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In reply to the discussion: For those women who think objectifying women as sex objects is OK [View all]Butterbean
(1,014 posts)Here's what I think, then. I think that adult women who voluntarily choose careers where their main job description is objectification (read: Kate Upton, Kim Kardashian, et al) should be free to make that choice, and that choice should not be condemned. They are grown women and are free to do with their bodies what they wish.
I enjoy looking at pictures of half naked women sometimes, because I find them sexually stimulating and I also find the female form gorgeous. I identify as heterosexual and have never had a female partner, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the appeal of the female form. As for makeup and all that, well, again, I enjoy wearing makeup sometimes, simply because I enjoy makeup. It hasn't got anything to do with making myself more attractive for males (happily married for 18 years now), I just wear it because I feel more attractive in my own skin with it on sometimes. I don't see anything wrong with that.
As for me thinking it's a "good" thing or a "bad" thing, well, for me it's neither. It's not good or bad, it simply is. Women being forced into being objectified is always bad. Women choosing it? Not bad. If they choose it and it is truly what they want, then so be it.
I have a question for YOU. What are your attitudes toward sex in general? Do you think it's okay if women enjoy being tied up during sex? What about if women enjoy watching porn? What about if a woman wants to be a prostitute where it's legal, say in a country like Amsterdam? Do you think it's okay for a woman to have multiple sex partners at once and enjoy sex for the sake of sex and nothing more?
I ask this because my mother shares some attitudes like yours (her favorite shirt when I was growing up had the phrase "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" on it, and she has shunned makeup her entire life), but she is very sexually repressed and views sex as filthy, dirty, and as something to be used as currency. She is a self proclaimed liberal, yet she is the first to condemn anyone for having sex outside of or before marriage, cohabitating, or out of wedlock childbirth. It's odd. She has an almost toxic view of sex, and of men as well. I have to constantly remind her not to male-bash in front of her male grandsons. She is not speaking to my sister because my sister divorced her husband after he marital-raped her. My mother said, "there are just some things women learn to deal with" when my sister told my mother this was her reason for wanting a divorce. To my mother, my sister getting a divorce is the biggest shame of her life. I cannot wrap my head around it. My mom screams about equal rights and feminism, yet then turns around and male-bashes and looks down her nose at other people's sex lives if they don't match up with what she deems appropriate. The mind boggles.
I am trying to understand your point of view as much as you are trying to understand mine. My basic view is very third wave, I guess, in that I don't have a problem with porn, and I think if a woman wants to be very sexually provocative/evocative and get paid for it, then that's her right and she should not be condemned. Men are objectified too (I will practically trip over myself to see a picture of a scantily clad Alexander Skarsgard), but I rarely hear much about that. I dunno, I guess I just see things differently because I'm from a different generation, and because my mother's warped viewpoints have very much affected me as well.
BTW, I really hope none of this gets you angry/upset/etc.. I was not trying to be snarky, mean, or anything but bluntly honest in this reply. There is no intended malice here. Just had to get that out upfront, as I have seen one too many times in hot button discussions like this people on this board getting very upset when often it was just a misinterpretation of tone.