objectification of the sexes - is it a level playing field now?

women have dismembered mens body parts to use, men have dismembered womens body parts and blow up dolls, more women look at porn than ever before (as er, do men), everyone can make ads asking for things like 'nine inches or less need not apply' (dont think ive ever seen one saying 'less than a c cup need not apply' though), everyone has naked people of the sex they want to look at... everywhere on tv, in ads, in magazines... men are more fucked up about their bodies than ever before (though perhaps we have some way to go to reach women's anxieties in this area) and so on and so on.

oh you big hunk of loving, titchyschneider

500 posts by nightfall, nothing resolved

Maybe we should just skip the 500 posts and let this one drop off the bottom of new answers never to be seen again?

women have dismembered mens body parts to use

then... the rumours are true?

'titchy'

'nine inches or less need not apply'

has this seriously ever appeared on a f4m dating ad?

No. Lock thread and move on.

no

Men have become more objectified, but it's nowhere near "level" yet.

500 posts by nightfall, nothing resolved

why should tonight be different from any other night?

"has this seriously ever appeared on a f4m dating ad?"

not in those words. but surely everyones seen classifieds asking only for 'well-endowed men'.

Yes, on M seeking M adverts.

yeah I have literally never seen that in my life

ITT - Titchy reads Craigslist, feels worried.

masonic, wrong.

titchy I have received various emails that you might be interested in, can forward them if you want

Hrmmm. I dunno. I've certainly written my fair share of F seeks M dating adverts. I have specified that I was looking for 9" or more, but I was talking about *hair* not penises.

Are you sure you've not got that confused? ;-)

cosign all the nays tbh

I know that image bombing is WRONG and BAD and we must not do it, but please, please, please, mods, can't I just have a little itty bitty flood of flashing drill and bass penis action?

It would seem very appropriate and on topic.

behemothic, dong

xxxpost

one thing i am certain of is that women on dating websites are profoundly interested in the size, shape and appearance of their potential suitors' penises. i mean, relatively sure. that's the assumption i've been working under.

TWELVE INCHES OF LUUURRRRRRVE, BABY

ian johnson 8=========================================================D to thread

"thread"

nobjectification

i've copyrighted that word now I think I'm going to be a rich man.

original post is a grand oversimplification of the issue. as a male i feel we are the advantageous sex. movie nudity is still predominately female, and while television advertisements have featured more and more males in using sex to sell, it is still mostly females. And well hanging around several males, I can tell you that there are still way too many men who don't have a healthy viewpoint of women.

the pornography industry is still predominately geared to men -- I don't suspect more women look at porn now than before. What studies do you have to prove that? As an observation I really think its just that more of them admit to it than before.

regarding Craigslist, I hope that's a joke. cuz uh...I've seen more than my fair share of mysognistic postings there from men.

i think that was well nobserved san te.

ANYWAY

i never said only women make 'ill have a large penis please' ads.

i said 'EVERYONE can'.

if they want.

obv ilx is too liberal, non-objectifying and RATIONAL a place to even think of such a thing.

and OF COURSE the original post was a grand over simplification of the issue.

regarding Craigslist, I hope that's a joke. cuz uh...I've seen more than my fair share of mysognistic postings there from men.

― San Te, Monday, 26 July 2010 13:58 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Actually I think that one about the guy who slept with a woman who put his flash drive in her vagina then walked out was the precise thing that levelled the playing field

shouldn't that be knobservation and knobjectification, ken?

titchy i was actually surprised how you could have forgotten something so nobvious

Bloody ILX knobscurantists!

isn't it a bad idea to try and start a thread on gender issues w/ what you admit to be "a grand oversimplification of the issue"?

Original post = "I can't put my Hooters calendars up in my cubicle anymore and I'm pissed off about it."

xpost - isnt it a bad idea to go through life lacking a sense of humour?

everyone has naked people of the sex they want to look at...

I feel like either this sentence needs more added to it or someone should be sending SWAT over to let the naked girls out of titchy's closet

WmC i dunno - many people spell it knob but I always preferred the spelling without the k for some reason. i don't know if there is an official spelling though since as yet i have been unable to nobtain an oxford dictionary or a profanisaurus.

this is a thread where I would welcome deejs presence

next up -- "come" vs. "cum"

christine, if you read my post theres no ire, or resentment about it. im in fact pleased that we have reached a point where men can buy a fake vagina and women can buy a fake penis and they can buy these items from their local high street without being judged. i put my hooters calendar up with pride thank you.

Whenever I read that first post I can't help but feel Titchy is just looking for us to tell him it's okay for him to be watching porn and cruising random internet pick-up sites.

i wouldn't mind having a cop at deej's presence.

Or maybe looking for some women to tell him the same thing. (xpost)

cruising random internet pick-up sites.

isn't this..

so is this thread a joke then? if so, move to appropriate location!

women have dismembered mens body parts to use

O_O

what this thread (sorta) gets at is the fact that "objectification" isn't really the problem anymore. like okay sure men are increasingly subjected to the 'female gaze' or w/e, hooray for POST-SEXIST AMERICA -- except that like, the porn that dudes are into these days isn't about objectifying the female body, it's about humiliating and abusing it, which is a rather different thing.

the porn that dudes are into these days isn't about objectifying the female body, it's about humiliating and abusing it

hey! some of us still like the plain old objectifying kind.

Someone start doing bullet points on the thread where we sum up clusterfuck threads now. It'll just make things easier in the long run.

I object(ify)

xxpost yeah I know, sorry for overgeneralizing -- three dicks in a hole doesn't really get me off either, but somebody sure seems to be making money off it

* L J4gger piles in with hilarious Marc Loi style 'THE BATTLE ISN'T WON YET' spiel
* "lol Marc Loi"

right, done. what's next?

xxpost yeah I know, sorry for overgeneralizing -- three dicks in a hole doesn't really get me off either, but somebody sure seems to be making money off it

see, I just want to know what life decisions you make that lead you to being dick #2 in that scenario so that I can continue to avoid making them

Xpost I think you are safe in this thread

maybe the first dick brings a trusted side-dick along to the shoot

see, I just want to know what life decisions you make that lead you to being dick #2 in that scenario so that I can continue to avoid making them

Make sure you're standing at the front of the vagina queue?

Well I have a laundry list of fetishes a mile long that would make people go all o_O but ain't none of them resemble an Eli Roth movie

"except that like, the porn that dudes are into these days isn't about objectifying the female body, it's about humiliating and abusing it"

thats still objectification though isnt it, just in the most painfully literal sense. women reduced to blow up dolls with a pulse. still weird to think that gonzo shit has become the norm.

I am assuming snowy meant 3 simultaneous dicks, ie there's no queue, just the world's smelliest, most uncomfortable game of Twister

love that this thread starts out with dismembering body parts

good to know what sort of porn you guys like

like, imagine a bunch of people all trying to get onto the bus at the same time, only the people are penises and the bus is a vagina

well I guess this thread wasn't completely pointless now

see, I just want to know what life decisions you make that lead you to being dick #2 in that scenario so that I can continue to avoid making them

probably similar life decisions as Ashley C Williams of The Human Centipedes fame?

"I am sorry, but the Bangbus has broken down. Please wait for a replacement service"

"like, imagine a bunch of people all trying to get onto the bus at the same time, only the people are penises and the bus is a vagina"

im okay with not doing that

good to know what sort of porn you guys like

Hands across the ocean

Hands across the lotion more like

I can tell you that there are still way too many men who don't have a healthy viewpoint of women.

like, imagine a bunch of people all trying to get onto the bus at the same time, only the people are penises and the bus is a vagina

i was not expecting this thread to get funny

idk maybe in a superficial way its easy to say that now that ppl are even familiar w/ certain brands of dildos (female liberation via satc i guess) that it means that we are reaching a level playing field, but the problem with objectification is not just the influence on men's perceptions of female sexuality but also how that is reflected in women's view of themselves and how women are allowed to behave in accordance with the same. Objectification of women turns women into receptacles for the containment of male desire. There is a real and dangerous correlation between women as facilitators of male pleasure and women as subservient. I don't really think this is reflected across the gender divide wrt to "objectification of men," that is, i dont really think that women using vibrators really reflects back onto male perception of themselves. And if its not engaging in this kind of psychic eye-for-an-eye, then these superficial signs of equality dont really do anything to balance the inequality engendered by objectification and instead kind of make claims for a fake equality that masks whatever is actually going on.

allowed should be obliged or something maybe idk

I don't think of it as 'objectification' because much of the appeal seems to rely on positing a subject behind the body, i.e. "cock-hungry sluts love getting their faces pasted after gagging on etc etc

and dudes with blow-up dolls (based on a [small] handful of anecdotal evidence) seem to form attachments with them of a very different sort, at times verging on the charmingly sweet and innocent. maybe somehow it has to do with boys not getting the chance to play with dolls as kids?

i was not expecting this thread to get funny

Comedy of Embarassment

xpost major xposts there

Sorry titchy. I responded to you the way I did because, in my experience, most men I've seen who make statements like that DO mean it that way. I can accept that you are different.

I am fine with the kinky actions above,but i for one demand cleanliness of myself and my partner!. I was with this one girl once who had crabs so bad you coulda opened a Red Lobster in her crotch.

Snowy: The first people I heard of who used the RealDoll were statue/mannequin/doll fetishists, so you may have a point there.

This is like, a few arbitrary facts vs. the tonnnnnnns of shit that suggest the opposite (power dynamics, spousal abuse, attitudes in the workplace, etc.)

