Are you sure that should go there?

ayiman:

denzelwashingmachine:

stop smiling: “Jackie Treehorn treats objects like women.”

denzelwashingmachine:

The other day I made a remark to one of my male friends that a particular girl I had just seen had a particularly nice portion of her physical anatomy. This prompted his girlfriend to shoot me a hateful glare and respond with:

“She’s a human being, not an object.”

…

No, bro. Please. Allow me to break it down for you:

This should be good.

Yes, it’s misguided and ignorant for women to declare offense at what is a blatant objectification.  A woman, contrary to what you may believe, does not exist for you to enjoy, nor does a woman’s attractiveness entitle you to perform any kind of commentary.

I can’t remember ever saying that I felt “a woman’s attractiveness entitled me to perform any kind of commentary.” I was simply making an observation about a girl I thought was pretty to someone who happened to agree with me. Never have I once assumed that anyone cares whether or not I, specifically, find someone attractive.

You don’t have to say it, not when this is what you actually did and your right to do this is the whole basis of your little polemic.  Your ‘simple observation’ comes amidst a culture of sexual objectification, and instead of internalizing the very real and justified objection of someone, you turned it into a personal attack against you.

For my part, the assumption that you’re objectifying someone (cool scare quotes, bro) comes from the fact that you objectified someone.  Weird, hey?

I would say nonsensical, actually. Just like your definition of “Objectify.”

Then how would you, in all your white male wisdom, define objectify?  This smug dismissal a very real problem is sort of how I pegged you for being a sexist pig. 

It’s not really my definition, either.  It’s a definition designed to be easily digestible to basic, sexist men.

“Sexual objectification is the viewing of people solely as de-personalised objects of desire instead of as individuals with complex personalities and desires/plans of their own. This is done by speaking/thinking of women especially as only their bodies, either the whole body, or as fetishised body parts.”

Which is exactly what you did.  

Her attractiveness is, frankly, none of your fucking business, and that’s really the problem.  I’m going to be real with you, bro: no one gives a shit whether you think anyone’s attractive or not.  In fact, no one gives a shit if you think someone’s ugly.  Or fat.  Or skinny.  Or perfect.  Your arbitrary assignation of desirability does not actually matter to anyone but you

I’m not making it my business. For Gods sakes, I didn’t walk up to her and say “You’re attractive so you are automatically entitled to me.” I made a fucking observation. If anything, I was paying her a compliment.

NO ONE CARES IF YOU THINK IT’S COMPLIMENTARY.

This is what you’re not getting.  Whatever positive feelings you might have?  Irrelevant.  

True, my “arbitrary assignation of desirability does not actually matter to anyone but” me. I never said it did. By this logic, virtually none of the observations we make during our day to day life matter to anyone but ourselves. I can’t wait until the next time someone says “You know, that Michael Caine is a hell of an actor” and you yell back “YOUR ARBITRARY ASSIGNATION OF RAW TALENT DOESN’T MATTER TO ANYONE BUT YOU!”

You have a prodigious talent for building strawmen.  Your arbitrary assignations of desirability are formed within a culture that celebrates the sexual objectification of women, and your supposed right to be able to publicly take part in this without censure (from a woman) is in denial of an unequal and oppressive relationship between masculinity and femininity.

This presents an interesting question.  Assuming this person you blantantly objectified doesn’t meet your arbitrary standards of intelligence, would you value them less?  Or would you simply continue to value them as a sexual object whose only value is to gratify men?

How nice of you to ask a question instead of jumping to radical assumptions! For a while I thought you were incapable of that.

Again, as I stated previously in this post, I never said that this specific girl existed solely to gratify men. However, if she did not “meet my arbitrary standards of intelligence” as you put it, I would acknowledge the fact that she were still pretty— Oh, I’m sorry— I would acknowledge the fact that she is a “sexual object whose only value is to gratify men” (your words, not mine) while simultaneously acknowledging that she did not “meet my arbitrary standards of intelligence.”

Good to know that, so long as a woman can gratify you intellectually, you’d still deign to acknowledge the gratifying effect their physical characteristics have on you.

However, never once in this post did I say I defined someone’s value by intelligence, physical appearance, or … anything else for that matter. In fact, you have no idea how I define someone’s value.

I have a feeling this is going to turn into one of those U DONT KNOW ME arguments.

