people saw things for hundreds of years in the United States, and the West as a whole. Men were the tough guys who went out and fought and killed things, women were the nurturing types who looked after the kids and provided a moral compass for the household. Purity of women was a big ideal for the first 200 years of the Republic.

 

I'm joining the discussion late, but I've made a good effort to read through the thread and familiarize myself with the debate.

My stance is that the term "objectification" is so general and universally applicable that it becomes meaningless. As Jabbadabbado noted upthread, seeking the services of a female tax attorney, for the sole purpose of employing her as a tax attorney, fits into the same overbroad, absurd definition of "objectification". Yet no one is railing against those who employ female tax attorneys whilst harboring no thought for her feelings and intentions.

As a hetero male, I can say that when I lust after a woman, I do so because she is a mature human female, who by definition is complete with blood and tissue, organs and hormones, responses and impulses, thoughts and opinions. One follow the other. Human: biological organism. She is not an object, she is a member of the h. sapiens species.

If she were an object, I would not feel lust for her. If she were a tree, a rock, a doll, a dog, a robot, a box, a machine, any object you care to name, I would not feel lust for her. Insofar as she is a living, sexually fertile human being, whom I happen to find attractive owing to a complex admixture of genetic and acquired behaviors, I want to have sex with her. That doesn't mean I need to act on that desire, but the desire itself does not constitute an objectification of the woman; if anything, it acknowledges her humanity.

I realize there are some fetishes in which objects or even animals are the things lusted after -- shoes, pantyhose, sheep, etc. -- but in those cases the "luster" is feeling sexual excitement for the object; s/he is not "objectifying" that which is already an object.

In short, "objectification" is an imaginary non-event with no specific, valid definition and no harmful consequences.

 

Denouncing everything because it's a made up PC word? Brilliant!

 

How about these two GOTH beauties???
[image=http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gawker/2009/09/obamagoths.jpg]

 

I've got no lust for them or their mommy. Now Mrs. Obama, woowee!

 

Ok,keep in mind that I am a Christian when reading this.
When it comes to lust, in my opinion its wrong to blatantly lust after someone on purpose and treat them like sex objects, but there is a difference between lust and being attracted to the opposite sex. To tell you the truth (again Im a Christian)
God created men to be visually stimulated, I think he understands when we cant help but look, but to purposely entertain this human nature by looking at pornography, I believe is wrong.

 

Although, to continue down this road to some extent.... just looking at the premises here....
1. God created men to be visually stimulated by women in that fashion.
2. Pornography is created to cater specifically to this stimulation.
If we take it that women were created in their shape by god, then doesn't that make women, as a whole, a category of pornography, just created by god and not by men, but still with the intent of entertaining that element of human nature?

 

Although, to continue down this road to some extent.... just looking at the premises here....
1. God created men to be visually stimulated by women in that fashion.
2. Pornography is created to cater specifically to this stimulation.
If we take it that women were created in their shape by god, then doesn't that make women, as a whole, a category of pornography, just created by god and not by men, but still with the intent of entertaining that element of human nature?

Again Im posting with my Christian point of view.

Women were never intended (when God created the world) to be lust objects.
Everything was perfect before Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying.
Then sinned entered the world, and natural attraction became lust.

 

Can you tell us precisely what the difference is between 'natural attraction' and 'lust'?

 

Ill try. lol

I believe natural attraction is what it is, it is your tendency to be attracted to the opposite sex whether it be physical or emotional, to find yourself just being interested in the opposite. And no matter what being a guy is being a guy, but morally
Christians like myself, struggle not to take this "natural attraction" to blatant lust, like fantasizing, and going on pornographic sites on purpose.

Something like finding yourself looking at someone 'cause your attracted to them is normal, thats how people meet, get to know each other, and the works. Lust is something that abuses this "natural attraction", and makes woman nothing but "fun and games", instead of people with feelings.

But im not saying anyone is going to hell or anything, I myself struggle to control my mind, but things happen, like giving into this temptation, stuff like porn can mess up the mind.

 

Instant classic Lowism.

 

Hallelujah, Yaweh Heffner!!

 

I really think this issue is somewhat twofold: firstly the more public issue of how women are objectified by men. But I think there's a more subtle issue as well of how women objectify themselves.

And for those of you thinking this is a version of "how a woman dresses" this is actually NOT what I mean. I mean that more literally as a criticism of the 'passive' female archetype I think a lot of women end up perscribing to. But I'll get to that at the end of this post...

Firstly to the issue of men objectifying women. Obviously there's issues with this and Porn is an example of how this is very apparent. However I don't think all Porn falls into this category -- unfortunately I do think MOST porn does. Like issues of Child Porn and Rape, I think there are aspects of Porn out there... and this is the stuff made by the big industries too... that just arent' healthy. This has not much to do with the sex aspect, but the power aspect. I think women in a lot of these movies are subtly degraded. That doesn't mean that the actresses themselves are mistreated, but that they're paid to often depict situations that are degrading. There's a bit of opposite thinknig going on there: in a lot of situations -- and in fact this can cross into regular media as well -- a woman is depicted as sexually promiscuous and that's considered a form of empowerment.