^^^

but that is obviously true to all but one of us, stevie, can we plz get back to the ragging now

yeah, i guess its a really narrow view of what objectification is. if you mistake a few signifiers for a major social fact then.

"Black people have their own magazines and television networks: IS RACISM OBSOLETE???????"

plax I pretty much agree with you, but I think the one element missing from yr account is that men actually *are* increasingly victimized... just not at the hands of 'women'. feels like pretty much everyone is being trained to hate his/her body for its inability to conform to fantasy standards. blame capitalism I guess

stevie otm tho, it's pretty silly to even use a term like 'level playing field' when there's plenty of places you can look and see that the playing field, uh, isn't level yet.

i know some girls who talk about boys in a very objectifying manner, more than some boys i know, what does that prove/mean? not much except there is never a "level playing field" as people of one gender or another are not one and the same. Maybe just stop objectifying people and don't squeeze onto buses when they're full.

feels like pretty much everyone is being trained to hate his/her body for its inability to conform to fantasy standards

this is also true

lol xpost

Yeah, but we've had this whole discussion already on that discussion of modern marketing of masculinity thread. That when men are "victimised" to feel insecure about their bodies, it's usually *not* about putting them into a politically or economically disadvantaged position, but about using that insecurity to sell them products.

(Which, arguably, is also behind the vicious return of female-oriented objectification pressure, but there's a whole different raft of (mainly political) issues backing that aside from the commodification of female "perfection" going on.)

i thought short men earn on average 10% less than tall men?

That means they still early, what, at least 12% more than women?

basically I am interested in all of the cultural stuff from the sorta-marxist perspective of how the ideology used to naturalize or justify inequalities is forced to evolve over time

i made up that 10% figure. but yeah that'd be 7%.

but women are on average shorter - we nobviously need a new study

I'm getting way too serious on this thread. Making a new effort not to talk about anything I genuinely care about on ILX.

How's about some more aphex cock for yr objectifying pleasure?

DRILL AND PENIS FANS AHOY

lol

olo

sweet

Objectification of males has clearly not gone far enough if one can usually google a naked screenshot or upskirt pap pic of any female celebrity of one's choosing within about 10 minutes, but the only pictures of Aphex Twin's cock I have are all 'shops.

Equality is very far from having been achieved on this score. Sigh.

rdj doesnt have a naked body tho

What?

What's under his clothes, then? More clothes?

ideas

This thread just got so good so fast.

No, seriously, Plax. What does that mean?

I mean, he's certainly *been* naked. He's talked in interviews about making love with his ex girlfriend on French beaches, and we all know from Tracer Hand's recent posts about French beaches' no clothes policies.

I just want to know what colour his pubes are, really. Honest.

This should really be on ILTMI at this point.

all he means is that he is bursting with so much music that he couldn't possibly have room in him for a sexual being duh

yeah, xtal alone is proof that he is a cloud of floating ions

But this is a man who wrote computer programs to write his music for him, so he could spend more time concentrating on shagging! This is, so, a sexual being!

And I want to see a picture of his todge!

his todge is probably procedurally generated

^^^^^ genuine LOL

the best serious answer i can give to this is that we're in a state were newer (and better, kinda) discourses and zones of experience have been opened up in the culture, but the old discourses/zones are still there going strong. "level playing field" is an inherently troubling concept; what does it mean, really? in context here, it seems to mean, "everyone free to be a pig, equally" which ahem needs a little more thought put into it.

but my honest answer is that titchy is a creep or a troll or both.

TBH, any thread that conjures up the image of procedurally generated IDM todge is not entirely a trolling waste of time.

I looked at that second pic on my phone and holy lol/nightmares

kinda agree with goole, also think that while i take on board all that plax is saying (i think) the concept of a level playing field would almost seem to suggest that both genders (yay generalisations coming up) want the same things from their counterparts in equal amounts rather than it being a culturally/transactionally/politically/socially confused mess of very different wants/values that each side wants the other to fulfil, but that it needs to be done in a fairer way without it being a regulated conformist formula. or something. so equality or a level playing field might not just be unattainable, it's maybe not even the right kind of metaphor for what we should be looking to achieve.

intelligent dick music

goin' to the club gettin' braindance in the bathroom

This will go down in history, for me.

26/07/2010 The Day That I Freaked Out/Out-Grossed D@ng P3rry.

A proud and momentous event.

this is an A+ thread derail, good work y'all (not being sarcastic)

"so what was his dick like"

"kinda ambient"

I feel so embarrassed about that bus metaphor now, I need to start bringing my A game

way fat weens

was squarepusher's "my red hot car" about gender equality y/n

"but my honest answer is that titchy is a creep or a troll or both."

A+++ analysis. you and matt dc should start your own practice.

my first paragraph was A+++ analysis. so suck it!

the best serious answer i can give to this is that we're in a state were newer (and better, kinda) discourses and zones of experience have been opened up in the culture, but the old discourses/zones are still there going strong. "level playing field" is an inherently troubling concept; what does it mean, really? in context here, it seems to mean, "everyone free to be a pig, equally" which ahem needs a little more thought put into it.

yeah this is otm (we were discussing dworkin on some other thread last week - this was part of her point in woman hating, also: that binary opposition as a starting ideological perspective is necessarily going to result in people being beasts to one another. lol continental influence right, and her ace in the hole - persons of indeterminate gender - isn't exactly the trump she plays it as. but her broader point - that once the victim is allowed to victimize, it doesn't really "balance" anything out, and besides, plenty of victims have no interest in perpetuating that dynamic; they just want the dynamic to stop hurting people - was good in my opinion

also let the lols ring throughout the hills for any sad mf who really thinks "it's as terrible now for men as it ever was for women!"

i feel like such an object

goole, hope your silicon doll melts all over you. or your dildo ruins your insides. or some other nasty fate for whatever it is you use. :)

titchy's fabled sense of humor ^

yeah i actually meant that. as i sit here surrounded by my bevvy of inflated beauties watching porn side by side on by sofa looking at porn 'together' on my laptop.

*my sofa

not enough actual objectification of men itt :(

titchy what is your point? do you think the answer to the title qn is yes?

Here you go, Lex.

NSFW - I'm not going to click on this to find out what it is but I assume there is a penis involved

OH SHIT!!!

I meant to type url not img - can a mod please linkify that!

tadah

Thanking you.

Damn, I hate this thread coz now I've got "I'm gonna f*ck you with my red haired cock..." stuck in my head and I hate Squarepusher. :-(

excellent, reminds me of that germaine greer project a few years ago which pretty much seemed 100% to be an excuse for her to perv over naked men

Was that "The Boy" by Germaine Greer? One of my favourite books of all time. Natch.

yes!

Oh, it's not awful PENIS penis. It's just a sketch/study done from the Barberini Faun - so it's like, tasteful Classical penis.

"titchy what is your point? do you think the answer to the title qn is yes?"

i dont. but this wasnt meant to be a post where i rant about what i think. its just a little riff based on about two 2 lines in a novel im reading.

is PENIS penis like some Mandelbrotian conceit where you zoom in on the penis and see it's made up of more penises

I didn't know there was a novelisation of Debbie Does Dallas!

A PENIS penis is like RAPE rape, you know, to distinguish the good kind from the bad kind, or, erm something.

But it's a Greek Art Penis, not a terrible pornographic penis. Like, the kind of penis you could discuss over tea with the vicar. If your vicar is like my mum and likes a bit of Greek Art appreciation.

(However, I am now going to contemplate a penis full of tiny penises and wonder how I can incorporate that into the next Aphex Cockbomb.)

"I didn't know there was a novelisation of Debbie Does Dallas!"

oh you know jokes from 1989.

my guess is the two sentences in titchy's novel were some droll knobservation that men and women both sometimes use false body parts for pleasure

but i don't think stand-in body parts have anything to do with "objectification" actually. frankly they have very little to do with body parts at all most of the time if the fleshlight and the rotating pearl-filled bunny rabbit are any indication

titchy please remove the sand from your fleshlight

is PENIS penis like some Mandelbrotian conceit where you zoom in on the penis and see it's made up of more penises

where's that animated gif of hasselhoff?

k8 ur mam is a vicar?

http://www.claytoncounts.com/neato/hasselhoff.gif

Yes my mum is a vicar. I thought this was common knowledge. I think I started a thread about having clerics for parents - Lex and I weren't the only ILX0rs in this predickament.

YES FRACTAL HASSLEHOFF!!!! make me a gif of that featuring the Aphex cockbomb. And with that annoying Squarepusher song as soundtrack. Then my life will be complete.

lol who has a ytmnd account

someone should make an animated gif of 3 penii waiting to get on a vag bus. kind of like totoro.

once the victim is allowed to victimize, it doesn't really "balance" anything out, and besides, plenty of victims have no interest in perpetuating that dynamic; they just want the dynamic to stop hurting people

otm and brings things back to plax's point earlier about whether objectification of men by women is really on women's terms, or are we in the hall of mirrors where women taking on the role of hyper-sexual man objectifier in fact plays up to a male-imposed stereotype of women's sexuality

(sorry if this was not yr point, plax, but it was a thought in my thread since reading your post anyway)

some Mandelbrotian conceit where you zoom in on the penis and see it's made up of more penises

oh hello, is this the right thread for a joke about the koch curve?

"It is this similarity between the hole and its bits, even infintesimal ones, that makes us consider this curve of von Koch as a line truly marvelous among all."

