[Image: “A white feminine person with glasses and dark hair poses looking somewhat wryly at the camera. The words “I am not a sex object…except when it suits my purposes” are superimposed over the image.”]

Uh, yeah, cause self determination is the point, and actually negates the objectification. Why have you still not gotten this?

[Image: “Used high-hippie asks: “Something I have found disgusting with some feminists online is that I show an ad where the man is sexually objectified. Similar to the “Women in a vending machine” ad, there are a few ads with “men in a vending machine” or men in the frozen meat aisle and women pick the one they want (on the plus side, the men were ethnically diverse…). When I protest against it, these feminists say its okay because they’re men. I don’t understand… sexual objectification is not okay…”]

(Made rebloggable by request)

Answer:

Here’s the thing:

I’m a feminist who is of the mind that a little sexual objectification is probably ok. The thing about sexual objectification is that it should never be the only way that a person or certain groups of people are shown, since everyone is a multifaceted individual whose social group should not be boiled down to stereotypes. Now, women are sexually objectified in the media much more often than men. If you would like to contest this point, I guess you can, but um, I don’t think it would be wise (I mean, even in this original ask you say that there are only “a few” ads which sexually objectify men). 

So, there’s that portion of the sexual objectification scenario to consider. When it happens so much more often to women, it is seen that being a sexual object is just part of women. Women become sexual objects to the culture consuming the media, and that has a negative effect on the lives and experiences of real, actual women who are in fact people - not sexual objects (Take Native American women, for example, who are much much much more likely to be sexually assaulted than women of other races - how often are they, or rather, white women appropriating Native culture, posited as sexual objects in the media?). For more information on this, try watching Sut Jhally’s Dream Worlds 3 (Unless there’s been a new one? Anyone know?). 

The other thing to consider is ownership of the social narrative. Who owns the means to produce content which shapes our culture? (Hint: By and large, it’s not women, especially not WOC)   So, in the current model, men are creating and/or approving for creation media which sexually objectifies women on a much larger scale than media that sexually objectifies men. You don’t see a problem with this? Essentially, women are not creating the social narrative about themselves, and it’s been that way for ages. 

So, that’s the thing. A little sexual objectification here and there is not as harmful for people who are in power - currently that’s white dudes. And were everyone to share in power equally, a little sexual objectification here and there of women or anyone probably wouldn’t be that harmful. Mostly because everyone else would have the ability to equally access media production and change the narrative of their social group as they see fit. The overall message about them would be more varied. But the problem as it stands today is that white men are creating everyone else’s stories for the most part, and currently women’s story is that they are sexual objects for heterosexual male consumption. I go a little more into ownership of production and diversity of social narratives in this ask in the FAQ. 

So when women create media that sexually objectifies men (or when anyone does, really) in this current media environment, it becomes an equalizer rather than a tool of oppression since that is not the dominant media narrative, whereas objectification of women is.

So that’s why I think you’ll see a lot of feminists shrug off or even enjoy a little objectification of men. Mostly because sexual objectification isn’t really that bad - as long as it’s not the only story being told about you. 

[Image: A post from Facebook from Cathy Brennan on STFU Fauxminists like page shows a screenshot from the USF Women’s and Gender Studies page containing a photo of Spring 2010 graduates. Their names are listed in order from left to right. The last name is Meghan [sic] Milanese. Cathy writes “Meghan [sic] - is this you? I like to know the MRA handmaidens that attack me”.]

I’ve included my first response to this fuckery in the image. I’[ll write it out here for those who cannot read it. It has since continued on.

My first post reads: “Hi Cathy, is that you being creepy? I like to know when people have too little tolerance for criticism and too little maturity to disprove what’s said rather than mischaracterize and try to spook the people that said it. I think I’m a little too cis for your harassment roster anyway. In any case, yeah, one of those gals is me two years ago. If you googled my name when it’s spelled correctly (yeah, they added an h where it doesn’t belong) you’ll find that MRAs aren’t exactly my biggest fans. In fact, they think I’m a misandrist one article shy of getting a spot on Register-Her.com. I mean really, if you’re going to try to, what, intimidate me by googling my name and taking screenshots of the results? The least you could do is actually read the stuff people say about me.”

She has since gone on to ask me if I’m gay or a lesbian twice, and when her response to the idea that I’m too cis to be harassed by her, she said “cis this”. 

If anyone would like to join in on this conversation, please feel free. Here’s the link to my facebook page. I’ll probably block her soon, but I just thought it would be great to highlight that the best way to convince people you’re not a creepy stalker harasser person is to google the names of anyone who criticizes you and then post pictures of them on their Facebook page asking “Is this you?”. 

Got a request to make this reblobbable.