That is NOT the case.

I think a promiscuous woman can be also empowered, sure. But I think a lot of people, both male and female, mistake promescuity FOR empowerment. I don't think just because you're depicting say, a woman seducing a man this means the woman's being shown as empowered. This is because -- and I'm trying to write this in a generally family-friendly way -- once the sex starts, it's often almost as if the woman... er... DEMANDS acts to mostly pleasure the male. Sure, she dictates the situation: dictates it to specifically what a man would want. What a fortuitous cooincidence!

Such a scenario is really just another form of objectification. It's just that instead of a submissive woman doing everything a man would want becuase the man tells her to, now you've got an active woman... telling the man to do exactly what the man would want. So the difference is really only on the surface and the untold story is really a false play at sexual liberation or equality.


Now to the other subject, which is women objectifying themselves -- and I think I can speak here more generally to the wider culture. I think there is an element in female psychology... learned, not bred (I'm not a fan of much psychology stemming from genetics)... that encourages the female to literally treat themselves as objects, or in the end treat themselves in a way that winds up no being different from how one might treat an object that has no wants or needs of its own. This is not even so much that thier desires -- sexual, political or otherwise -- are subordinate to a man's, but subordinate to many pressures, be it from a man, from thier parents or (perhaps most importantly) peers of other women.

Surely, I don't know what it's like to be a girl. But regardless I think I've observed that a lot of women seem to turn on thier own desires if they don't recieve a sort of external re-inforcement within what I've often thought is a short period of time. and I think this can in a sense lead to almost a LITERAL objectification. That is, what results is not just a women percieved as a sex object, but as an object, period. They don't stick up for thier wants and desires, so nobody else really sticks up for them. And, unfortunately, if there was someone that depended on them speaking out for what they wanted, they might find themselves abandoned (although it's perhaps also true the woman has in this case abandoned herself). And what I find in a lot of these situations is that the female sort of re-writes for herself what her desires were.

If we want to keep with the analogy of sexual interest, may it might be the girl likes a guy... but then maybe her parents don't like him or her friends don't like hi

 

Does anyone know if objectification is a term used in the scholarly literature to identity processes of women's oppression? I mean, if it's just a colloquial term it could mean anything and nothing, right, so maybe a more precise definition could be handy. Anyway, I can't recall ever running into the term being used in the gender literature I've read, only the difficulty in finding a comprehensive definition of "patriarchy", but then I'm not an expert on the subject.

 

Objectification has been a subject of discussion since at least Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sense discussed the concept of "Othering" sixty years ago. If you haven't heard of it, then I'm wondering what sort of "gender literature" you actually read.

 

I've read segments of that, but not enough to claim to be knowledgable. And it was long ago, too.

 

Sexual desire for one human being by another implicitly acknowledges the humanity -- that is, the non-object status -- of the desired person.

A human being does not feel sexual desire for an object unless there is a fetishistic attachment to a particular object, eg a shoe among shoe-fetishists. In the latter instance, an object is being desired, but that is not objectification of a human being and so does not fit the criteria of the discussion.

I reiterate: sexual desire (by which phrase I mean to define "lust") for one human being by another implicitly acknowledges the humanity of the person desired. Therefore, lust neither equates with nor leads to objectification in any sense of the word.

 

Aha. But is "Othering"="Objectification"? I'm not sure that those two terms are synonymous. For instance, it is fairly common to talk about women being objecitied, but not very common to talk about immigrants or visible minorities in such terms, and those groups do risk encountering "otherism".

As for my readings, here's a selection from my comprehensive exam in Comparative politics:

Benhabib, S., & Cornell, D. (Eds.). (1987). Feminism as critique: Essays on the politics of gender in late capitalist societies. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Collins, P. H. (1989). The social construction of black feminist thought. Signs, 14(4)
Okin, S. M. (1998). Feminism and multiculturalism: Some tensions. Ethics, 108, 661-684.
Flax, J. (1990). Postmodernism and gender relations in feminist theory. In L. J. Nicholson (Ed.), Feminism/Postmoderism (pp. 39-62). New York and London: Routledge.

None of these works mention discussions about objectification, IIRC, but seem to focus more on the development of "patriarchy" as an analytical framework. Or if they did (this was a few years back), it certainly wasn't very prominent...

 

No, it cannot not implicitly do so at all, as you yourself state in your first paragraph. There are many expressions of human lust that are directed towards non-human parties, including both objects and animals, which means that no blanket statement about lust can be made in such a fashion at all. Since there is no implicit, a priori or automatic link between lust and humanity, lust in no way necessarily means acknowledging the humanity of the object of lust at all. Moreover, your statement makes one ask whether you feel that rape is not at all an expression of lust?