I thought it was "red hot cock" not "red haired cock"?

surely all you have to do to disabuse yourself of any notion of sexual objectification being a level playing field is walk through any newsagents or look at a reasonable sampling of advertising hoardings. It doesn't look very level to me.

Also, the kind of hyper-objectification that results in hot ppl winding up looking horrible via cosmetic surgery is pretty shit, and it would be good if there were less of it.

I always heard "red hard cock" myself but "red haired cock" was a reference to this:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2777/4143708579_65414ed573_o.jpg

for reasons you will understand if you are brave enough to look (I don't reccommend it - it gave D@n P3rry nightmares, after all.)

Koch curves. Fnar. (A bit like Sierpinski Triangles aren't they?)

otm and brings things back to plax's point earlier about whether objectification of men by women is really on women's terms, or are we in the hall of mirrors where women taking on the role of hyper-sexual man objectifier in fact plays up to a male-imposed stereotype of women's sexuality

Except that you run into the trap of essentialism. If you refer to one type of sexuality as feminine and another type as masculine, you end up treating women who don't conform as Not Real Women.

Actually it's "red hot car", isn't it. That's what it says on the cover of my copy so that's what he must be singing.

Getting into Ballardian territory there if we bring car-loving into the equation. Also the Leafy Green Dragon OTM.

I didn't know there was a novelisation of Debbie Does Dallas!

Maybe not (there is a comic book adaptation, though), but Olympic did do photonovelizations of various softcore movies in the late sixties and early seventies. For some movies, it's the only thing that still exists.

otm and brings things back to plax's point earlier about whether objectification of men by women is really on women's terms, or are we in the hall of mirrors where women taking on the role of hyper-sexual man objectifier in fact plays up to a male-imposed stereotype of women's sexuality

Except that you run into the trap of essentialism. If you refer to one type of sexuality as feminine and another type as masculine, you end up treating women who don't conform as Not Real Women.

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Monday, July 26, 2010 6:03 PM (7 minutes ago)

i guess for me those terms (masculine and feminine) are bound up in the system of gender-relations that produces them. It is this system incl. objectification and inequality that is so toxic. The idea of Real Women is itself a form of essentialism is what im getting at.

i know some girls who talk about boys in a very objectifying manner, more than some boys i know, what does that prove/mean? not much except there is never a "level playing field" as people of one gender or another are not one and the same. Maybe just stop objectifying people and don't squeeze onto buses when they're full.

― voodoo sailor (ken c), Monday, July 26, 2010 2:47 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

how about the ways women talk about other women's bodies, also

(i mean idk if this is strictly relevant to 'objectification' but women i know are way more likely to complain about/comment on the bodies of other women (on the street, in the media, in person) than men i know are. i mean this is also a learned/expected behaviour, part of the problem, etc)

also what thread was it ppl were talking about dworkin on

Didn't we go into this re: cultural programming brainwashing women into reinforcing the male ideal of female beauty/sexuality?

yeah i guess. i just like talking about concrete versions of it more than abstract concepts, sometimes?

The idea of Real Women is itself a form of essentialism is what im getting at.

Which is exactly what I was saying.

yah im kindof a dumbass tho

I choose to image bomb, at Kate's request:

http://whitemouse.ru/photo/italy/firenze/david_michelangelo.jpg

more a product of

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/07/340x_0724_churchbig.jpg

What are the stakes of this thread's question? If the answer is yes, that it is a level playing field now, what does that mean? I feel like more politically problematic than the question itself is maybe what's buried behind that kind of question (if the playing field is level does that mean feminists should stop fighting for equal pay? does that mean we shouldn't take accusations of unequal treatment seriously?).

well titchy has said it was all a big joke or something so i'm not sure we'll get an answer straight from the source but yes that is exactly the issue

man, that is preti gay

men have dismembered womens body parts and blow up dolls

Was there a really important man dismembering a blow up doll case that I missed?

I was just thinking "wow, my mum's hands have got pretty hairy, I hope I don't get knuckles like that when I'm old" then realised it's supposed to be a gay male priest or something. I'm confused.

...cultural programming brainwashing women into reinforcing the male ideal of female beauty/sexuality?

― jaymc won $5800 on day 1! (HI DERE)but how can you be so sure that what you want to call "the male ideal" is in fact exclusively male? there's no way to cleanly and clearly separate male and female ideals from one another, or to separate either from the culture at large.

um the general idea behind the comment is "men have the power, ergo men set the path of discourse"

feel like more politically problematic than the question itself is maybe what's buried behind that kind of question (if the playing field is level does that mean feminists should stop fighting for equal pay? does that mean we shouldn't take accusations of unequal treatment seriously?).

― Mordy, Monday, July 26, 2010 1:41 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

seems to me that inequity in the physical objectification sweepstakes has nothing to do with the former issue and is only tangentially related to the latter.

um the general idea behind the comment is "men have the power, ergo men set the path of discourse"

― "There's no way a Filipino can hold a championship trophy." (HI DERE)

that's fine as a generality, but ignores the social/biological complexities that actually govern the development of cultural roles. i.e., it's insufficient. it's just a way of stupidizing a fantastically complex issue.

that was too harsh. apologies. maybe it's more accurate (and less inflammatory) to say that it's impossible to conceive of an ideal of attractiveness without the parallel conception of what the imagined attractee is attracted to. neither can exist in isolation, and therefore neither has a pure form.

contenderizer, your position is that objectification (a term that emerges from Lacan's discourses of object/subject) doesn't have anything to do with the more overt examples of objectification (like economic inequality, power imbalance in the workplace and domestic environment, etc) but only with what? assumptions about physical appearance, behavior that you think are themselves shared in a dual gender space? do you just disagree with the term 'objectification' as is classically used?

no, i'm fine w. objectification as a term and view the sexual objectification of women in traditionally feminist terms. i'm leery, however, of the idea that any culturally-shared beauty ideal can be called wholly "male" or "female", even if that culture is male-dominated. course this, like all things, depends on degree...

offered in response to the idea that cultural programming might "brainwash" women into reinforcing the male ideal of female beauty/sexuality. of course such a thing is possible, but it's very difficult to clearly identify. has a woman who subjects herself entirely to male desire, voluntarily presenting herself in such as way as to satisfy it, been brainwashed? not necessarily. we all work to satisfy the desires of those who do or might desire us, to some degree or another. i would argue that we are "designed" (in a biological sense) to satisfy one another's desires, that the desire to satisfy the desire of another is a fundamental component of human consciousness and experience.

social inequity that prizes masculine desire over feminine desire is a problem, as are social constraints that prevent women from enacting their desire, from choosing and demanding to the same degree that men do. but that's a slightly different issue.

"men have the power, ergo men set the path of discourse"

idk i think the reason people use the term 'patriarchy' instead, even though it sounds kinda paleo-feminist or w/ever*, is that it isn't really about men having the power & setting the path of discourse so much as a structure being in place in which the people who have power and dominate the path of discourse are male. so it isn't 'the male ideal' of female sexuality that is the dominant one, it's one possible male ideal, and because the whole thing is a structure that feels inescapable and natural, a whole bunch of people, male and female, who weren't the ones to set the path of discourse, are involved in keeping the thing going.

* ok i just googled this and it is apparently a thing? no new coinage under the sun.

contenderizer, i'm with you until this point:

social inequity that prizes masculine desire over feminine desire is a problem, as are social constraints that prevent women from enacting their desire, from choosing and demanding to the same degree that men do. but that's a slightly different issue.

I still don't understand the distinction you're drawing. How does "social inequality that prizes masculine desire over feminine desire" differ from "social constraints that prevent women from enacting their desire?" Do the "inequalities" come from a different place than the "constraints?" Are they not both stemming from objectification? What is the meaningful difference between them? One is about what you're allowed to do and the other is about what you aren't allowed to do? Isn't that the same process?

we all work to satisfy the desires of those who do or might desire us, to some degree or another.

we also all work to please people who might or do like us, and I think that's just as strong tbh - women reinforcing the "male ideal" of female beauty are partly doing it as part of their social relationship w/ other people who they don't necessarily want to be desired by, just liked by.

Mordy, how do "social constraints that prevent women from enacting their desire?" stem from objectification? surely it's more the other way around?

What do you guys think the word 'objectification' means exactly?

Objectification is the process by which an abstract concept is treated as if it is a concrete thing or physical object. In this sense the term is synonym to reification.
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum has argued that something is objectified if any of the following factors is present:
Instrumentality – if the thing is treated as a tool for one's own purposes;
Denial of autonomy – if the thing is treated as if lacking in agency or self-determination;
Inertness – if the thing is treated as if lacking in agency;
Ownership – if the thing is treated as if owned by another;
Fungibility – if the thing is treated as if interchangeable;
Violability – if the thing is treated as if permissible to smash;
denial of subjectivity – if the thing is treated as if there is no need to show concern for the 'object's' feelings and experiences.

.....

ok, who in this class wrote Violability – if the thing is treated as if permissible to smash;? own up.

demotion of a person/class of persons to the status of an object? - the opening post on this thread is about sexual objectification in specific.

And you believe that process has nothing to do with gender inequalities in the workplace? That seems like a very narrow reading of the way the term has been historically used. (nb I've read a lot of feminist crit + theory, but I wouldn't consider myself an expert in the history of it.)

kind of thought the thread was using the term 'objectification' as shorthand for 'sexual objectification'?

