guy sajer wrote:Fortigurn wrote:skippy the dead wrote:Plus, the method of requiring a teen boy to ask a girl if he can use her as yank material sounds abusive.
He seems to think that not asking is abusive. Which do you think is more abusive, using a girl as a sex object without her permission, or with her permission?
In either case aren't you objectifying her? Is objectification any less serious if done with permission?
As I've already stated, my personal stand is that yes you are objectifying her, and no objectifying her is no less serious if done with permssion.
For example, some argue that pornography objectifies women, and oppose it on these grounds, yet many (certainly not all) porn models or actors participate willingly, in effect given you their permission to use them as a sex object. So, from a certain point of view, with or without permission it is more or less the same (although probably the issue of consent figures into the calculation.)
Yes, I had this issue of implicit consent when I wrote my previous posts.
On the other hand, while I am not big on objectification as a general rule, I think sexual fantasies are common, and sexual fantasies about certain people are common. Yet for the most part, it is a harmless, normal, everyday occurrence. No big deal. It's when it crosses over some ill-defined line that it becomes a problem. Zero tolerance on “objectification” strikes me as a bit unreasonable. (There are, I imagine, many good husbands, fathers, sons, wives, mothers, etc. who indulge in occasional pornography and objectification fantasies but who never, ever act out on them and who, in their real life dealings, treat people honorably and with respect.)
I do not believe that sexual objectification is ever a healthy state of mind. I do not believe that 'It doesn't matter what goes on inside your head, just as long as you keep it there'. I do not believe it's ok for people to fantasize about stabbing people in the face several times a day, as long as they don't actually do it. I do not believe it's ok for a man to fantasize about raping women on a daily basis, just as long ashe doesn't do it.
I do not believe in 'Well he's only keeping his sexual fantasies in his head, it's not as if he's acting them out, so his sexual objectification of women doesn't matter'. A man who is conditioned to sexually objectify women is a man whose likelihood of treating them with respect and appropriate behaviour is significantly reduced. He doesn't have to be acting out his fantasies on them for his sexual objectification of them to result in behaviour towards women which is inappropriate at best, or harmful at worst.
In another thread we talked about depersonalising other individuals, and the detrimental effect on society which results. I do not believe a society in which individuals are encouraged to depersonalise each other, or conditioned to objectify each other sexually (or otherwise), is a healthy society.
In another forum I'm on there's a discussion of child rape pornography. Now of course, the usual argument is 'Well if they're looking at it then it's not harming anyone, and it's keeping them out of trouble and fulfilling their fantasies in a safe way'. I don't believe it is fulfilling their fantasies in a safe way, because simply condoning that material (and it doesn't matter if the images are real or simulated, as far as I'm concerned), is implicitly validating that desire.
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