 

So what's the definition of "othering"?

 

"Otherism" is the process by which a person is defined out of a collective "us" by becoming seen as part of a group of "them", where the implication is that "we" are good and "they" are bad in some fashion. When this happens, persons of "other" category are no longer seen as complete multifacetted individuals, but reduced to become carriers of traits associated with the "other" collective. Example: all [insert identity X] are [insert blanket statement Y], therefore if you are a [X], then you must obviously be a person who thinks and acts according to [Y]. This process is known as the social construction of the other, where this constructed identity makes people who belong to the "us" category regard the "others" as stereotypes, based on prejudice and rumours. This explains the social-psychological process behind phenomena like discrimination very well, in my opinion.

That's essentially the gist of it. Each text on this will have wording to this effect, though the wording will change somewhat from piece to piece, of course.

 

I don't think sexual lust = sexual attraction or desire. I see lust as something overwhelming, perhaps uncontrollable, and influenced by a kind of...almost...greed. So I think there are differences between sexual attraction and sexual lust. I'm not sure how to better spell out those differences and I think it's because we often confuse sexual attraction with sexual lust (at least, this is what I suspect).

I don't think it's ok to objectify a person--whether that person be male or female. I find it narrow-minded, lacking respect, and rather arrogant. I doesn't seem to benefit the objectifier or the person being objectified.

There are people, both sexes (but much more common for males), who see others as sexual objects--i.e. they are kind of like puzzles to solve in order to achieve sexual gratification without offering any respect to them as people--also imagining them as equal to yourself--i.e. a fellow human being with thoughts, feelings, dreams, etc.

I can see pornography as a medium in which that way of thinking can be encouraged. Moreover, it can be addictive and like any addiction--that usually leads to poor results. It should also be noted that it is not men that exclusively look at pornography (both sexes are often guilty of it). I don't encourage either side to merely play the victim card there.

I do wish that pornography didn't exist, however. I find that it's degrading to anyone giving themselves to it and is generally unhealthy--even if some people claim things like masturbation are healthy.

Also, when it comes to sex appeal in pop culture, etc.--Personally, I think people should be allowed to dress how they want, but I think modesty is far more sexy.

Also, I'm going to add, that the type of machoism I hear about day in and out is another product generated from a society that does seem to influence many men to think of women as objects. I think it's...degrading to both sexes. Every time my 3rd girlfriend told me about how guys had treated her in the past or the type of guys she was seeing on the streets in San Francisco, it made me feel...just, such great utter shame--even though I don't subscribe to such machoism. It feels like a virus.

 

So for you 'natural attraction' and 'lust' represent differening levels of intensity of attraction and differening levels of self interest. The more the sexual attraction centres upon selfish sexual gratification the more it objectifies women (and men) merely as being sexual objects with no other purpose other than to satisfy a sexual desire.

I personally don't have any issues with this as I think human beings are complex enough that there is little or no harm done in objectifying one another as sexual 'objects'. We certainly objectify one another in nearly every other facet of our social lives, from gender to social status, social class, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, race, nationality, ethnicity etc. Human beings tend to create both lateral and hierarchical stratification within any group - we acknowledge that people do different things and we assign value to those differences and to other characteristics and assign status accordingly. I think this is the basis of the "otherism" concept discussed above.

Even on a Star Wars message board we have a stratified little community - we are separated and sorted according to registration dates, the forums we visit, stars next to our usernames, post counts, different colours, mods, admins, managers, VIPs etc etc. People become "newbies" or "midbies" or "oldbies" or people are "mods". Before those informal labels were applied, we had official 'labels', we were "Padawans", "Jedi Knights" and "Jedi Masters". All of this status was based upon post count. There used to be a prevailing attitude that the post of a "Padawan" was not really worthy of note. Is that not objectification?

I mean, do we not collectively objectify "the police"? When you call a police officer or speak to a police officer, are you really interested in the police officer's feelings? Or do you see that person as a uniform, an extension of the government, part of the system of law and order? I would suggest that there is a level of objectification going on there. At work, what about "senior management"? At a restaurant, what about the waiters? At a store, what about the clerk? At the doctor or dentists office, what about the receptionist? Are we really concerned with acknowledging all of these people playing their various roles as people with feelings or do we in some way treat them as 'objects', with little or no purpose other than to perform the required role in the social transaction taking place.

Sexual objectification is just another facet of the human predisposition towards labelling, classifying, separating, stratifying. It's perfectly normal. At least with pornography there is a strong element of commercialism about it. You would have to be pretty out of touch with reality to associate the relationships depicted in pornographic films with 'real life' interactions and relationships. It's fantasy. Like Alice Cooper, Marylin Manson and KISS.