I'm objecting to considering those two different things, as questioning one essentially brings into question the other.

xxxp that was posted from wikipedia of course

the distinction i was drawing wasn't between one good thing and one bad thing - just pointing out two different ways of conceptualizing the bad thing. one passive (social inequities that prize male desire) and one active (social inequities that constrain female desire).

would say that objectification isn't causally involved here (i.e., doesn't cause inequality and isn't even caused by it). i'd argue that all people tend "naturally" objectify their objects of desire, and that this is only a problem to the extent that one group is granted more license/power in this regard than another.

which is not nothing-to-do-with by any means but is not a direct cause?

so when saying 'the problematic thing about titchy's question of 'in terms of [sexual] objectification, is it a level playing field now' is the hidden qns of etc etc etc' i thought you were making a point about how ppl going 'oh see this one quite specific aspect of how women have been treated badly has been totally solved, so that means these other mostly-unrelated things are solved too' is super problematic.

(xposts)

I'm objecting to considering those two different things, as questioning one essentially brings into question the other.

eh?

they are related - questioning one will bring into question the other. doesn't mean they're the same thing.

Again, I don't think objectification (ie: the way the word is generally used, of course you can feel free to have your opinions on how different critical societal ideas work and to what they apply) has been used in so a narrow sense. The way I've read the term it's to signify a number of other things that it is connected to and interlocking with, where "sexual objectification" is only one very specific symptom.

women reinforcing the "male ideal" of female beauty are partly doing it as part of their social relationship w/ other people who they don't necessarily want to be desired by, just liked by.

― cis-dur (c sharp major), Monday, July 26, 2010 3:09 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

i don't think you can draw that distinction

I guess I'm making a historical case here, and I should really just find some MacKinnon + Dworkin that deals with this and do a close reading

It is true, and very to the point, that women are objects, commodities, some deemed more expensive than others - but it is only by asserting one's humanness every time, in all situations, that one becomes someone as opposed to something. That, after all, is the core of our struggle.

That's Dworkin. I don't see why that needs to be limited to specific representations of women in media when it's clearly a broad critique of gender relationships.

The way I've read the term it's to signify a number of other things that it is connected to and interlocking with, where "sexual objectification" is only one very specific symptom.

― Mordy, Monday, July 26, 2010 3:25 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

that's a problem. the less specific the term, and the more it indicates a massive, unentaglable web of related ideas, the less useful it becomes. especially when dealing with highly charged issues like this. we need clinical and highly precise language to talk about these issues. given the language and general intent of the OP, i limited my conception of the term to sexual objectification on an individual level as an expression of individual desire, and have proceeded from there.

Women's intimate experience of sexual objectification… is definitive of and synonymous with women's lives as gender female.

-Catharine MacKinnon (quote from Martha Nussbaum's "Objectification" article, btw, don't have primary sources handy atm.)

I disagree contenderizer. Dworkin and MacKinnon's critiques were powerful because they called an entire unseen system of objectifications and inequalities into question -- not because they pointed to the most egregious examples of sexism.

you're read the term! it's a critical societal idea! you're basically talking on a totally other plane than the way the word is generally used tbh

contenderizer, when straight women dress themselves in conventionally sexually attractive clothing/makeup in order to impress or be liked by other straight women, is that about satisfying desire? whose?

I think the "general use" of the word is philosophically inaccurate then, and makes a much less important critique than Dworkin intended when she used it

That's Dworkin. I don't see why that needs to be limited to specific representations of women in media when it's clearly a broad critique of gender relationships.

― Mordy, Monday, July 26, 2010 3:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

re: the struggle to become "someone as as opposed to something", dworkin OTM. but once we run her line of thinking out past the confines of that specific struggle, we run in to trouble. we are, all of us, both someone and something. we interact with the world and with others both as individuals and as instances of ideals. i would agree 100% that inequality makes objectification a problem. but i would disagree very strongly that objectification is intrinsically problematic.

well, what's your case for areas where it isn't intrinsically problematic?

when straight women dress themselves in conventionally sexually attractive clothing/makeup in order to impress or be liked by other straight women, is that about satisfying desire? whose?

― cis-dur (c sharp major), Monday, July 26, 2010 3:32 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

there is no way to answer that question. depends on the women, their purposes and imaginations, the society and moment they inhabit, and a million million other factors. perhaps when they dress to impress other women they're simply repeating the modes that typically impress men. or a certain mode that impresses certain men. and perhaps not. my point is that you can't so easily separate the male from the female in cases like this.

I'm a bit thick and unread wrt this stuff, so please feel free to say "duh" and point me at the appropriate books/ concepts. but firstly, ppl talking about the expression of desires, desires being satisfied, as if desires are formed separate of society, which either condemns or condones them. that runs counter to my experience, I think and feel that desires are created through complex interplay between "society/culture" and "me", and i'm not at all sure where one starts and the other stops - so it seems weird for society to negate what it co-created? secondly there appears to be a single, almost hierarchical power structure implied (maybe more characteristic of US/UK 50 years ago), whereas now, it *feels* as if we move through overlapping structures with different expectations and power arrangements, and I'm not sure it's valid to assert that all of those are patriarchal? anyway, I am way out of my depth as I've just proved, as I said above, would v.much appreciate good primers on the subject.

tomofthenest apologise for your unreadedness

lol I think I just did, a few times.

mittens is back!

I thought mittens got permabanned

well, what's your case for areas where it isn't intrinsically problematic?

― Mordy, Monday, July 26, 2010 3:41 PM (16 seconds ago) Bookmark

i need a plumber. i do not hire an individual, i hire a skillset. the human individual in question is only satsifactory to the extent that he/she manifests the appropriate skillset. objectification. and yeah, that's facetious, but i'm working on the fly here.

same with the way we, all of us, conceive of the desired other, especially when aren't engaged in the act of desiring someone we know extremely well. when we fantasize, we objectify the desired. she or he has hands like this, hair like that, a mouth that does this. the other desired in fantasies is endlessly pliable and without agency of any kind. even if we desire to be dominated, we are only placing our own agency in the disguise of the other. when we interact with those we might desire, there is tension between our human experience of the actual individual and our attempt to reshape them into the object we might desire. there is nothing wrong with any of this, especially when we're honest about the process.

other kinds of objectification (non-sexual) occur in child-parent relationships, and member-community relationships. there are many instances in life when we are conceived of as more-or-less one-dimentional things rather than as endlessly complex people. given the complexity of social interactions, it's inevitable, even necessary.

ok, contenderizer, you're confusing commodification with objectification. they both have similar intellectual lineage (thru Hegel), but they are doing different things (that's really re your first paragraph). your second paragraph is about fantasy more than actual objectification and your third is just bizarre -- parent/child + member/community relationships are super complex multi-dimensional and very rich

invention of the fleshlight has backfired on the dildo generation

mittens!!!!

who are you

wanna cyber?

a fan!

i don't think you can so clearly separate commodification from objectification. look at nussbaum's list. how is that not satisfied in economic transactions of the type i suggested? if you want to be this narrow about definitions, you're attempting to force a distinction that doesn't actually exist. unless you can make a strong case for the very specific ways in which objectification really IS a different kind of thing.

nor do i think you can distinguish between fantasy and reality when talking about specifically sexual objectification. sexual relations consist, to a significant extent, of the interaction of fantasy and reality. again, if you want to exclude this area, you have to provide a good reason why we might do so.

agree that parent-child and community-member relationships are rich, but so are male-female relationships. they always have been. and all of these types or relationships depend to some extent on objectification.

that to mordy, obv.

fine, but obv there's a difference between between a marxist + being a feminist. it's silly to be like, "this could apply to the worker's situation too!" because of course it can, they both come from Hegel, Marx, Lacan, etc, etc.

(Btw, I don't want to minimize feminist's roots in women's suffrage and other historical issues that might not have been as influenced by say, Lacan, or Marx, just this particular concept + idea.)

To quote Nussbaum again:

MacKinnon has written that sexuality is to feminism what work is to Marxism: In each case something that is most oneself and one's own is what is seen by the theory to have been taken away.

right, but my overall argument is that objectification is not intrinsically problematic. i would make this point in a marxist context as well as a feminist one. to the extent that we exist in social groups, we become instrumental to some degree or another. i view this as a good and necessary thing.

for this reason, i object to sexual objectification not as such, but because of the ways it enacts and perpetuates historical inequalities.

I don't see how you make the distinction between good and necessary objectification and historically inequality objectification. Presumably some historical inequalities in your opinion must naturally follow from necessary objectifications? Are those consequences just unavoidable?

the smallest "social group" for purposes of the above = 2 individuals. so long as any individual is entirely alone, he or she is wholly individual. but the more others he or she must interact with, the more he/she becomes a social object, a thing with this or that function is this or that class of interactions.

that's a paradox cuz individual identity depends on social context. so even alone, we wouldn't (can't) be "ourselves".

WHY ILX RULES: No one has used the word 'feminaz1' yet.

contenderizer, it sounds like you just want to challenge the concept of hierarchy itself, or otherness -- it's kinda a derridian critique, right? all dichotomies actually participate in each other

i actually don't know off-hand the range of feminist responses to derrida, but i'd guess they're similar to marxist responses to deconstructionism -- which you could probably spend an academic career working through i'd imagine.

I don't see how you make the distinction between good and necessary objectification and historically inequality objectification. Presumably some historical inequalities in your opinion must naturally follow from necessary objectifications? Are those consequences just unavoidable?