You are directly putting words in my mouth. How do you not realize how narrowminded this is? My entire point in the first place is that just because you make one observation about someone’s physical appearance does not mean you think that’s all they’re good for. Get real.

I’m actually just interpreting what you posted.  Unfortunately for you, I don’t really think being ‘openminded’ means observing the world according to your myopic male privilege.  

The entire point of your post was to throw a passive aggressive hissy fit over the fact that a woman called you on your blatant objectification of another woman.  

Your point seems to be that you should be able to blatantly objectify whoever you please, and that you should be able to do this without guilt and without ever acknowledging a power relationship in patriarchal societies where your desires and urges are celebrated.

Wrong. That actually seems to be your point about me. I swear to God, I could post a Dr. Suess poem and you’d find a way to manipulate it and misinterpret it as elitist.

You post a lot of sexist, racist and otherwise objectionable bullshit, so that’s not really outside the realm of possibility.

Refusing to acknowledge that sexual objectification is a real problem, refusing to acknowledge that a woman’s attractiveness is her own business, and maintaining that you have the right to gaze at whomever you please without acknowledging your privilege as a man, makes you a misogynist.

Again, I love these assumptions you’re making about how I think and feel.

Please tell me more about how I don’t know the real you.

I’m actually positive that you’re a Nice Guy™.

First of all, sexual objectification is a problem, but I think that it goes for both genders. And I don’t think making a comment about a nice part of someone’s body (male or female) is sexual objectification – I think it’s basic human nature.

Both genders?  See, this is the problem, kid.  Sexual objectification of us cismen?  That’s not done in complicity with a very real and present culture of misogyny.  There is no implicit threat when a woman says I have a nice ass.  I do not have to worry about where I park my car at night.  I do not have to have my keys out just in case someone wants to get fresh with me.

I don’t have to deal with overly sexualized representations of my cis-male body every day.  I don’t have to worry about politicians using my body as a partisan battleground.

I don’t have to worry about a woman exercising her non-existent female privilege when they comment on my desirability.

A cis-woman is not generally under the impression that hot males exist for her to fuck.  The inverse for a man, however, is completely the case.  Cis-male sexuality is encouraged, celebrated and justified in our culture.  A in the gender binary, a woman’s sexuality exists to gratify men.

Reducing this to ‘human nature’ is the biggest bullshit cop-out available to anyone, and it completely flattens the very real oppression women face in a world we share with them.

Second of all, it is her own business. Just the same as my own attractiveness is my own business, and John Smith’s attractiveness is his own business. Just because you admire it or notice it, doesn’t mean you’re invading someone’s privacy and making it your own business, anymore than being at a Basketball game and noticing that a player has skill is making that person’s skill your own business.

Again!

You are not in any way shape or form entitled to make an observation about anyone’s sexual characteristics.  Full stop.  You are a stranger.  You are a man.  You have, as a male, power as being part of a skewed power relationship that exists in your favour.  This is why none of your bullshit examples are applicable.

Appreciating athletic skill is not the same as saying to a friend that a woman has nice tits.  It’s the exact same thing as when some loudmouth bro-magnon hollers at women in the street.  It’s not as overtly threatening, but it’s certainly done under the same impulses.

Third, I do have a right to look at whoever I please. Anyone of any race of any gender has a right to look at whoever they please. I never disregarded my “privilege as a man.” For a moment I had to stop and think about where exactly that comment was coming from, but then I realized you’ve pretty much been making shallow accusations throughout this entire post. I hope to God you never work within the judicial system.

Privilege denial!

Male privilege is a very real thing bro.  Just because you fail to recognize doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

What concepts are being manipulated here?  The idea that femininity is subordinated to masculinity is hardly a manipulated concept.  

Just by going from what you’ve written, here and elsewhere, accusing you of being a misogynist pig is hardly presumptuous or far-fetched.  You continuously, throughout your little screed, maintain your right to sexually objectify a woman.  

Maintaining my right to “sexually objectify women” when the whole point I was making was that I was not objectifying women in the first place. Right. That makes sense.

But you were.  You made a comment on the physical characteristics of a woman and you maintained that these were desirable, then you proceeded to clumsily justify yourself.

Putting objectify in scare quotes suggest that you don’t really understand it as a concept, either.  

I guess now I have to reject the idea of a female president and advocate the bombing of abortion clinics. I love the way you Politically Correct Bigots always reduce people to cultural stereotypes while simultaneously claiming to fight against them.

Impotent white male rage personified, folks.