― Mordy, Monday, July 26, 2010 4:09 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

well, for purposes of this thread, we might think of sexual objectification in terms of sexually submissive images of women used to sell products to men (and women). this is distasteful in the current cultural moment - not because such images are intrinsically pernicious, but because they perpetuate/enact the historically recent subjection of women. in the long run, i expect we'll come to terms with sexually submissive (and sexually dominant) depictions of all sorts. different strokes....

and yes, a great deal of inequality does follow from necessary objectifcation. the trick is to recognize and mitigate the consequences of this, not to eradicate the objectification itself.

historically recent?

contenderizer, it sounds like you just want to challenge the concept of hierarchy itself, or otherness -- it's kinda a derridian critique, right? all dichotomies actually participate in each other

― Mordy, Monday, July 26, 2010 4:14 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

you're treating this as a much more learned critique than it actually is. but yes, as i generally understand the concepts involved.

historically recent?

count "ongoing" in that class

Well, now I'm wondering how narrowly you read the feminist critique of history :P

I think contenderizer is thinking rather than reading! :p I'm enjoying his/her posts much more than yours, Mordy, although your namedropping is providing lots of useful links.

fuckin <3 u all for this thread by the way

i gotta work on being more entertaining on ilx so i can bring the big ilx pundit bucks in

i find your posts more entertaining than contenderizers mordy

Well, now I'm wondering how narrowly you read the feminist critique of history :P

― Mordy, Monday, July 26, 2010 4:23 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmarkfair point. was speaking in terms of the "recent" with an idea of historical sequence in mind (i.e., what we see today has its most direct roots in what we saw yesterday), not to imply that women haven't been oppressed for a long damn time.

plus a spacing thing of some kind in there somewhere

there is this blogger site I found by way of Huffpo Living, to some feminist blog I forget, to link that is every picture they can find of a male celebrity's penis. I don't really have anybody else to tell this to, but it may never come up again, so I'm telling y'all.

NSFWhttp://fullfrontalfriday.blogspot.com/?zx=1469a6b9aa39e307

As opposed to linking pictures of female celebs' penises.

well that's a fine how do you do

the thing that's unclear to me about your argument is the rationale that leads you to call some objectification "good" - i agree that in contemporary culture it is unfortunately inevitable, and there are instances you can argue it isn't detrimental and is functional. But inevitable + functional doesn't equal "good" in my book.

and somewhat related to this (is this opening an unwelcome can of worms?) is the function of WS and similar threads or parts of threads on ilx. Clearly there's objectification going on. There definitely is positive bonding that goes on between posters (one could call it community-building in a way) over the hotness of the people depicted.

and does it function differently when it's images of hot women being looked at by mostly men vs. the discussions of "smashability" on the no boys thread or gay threads?

and does it function differently when it's images of hot women being looked at by mostly men vs. the discussions of "smashability" on the no boys thread or gay threads?

― sarahel, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 8:26 AM (26 minutes ago)

i don't think so, but then i didn't see the need for a separate thread to begin with so i may be missing the point of that one.

titchy taking a lot of unfair heat in this thread imo. it's an interesting thread, not sure that he's said all that much that's over the line, and can't we all just get along?

contenderizer didn't you pull this exact line of argument in the "white artists who use the N word" thread to argue that white men don't have an exclusive lock on dehumanizing other people? to which all concerned were like, well, maybe not, but things have been set up so that it's much easier for them and you were like "yes but that's a slightly different issue" and then we were all like ...!?...?

the nut of your current arg appears to be:

i'd argue that all people tend "naturally" objectify their objects of desire, and that this is only a problem to the extent that one group is granted more license/power in this regard than another

1 - your premise is bad - many many people who can desire something (sex with someone, for example) without objectifying the other person who's involved. who wouldn't even know how to do otherwise

2 - this is only a problem to the extent that one group is granted more license/power in this regard than another - is kind of like saying my uncle is only a problem when he's attacking me with a chainsaw, and he attacks me with a chainsaw every morning, otherwise no biggie

it's not really like that at all, re point no 2?

as in i don't think it's really all that unreasonable to say that everyone should probably be allowed to objectify if they want to, as long as they're not granted any particular power over the subject.

male/female imbalances that currently exist come under that qualifier, but it doesn't invalidate the basic idea imo.

and somewhat related to this (is this opening an unwelcome can of worms?) is the function of WS and similar threads or parts of threads on ilx. Clearly there's objectification going on. There definitely is positive bonding that goes on between posters (one could call it community-building in a way) over the hotness of the people depicted.

― sarahel, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 9:23 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and does it function differently when it's images of hot women being looked at by mostly men vs. the discussions of "smashability" on the no boys thread or gay threads?

― sarahel, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 9:26 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah i don't think these are different, though i don't read the no boy threads (duh) or the gay threads. the WS thread has a couple female posters on it, the pix aren't exclusively of women, and it's kinda self-consciously lame and harmless. possibly it's having untold irl consequences.

only when my gf catches me posting to it tbh

fwiw i find this argument bonkers. it follows from a misunderstanding of what objectification is and how it works. it's not just looking at a photo and saying "WS". it's not just looking at a girl or guy and thinking "hott dayum!!" really. it's not.

both in the N-word thread and here contenderizer's saying that dehumanization/objectification is a tool, a technology, a "natural" consequence of being human (for which he provides no proof).

as such, objectification can be used for good or evil, by anyone. everyone has access to the tools of objectification, or dehumanization. in themselves they're not bad. guns don't kill people, criminals do. we just HAPPEN to have this racism thing kicking around, and this patriarchy thing, so yes, on balance there are winners and losers when human beings become less than human in the eyes of others, but don't let these unfortunate and hopefully temporary power imbalances taint your judgement on the intrinsic value of objectification itself, which is just part of feelin sex-ay, don't fight it baby.

dehumanization/objectification is a tool,

well it is, but certainly not for the type of purposes you'd normally champion or anything.

i do think the thread is kinda caught awkwardly between the two stools of 'WS' and dehumanisation tbh, which is where most of the confusion/disagreement lies? maybe not.

yes. i think that actually is all it is, basically.

I will probably regret posting this here, but to be honest, the "WS" threads trouble me, in a way that the "crush of shame" type threads don't. And it's probably about terminology - the implied violence of the actual phrases "would smash" and "I'd hit it" bother me in a way that the kind of cute innocence (or not so innocence) that the crush threads produced didn't. Possibly because the crush threads seemed to be about a kind of appreciation for the *person* (even against the poster's better judgement) which made it about the qualities of person being discussed, rather than the poster's attitude towards them.

"Would Smash" (even apart from the troubling violence of the phrase) seems to be entirely about the urges of the poster, without bothering to consider the person (let alone issues of consent - "I would have violent sex with this person" doesn't seem like a compliment in the way that "she/he is really pretty!" does, it seems something threatening and invasive.)

WRT Objectification and its discontents, you would probably be correct in saying it's fine and dandy and not bothersome if it were left at the level of the individual and used solely to exclude certain people from the bedroom.

However, it ISN'T. It's used to exclude certain people (almost always women) from the Boardroom, from the stage, from the screen, from the government, from the public eye, from so many spheres that have absolutely nothing to do with physical appearance and objectification.

Men become socialised to believe that *the* acceptable way to relate to a woman in front of them is "would smash/wouldn't smash"

If this is the criteria which defines their social or sexual lives, that's unfortunate.

However, we see repeatedly, that this criteria *doesn't* just stop there. When "Would smash/wouldn't smash" becomes the criteria by which one chooses which cultural figures to privilige (and here we see the exclusion of women from the arts canons which we have discussed endlessly here) it is troubling.

When we see - as we have in the past, and continue to do, with more vicious frequency - women who are up for skill-based positions - politicians, scientists, judges - reduced in discourse to "would smash/wouldn't smash" then that is really, seriously wrong. And on that level, no it is NOT a level playing field, in fact it seems on many levels to be getting worse.

Although no, there is nothing intrinsicly wrong with the human capacity to objectify, the scale of it, the "great oaks from little acorns grow" aspect of it means that no, it's not harmless, and yes, we do have a problem that one or two dildos or dick shots is simply not going to address.

well, just firstly- the 'Smash' is just the name of the thread, and it's definitively and decidedly not that every post (indeed pretty much none of them) is an expression of desire to 'violently' do anything to the person (often men) posted.

as in, they're very much in the same vein as 'crush' threads imo.

Men become socialised to believe that *the* acceptable way to relate to a woman in front of them is "would smash/wouldn't smash"

and I also disagree that this is *the* acceptable way for anyone to behave

When we see - as we have in the past, and continue to do, with more vicious frequency - women who are up for skill-based positions - politicians, scientists, judges - reduced in discourse to "would smash/wouldn't smash" then that is really, seriously wrong.

It's not even arguable that women are up against it when being considered for these positions (and in many other circumstances) but i'm not sure that i'd agree that it's on a smash/not smash basis.

not that that makes it right or anything, obviously.

that's fine as a generality, but ignores the social/biological complexities that actually govern the development of cultural roles. i.e., it's insufficient. it's just a way of stupidizing a fantastically complex issue.

WTF is wrong with you, fool

Darraghmac, it's easy for you to essentially say "but people don't behave in these ways!" because you never see it, because you never *experience* it, on the almost daily basis that women, in this society, including myself, do.

(It's also a subtle kind of sexism for men to dismiss the experiences of women saying "oh, *I* don't think like that or act like that, so surely you CAN'T experience that kind of treatment and behaviour, even as you're telling me that you do.")

I don't think he is saying "you don't experience that"; he is saying "the people on that thread aren't intending to act like that".

I was responding to the third of his three posts. I can't comment on the first two.

But really, I need to stop reading this thread now. Or get it back to IDM todge jokes because this is total trigger stuff for me.

todqkz

And it's probably about terminology - the implied violence of the actual phrases "would smash" and "I'd hit it" bother me in a way that the kind of cute innocence (or not so innocence) that the crush threads produced didn't.

so much better to be crushed than hit

as much of a right-on guy who's totally aware of ugly power dynamics and such as I am, I still sometimes get little unpleasant surprises. Like hearing some friends who I thought were similarly right-on guys talk about their 'two minute rule' where if they're talking to a girl at a club and she hasn't made her availability for a smashing clear in two minutes they'll walk off. Good argument, that one, lots of anger. It's kinda easy to think that society is full of ills, apart from your part of it which is just perfect.

anyway I don't even know what you're talking about re the WS thread, I'm guessing it's a 77 thing and since I'm not on there I think we know who the real victim of asymmetrical power relations is here. :'(

there isn't anything in "Would smash" that couldn't include "smashing together". Smash me and I'll smash you back.

And that is how I've always read it. Never even contemplated that it might be "violent" until I think suzy brought it up.

smashing [ˈsmæʃɪŋ]
adj
Informal chiefly Brit excellent or first-rate; wonderful we had a smashing time

Also having a connotation of this, which I think is really cute. Like a British way of saying "Would be excellent to one another."

Of course, in British, it probably had origins like "Oh Darling, I do so enjoy smashing the lower classes" and then we're back to square one.

I did bring it up because being a female target of 'smash' talk does feel icky to me as a way to describe your onlooker's desire. Just because you mean no harm by your description does not mean no harm is done, or that it makes the man using it into the unthinking beneficiary of a society that allows you to pass this talk off as no big deal. Male complacence is, in fact, rewarded where we live.

Having a crush = a feeling you have inside, eg. 'my insides are being crushed' - it's to do with disappointment, not imagined contact.
I'd hit it = violence perpetrated on 'it', no personhood, even, for the object of desire.

Suzy OTM.

Of course, now what this thread needs is FEMINIST HULK to come in and do a bit of the right kind of HULK SMASH PATRIARCHY in little purple shorts.

hey let's start a 'is it okay to use misogynist speech ironically' poll okay let's not

It's. Not. Even. Misogynist.

Or ironic!

However, I think this whole stupid argument is getting the thread off-topic, so anyway...

The problem with deploying sexist or racist terms with irony is that if you do it long enough, you wake up one day to find yourself turned into a sexist or racist. It is a milder form of 'can't you take a joke?'

...and arguments are only stupid when you've lost one.

But you're taking an innocuous phrase and imbuing it with your own meaning that it didn't inherently have! And somehow insinuating that there's ironic detachment in using it!

Yeah, it's like - *especially* on messageboards - excuse me but how, exactly, am I supposed to tell your "ironic" "comedy" misogyny from the real and genuine misogyny I encounter all around me every day, every time I turn on a television or pick up a tabloid or walk out of the house or something?

Could you perhaps do something like - I dunno - put on a "comedy!" hat or wave a giant inflatable wang around your head so that I, as the object of your "comedy" "offensive" "humour" can tell that you're trying to be "funny", rather than just being a common or garden asshole?

Because from this end, it's often quite hard to tell the difference.

Darraghmac, it's easy for you to essentially say "but people don't behave in these ways!" because you never see it, because you never *experience* it, on the almost daily basis that women, in this society, including myself, do.

what i disagreed with was the contention that it was *the* acceptable way for males to behave. it's not, and nobody on this thread would claim it is. nobody said 'people don't behave in these ways' (i'm not entirely sure what 'these ways' are, tbh, but i'm happy enough for it to be taken as bad)

(It's also a subtle kind of sexism for men to dismiss the experiences of women saying "oh, *I* don't think like that or act like that, so surely you CAN'T experience that kind of treatment and behaviour, even as you're telling me that you do.")

genuinely hope i haven't said anything approaching this. if so i apologise, but tbh that would be a spectacularly dumb and stupid thing to even hint at and i'm certain i managed to avoid it.

There's no comedy and there's no irony!

oh god we've done this argument before
at least once

What the hell is with comedy and irony?

i don't think kkvgz speaks for everyone wrt how ironic/comedic it is, but this is boring... and we should change it to s.thing innocuous like 'would bonk'

'would google image search'

'bonk' also means 'to hit' (!)

which i mean it's kind of telling, that, maybe? i don't want to call you out for SECRET MISOGYNY or anything, i don't think it means that

I KNOW RIGHT

I was gonna say, "bonk" actually sounds violent to me.

haha OH I SEE

maybe that post needed a </comedy> tag ):

or maybe i should stop being dumb, whatever

the WS thread is... kinda self-consciously lame and harmless.

It's oft been discussed and commented on, in the feminist blogosphere, the lack of slang terms for sexual intercourse which don't involve violence of some form or another. And basically, you have to go back to the Medieval period and "swythe".

But anyway, it's easy to get bogged down in terminology rather than address the actual issues of why something is problematic - even when you have Suzy (and I know other female ILXors for instance Anna) explaining repeatedly why, specifically "I'd hit it" makes us really, really uncomfortable and does NOT leave us with a nice warm fuzzy feeling, in fact, quite an icky feeling.

By 'acceptable' Kate may mean that men are not censured by their male peers or superiors for using such descriptions, and in some cases they are joined and egged on. Kind of like what you guys seem to be doing in the name of comedy clarification. That is a kind of societal reward that contributes to the devaluation of women's standing, and it's also weird and homosocial to me.

Would it be easier to stop using a contentious phrase that women find a bit suspect, for reasons to do with the undercurrent of violence towards women that exists in everyday male discourse, or is the demand that you moderate your catchphrases some kind of human rights violation?

'would swyþe '10'?

the playing field was all kinds of level in the middle ages. on the analogy of acorns and oak trees, swythe it must be!

Suzy OTM yet again.

But we're getting off topic, as this thread is clearly about women objectifying men, so here I shall get back on topic by discussing IDM todge in great detail.

http://www.christies.com/lotfinderimages/d38629/d3862999x.jpg

^^^^^^^^^ Here is some IDM todge with whom I would greatly enjoy a decent spot of at least semi-consensual swything

::waves giant inflatable wang around my head so you can tell it's ironic comedy objectification::

would swyth at least preserves ws & wns

the undercurrent of violence towards women that exists in everyday male discourse

^ i mean this kind of sentence sneaking in to a fairly good debate doesn't help anyone?

i really have a problem with the constant implication that all men are some kind of seething rage monsters that would pillage all the female bounty around them without constant monitoring. and that is definitely an undercurrent that comes through any time a gender debate comes up on ILX.

i also think that some posters tend to hijack terms such as 'would smash' and radically alter the usage to suit their arguments, which usually serves to turn me off discussion altogether. maybe that's indicative of my total resentment of the feminine and a silent endorsement of the male-dominated status quo.

it's "swyve" not "swythe" btw, would hate it if WS 2.0 got off on the etymological wrong foot.

as in 'would smash' is a term that was adopted by noted poster dom passantino, more than likely because of it being so objectinoable to begin with, and then ILX took it as slang and ran with it.

the board has done that with so many other weird turns of phrase over the years that homing in on 'WS' like it's some sort of accepted, understood and demonstrable proof of the site's dismissiveness of feminism really weakens any serious argument that we could have.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f14/snouts/3f52de42d29366b2ccdad3916dd6bf60.gif

Well, I'm sorry that you have a problem with women expressing how they are often and fairly constantly made to feel by the actions of certain males and the lack-of-actions or encouragement of other males in their every day lives.

I'm really sorry that that's your takeaway message - when women explain or address why they often feel compromised or threatened by this or that behaviour which we describe - OH NOES WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE POOR MENZ!!!!

Well, I'm sorry that you have a problem with women expressing how they are often and fairly constantly made to feel by the actions of certain males and the lack-of-actions or encouragement of other males in their every day lives.

Well if that's what the thread is about then i'm mistaken, apologies.

AFAIK "smash" is hip-hop slang, if you want to find an avenue that we can use to link racism into this

WAH HEY LET THE SMASHING BEGIN!!!

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f61/jorge_trujillo/aphex.jpg

omg can we actually smash those ones? terrifying

No, they have come to smash you and this entire thread, in the HULK SMASHING sense of the word

Darragh, you're extrapolating WILDLY there. And there is also a troublesome side to accusing me of 'sneaking' terms into a debate, as if you know my motivation for writing anything about my disappointment in otherwise intelligent men's use of the same language or consistent denial of female experience. Still, we are not having this discussion in a void - women and to some extent men are objectified and shaped by what more 'powerful' men deem appropriate or attractive.

LOL Dan, 'smash' doesn't get a free pass for originating in hip-hop culture!

the undercurrent of violence towards women that exists in everyday male discourse

^ i mean this kind of sentence sneaking in to a fairly good debate doesn't help anyone?

i really have a problem with the constant implication that all men are some kind of seething rage monsters

it doesn't imply that though.

as in 'would smash' is a term that was adopted by noted poster dom passantino

...this is meant to be evidence that it's NOT a misogynistic phrase?!

idk, i don't mind it (see also "i'd hit it"), but then when i use it it's going against the power-structure grain thing, and i'm not a girl, so i can see exactly where kate and suzy are coming from.

how about "cut up" as a term for sex with a woman, i always liked that one

personally i use "dismember", it's a term of endearment that suggests i would enjoy sex with a woman almost as much as i enjoy sex with my fleshlight

posting those to the actual WS thread would really garner the SB's i reckon

xp

Darragh, you're extrapolating WILDLY there.

gotta be honest, i've been accused before. i do feel that you are always raising the stakes in these discussions, where any attempt to engage makes me look like the embodiment of the caveman oppressor- i'm really quite nice, y'know. but that's as likely a defensive reflex on my part than anything else so again sorry if i'm over-reaching with that.

people shouldn't get the wrong idea, i mean "dismember" is just a word, it's just the letter d, i, s, m, e, m, b, e and r connected together. is there something so offensive about LETTERS now, i mean for fuck's sake

the undercurrent of violence towards women that exists in everyday male discourse

lex, please tell me what this implies if not that.

this is meant to be evidence that it's NOT a misogynistic phrase?!

in all fairness, i carried on to point out that the term was no doubt offered in all offensiveness and then just subsumed into ILX. if you disagree, fair enough but that's my honest reading of the term.

How about "would smoosh." I mean, there's nothing violent about that and it sounds almost the same.

Anyway, Swyvable Director, Chris Cunningham made it fairly clear that they are not actually supposed to be children at all, but little monsters, demon personifications of Richard. Not little girls.

when one is actually getting smashed, i'm not sure that the distinction is any comfort really

And speaking of the ultimately swyvable CC, we haven't had HIS dick on this thread yet...

http://www.aphextwin.nu/images/interviewsarticles/chris_01.jpg

are people REALLY that bothered by someone questioning their slang

I mean, come on

Actually, CC's todge is the exception to the rule of their never being any IDM todge anywhere. CC's cock is all over the damn net, everywhere.

we're questioning his schlong dan

"IDM todge" sounds a bit too much like "A bientot" for my liking, mind you.

Strangely, I've never surfed for IDM WANG on the intertubes myself...

WANG, people. You know it makes sense.

people shouldn't get the wrong idea, i mean "dismember" is just a word, it's just the letter d, i, s, m, e, m, b, e and r connected together. is there something so offensive about LETTERS now, i mean for fuck's sake

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 2:36 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

seriously, with your skills you should be a barrister or some shit. you could be earning thousands of pounds per minute for arguments of this calibre.

Strangely, all the best IDM Todge on the internet is all by Wolfgang Tillmans. Funny, that ;-P

^You've still never seen the famous Damon In The Shower With A Semi. ;-)

I would respectfully submit, HM, that you'd just keep the meter running on all those wonderfully billable hours.

D-: I am pleased there is no one in this university computer suite now, what with that there picture up there.

Be glad it wasn't the Rubber Johnny cover.

Now I am very tempted to post NSFW shots from Mr Oizo's Rubber. o_0

in all fairness, i carried on to point out that the term was no doubt offered in all offensiveness and then just subsumed into ILX. if you disagree, fair enough but that's my honest reading of the term.

― "It's far from 'lol' you were reared, boy" (darraghmac), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 6:38 AM (4 hours ago)

This is what makes the issue of objectification contentious and complex! The people on ilx using it, the way it is perceived by the people using it - they see it as inoffensive and just a bit of fun. But sincerely, the term leaves me with an icky feeling - it's a reclaiming/repurposing language issue. There are points in that process where the term being repurposed still provokes connotations and reactions to its previous use.

Personally, part of me thinks the WS threads are fine and fun - And there's something that can be said for bonding over shared interests and aesthetics, which is one of the reasons message boards like this exist. But Tracer - I don't see how you can say that those are not examples of objectification! WS is not that egregious and awful as far as objectification goes, but that is what's going on.

um Tracer is being ironic

contenderizer didn't you pull this exact line of argument in the "white artists who use the N word" thread to argue that white men don't have an exclusive lock on dehumanizing other people? [...]

the nut of your current arg appears to be:

i'd argue that all people tend "naturally" objectify their objects of desire, and that this is only a problem to the extent that one group is granted more license/power in this regard than another

1 - your premise is bad - many many people who can desire something (sex with someone, for example) without objectifying the other person who's involved. who wouldn't even know how to do otherwise

2 - this is only a problem to the extent that one group is granted more license/power in this regard than another - is kind of like saying my uncle is only a problem when he's attacking me with a chainsaw, and he attacks me with a chainsaw every morning, otherwise no biggie

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 4:03 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

yes, what i'm saying itt does extend from the same general principles as my arguments in the “white artists” thread. and while i accept yr encapsulation of my point here, it's not strictly limited to sexual (or gendered) objectification.

not sure I accept yr point #1. i would argue, for example, that it is impossible to fantasize (sexually) without objectifying the fantasy object to some extent, and by extension the general classes of person to which the fantasy object must (in the context of the fantasy) belong. For instance, “hot guy”, or tall guy, or guy with long dark hair, or musician, or whatever. And further, than when getting to know people in whom one is potentially let's-pretend-it's-not sexually interested, there is play in the relationship between one's emerging perceptions of the actual human being involved and the way one's initial impressions of that person squared with this or that inherently objectifying fantasy. would expect that people would differ on this point, though.

yr. point #2 is overly cartoonish. It's appropriate to identify the difference between things that are a real problem and things that only seem to be a problem – especially when people focus too much of their attention on the semblance. to use another ridiculously cartoonish example, the problem isn't that people pee, it's that they pee on the toilet seat. It's ridiculous to say that peeing is the problem, because people have to pee and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. but peeing on the toilet seat sucks, and if we want it to stop, that's where we should concentrate our attention.

i dunno - you can have a sexual fantasy about someone not based on their appearance, but based on their identity as a human being, and in which they have agency and they use that agency to fuck you.

i am... not particularly comfortable with the idea that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with objectification

i mean, you say i provide no evidence, but i've tried to do just that. not statistical, but logical. let's say your cousin, who you know reasonably well, volunteers to babysit your children. for the duration of babysitting duties, they assume the role of babysitter. they are objectified in this sense. your cousin is satisfactory as a human being to the extent that he/she babysits well and properly, and not to the extent that not. same goes for thousands of people with whom we interact on a daily basis, and thousands more whom we know only through the media. though we do know certain people intimately, most we know only as objects with a limited array of functions and characteristics. they are again, satisfactory only to the extent that they function "properly" relative to our expectations of them.

this is the bedrock from which all forms of objectification spring, and again, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. it becomes a problem, as i've said elsewhere, when it allows us to dehumanize others in a negative sense. this isn't limited to racism and sexism. we do it to our enemies when we are at war, we do it to our employees when we don't want to pay them what they're actually worth, and we (sometimes) do it to our friends and loved ones when overwhelmed with emotion or stress. objectification only becomes dehumanization when it's accompanied by a callous disregard for the fundamental humanity of the "object" in question. and yes, i'd agree that sexual objectification often operates this way.

but i'd nevertheless defend objectification in general on general principles.

you can have a sexual fantasy about someone not based on their appearance, but based on their identity as a human being, and in which they have agency and they use that agency to fuck you.

― sarahel, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 11:52 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

but that "identity as a human being" is not real (in the fantasy context). it's merely a splinter of your own ego that your pretending is someone else. same goes for their agency. it's really just your agency. the fantasy lover can't ever use their imaginary agency to do something that you don't want them to do, at least unconsciously. to the extent that we fantasize, we're objectifying classes of people as objects to satisfy our desires. and that's okay.

well that brings up the question - can you dehumanize someone in a non-negative sense? Like can you really dehumanize someone in a positive sense? In a neutral way?

"your" = you're

can you dehumanize someone in a non-negative sense? Like can you really dehumanize someone in a positive sense? In a neutral way?

― sarahel, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:02 PM (44 seconds ago) Bookmark

i'm defining my terms badly. re the point i'm trying to make: no, you can't "dehumanize" someone in a positive sense. i was trying to use dehumanization as a blanket term for negative objectification (i.e. that which operates with callous disregard for the fundamental humanity of the actual people in question).

i think my problem is that a lot of what you're arguing might not be detrimental in the immediate sense - like me & roxy oohing and aahing over "Varg with cat" is not doing any damage to Varg - or the sexual fantasy, within that fantasy, isn't causing harm to anyone. And I agree that objectification is functional - but the question is, is that "good" or "okay"? Like it could be "wrong" and also "the way things are"

i can accept that idea, but it's very hard to conceive of social interactions absent objectification.

and by "the way things are" - I don't mean it in the sense that because we are culturally or biologically conditioned in certain ways that are wrong, we shouldn't do anything to try and get past them or change them or mitigate their harmful effects.

i think most of the people having problems with what you're saying, c, are having problems with you saying that objectification is "good" or "okay"

mostly because you are using "objectification" completely wrong (ie, in the examples you are giving you are talking about people who are actively choosing to do roles/activities, not people who are treating themselves as passive objects onto which someone else can project their thoughts and desires)

some of his examples are in line with the common examples/uses of the term "objectification" - others are a bit of a stretch, but it is a continuum - like Martha's list suggests/implies.

well, that's self-objectification, HD, and that's a different matter. we objectify others when we define them primarily in terms of their roles and functions - this is true whether or not (and to whatever degree) they consent to this. and we objectify ourselves when we internalize the objectifying expectations of others.

some of his examples are in line with the common examples/uses of the term "objectification" - others are a bit of a stretch, but it is a continuum - like Martha's list suggests/implies.

this is exactly what i'm shooting for. objectification is, in common usage, a pejorative term. however, pejorative association is not a necessary a consequence of denotative meaning. what i'm doing here is trying to clear away the pejorative accretion so i can get some sense of what the word actually describes.

let's say your cousin, who you know reasonably well, volunteers to babysit your children. for the duration of babysitting duties, they assume the role of babysitter. they are objectified in this sense. your cousin is satisfactory as a human being to the extent that he/she babysits well and properly, and not to the extent that not.

This is not "objectification". Objectification would be walking up to a random teenage girl in the mall and saying "you're a babysitter, here" and dumping your kid on her while you went off to the bar.

no clue whats going on in this thread either. might actually be more obtuse than the wikileaks thread.

Dan, your example is as much an example of objectification as C's is.

edit: "we objectify others when we define them primarily in terms of [what we assume is true about or want to enforce as] their role and function"

yeah, hd. your example is much more extreme and, i would say, dehumanizing, but it's part of the larger continuum (to use sarah's term). it's also unlikely to generate good results.

you're using "objectification" in a really different way than most people usually mean, especially w/r/t men and women, and i think we're all grappling with that. where do you get your definitions from? for instance "self-objectification" is a new concept for me.

in fact, you are using it in such a manner as to make it a completely useless term, then arguing that the concept is intrinsically useless

semantic games are fun though, so I get why you're doing it

for instance "self-objectification" is a new concept for me.

Really? I vaguely remember this being something addressed in that one Laura Mulvey essay, or something related to it. That might not be the term used, but the idea that objectification of others leads to one (i.e. a woman) applying that thinking to themself has definitely been written about. It was probably discussed in terms of the "phallus" and "the lack" and the whole symbolic/imaginary thing.

That might not be the term used, but the idea that objectification of others leads to one (i.e. a woman) applying that thinking to themself has definitely been written about.

ah ok! usually this is just "living", i.e. the way in which others hail you forms your own impressions of yourself - your place, how to act, etc.

just a knobservation.

that would be interpolation - courtesy of Louis Althusser (not Jagger)

this thread got boring, more insults and crazy sexual deviance plz

Louis Althusser killed his wife.

interpellation actually but yeah!

i always had trouble understanding the symbolic/imaginary thing - but i'm pretty sure it's related to objectification

and Gilda!

i think this is the sort of thing titchy had in mind -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpizkWEmg1g

but even if TV were positively full up with ads like this i don't think the needle on "level playing field" would have moved very much, but i'm struggling to articulate why without resorting to a kind of essentialism about what LOOKING means and the very male role in plays in sexual fantasy (speaking of laura mulvey)

i mean, that's kinda what I was thinking of in re the "WS" threads - most of which are pictures of celebrities that already have objectification as a purpose - it goes back to the issue of objectification of celebrities who are professional objects, in a way, as opposed to doing so in re "regular people" - WS vs WDYLL

so I don't mean to reopen a debate that's run its course, but short thought experiment re: "would smash": think about how lame/uncool/sissy/whatever it would sound to say "damn, I'd be happy to smash her!" or "I'd love the chance to fuck her!" or whatever. and then maybe about what that means.

here's another sexy-man ad - but i think it's interesting that each of these men are ENGAGED in some WORTHWHILE OCCUPATION (presumably making them even more desirable, i.e. it's not what they look like so much as the kind of dudes they seem to be)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd9QtTosCU0&feature=player_embedded

btw this is all from Googling research i was doing for this article -

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2010/04/buy-me-youre-sick-pt-1/

bernard i don't quite follow

omg that ad is hot

hell yea i'll go to switzerland

in what way can unacted-on objectification be said to be harmful? if we are assuming that the vast majority of men can differentiate btwn horny fantasies in their heads and actual events in the real world?

tracer I think u pretty much know where I'm comin' from, but basically just responding to the "it's just words!!" lobby by taking the words and changing them slightly, then being like "okay how 'bout these words" -- but it's actually a trap cuz I KNOW they dont' want to use the new words, cuz they think they sound silly! but then they have to explain what's so bad about saying "would love to be permitted to smash", and they can't do it without themselves sounding silly -- and that's when I've got them by the balls, oh yes indeed!

dude, stop

posting

no you can keep posting, just let go of my balls

ow

dude they're just objects

n fact, you are using it in such a manner as to make it a completely useless term, then arguing that the concept is intrinsically useless

semantic games are fun though, so I get why you're doing it

― measuring of the waist (HI DERE), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:33 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark

i don't think that's the case at all, dan. there's something hostile & dismissive abt yr tone in responding to me, and i'm not sure where it's coming from. what i'm trying to do here is to look at what "objectification" (a vague and intensely pejorative word that gets bandied about a lot) really describes, and to proceed logically from there. objectification, as i understand it, isn't a "useless" term, but nor does it describe an intrinsically bad thing.

Everybody (or nearly so) wants to be a sex object, for example, at some point, no?

uh - i'd rather be a human being that someone wants to have sex with because they think i'm an incredible awesome human being, not an object, thanks

You'll still have crossed the boundary between being admired for being awesome to being the object of sexual desire, though, no?

i would maintain my subjecthood

subjectivity

man's desire is the other's desire

Everybody (or nearly so) wants to be a sex object, for example, at some point, no?

yeah, being objectified can be pretty good, but the issues there are a) only w/your permission and when you want - not being objectified as the default position; b) on an individual, whatever gets you off/whatever makes you feel empowered level, it's fine, but when objectification is part of a wider culture that encompasses people who don't necessarily share this - again, this is less ideal.

We can quibble about the varying degree of subtlety and refinement and respect w/which you are an object of desire, but it's different than just being admired. I don't go around 24/7 thinking lewd thoughts about my girlfriend - something about sexual desire and attraction transforms the way we see and behave.

you're using "objectification" in a really different way than most people usually mean, especially w/r/t men and women, and i think we're all grappling with that. where do you get your definitions from? for instance "self-objectification" is a new concept for me.

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:32 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

the definitions i'm working from are pretty standard, see nussbaum definition set provided earlier, and the fairly comprehensive wiki page on "sexual objectification". from that page: "Objectification is an attitude that regards a person as a commodity or as an object for use, with insufficient regard for a person's personality."

what i'm doing is stripping the word "insufficient" out of the definition (i.e., treating it as a non-pejorative term), in order to point out that the cognitive process/state we identify in certain instances as "objectification" is is really a very ordinary (and necessary and even a good) thing, so long as we DO pay sufficient attention to the human personality involved. furthermore, i reject the pejorative use of this word because it muddies the water, suggesting that an abstract, utility-minded conception of other human beings is the real problem, when that isn't the case at all. the problem is dehumanization, an extreme form of objectification or a consequence of callously indifferent objectification.

one example of the thoughtless application of "objectification" as a necessarily pejorative term is the very common idea that sexual objectification is an intrinsically bad thing in and of itself. i reject this kind of broad-brush thinking. we have to consider context and consequence when passing value judgments on objectification (or on the general class of cognitive processes we're describing when we speak of objectification).

Martha is coming at it from a different academic background, fyi.

It's not necessarily w/permission that bugs me. I can't tell people whther they have the right to fancy me, but I can hope they have the manners and decency to look for signals of receptivity and appropriateness. I fully understand how this has come down on one gender far more than the other and what a hassle it is when it's considered fine to be randomly tagged as being a sex object by strangers or people who really should know how it's inappropriate, but to never be a sex object sounds horribly depressing to me - like pious sex or something.

I can hope they have the manners and decency to look for signals of receptivity and appropriateness

this doesn't really work out so well in practice, is the thing

Michael - I think your definition of objecthood/objectification is a bit unorthodox, maybe?

Martha is coming at it from a different academic background, fyi.

yeah, i know, and i'm playing fast & loose to some extent. what i want to do is to find common ground btwn definitions, so that i can look directly at the cognitive process involved and rather than being blinded by what i've decided in advance = a good or bad thing.

that was phrased badly, edited in a rush, but you get the gist (i hope)

Michael - I think your definition of objecthood/objectification is a bit unorthodox, maybe?

Entirely possible.

i get what you're defining it as, though it's not the common definition in the academic discourse (or at least the one i studied), and this is leading to a bit of the contention here - personally, i'm having issues with the value judgments you're making though - like saying it is "good"

wait i'm still completely lost as to where we're drawing our lines here.

should people be able to objectify you looking at a picture of you when you're not aware of it? is that way too abstract an example of what people are talking about here? how would you even know? i'll assume that we're not working off anything like this definition of objectification.

or is it too simple for us to simply agree that nobody should be treated like an object without their express & kinky permission because that's insanely obvious to everyone here?

where, in between these, are we getting bogged down exactly?

the looking at a picture thing vs. being treated like an object thing are part of the continuum of objectification. The argument is that they are related and reinforcing.

if you want some good old fashioned woman hating, read this lovely forum

http://www.love-shy.com/lsbb/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=d4fde03ef74eeb03a0160c005ca12de5

x-post: exactly. it's not a B&W issue - we're talking about an extremely broad range of actions & conceptions. that's why i keep harping on degree, context, consequence as the important issues.

The argument is that they are related and reinforcing.

can we be clear on 'the' argument? is this your argument? because it sounds suspiciously like sleight of mind to me.

The argument is that they are related and reinforcing.

What I don't understand, while conceding the relation, is why visual objectification automatically means that you will treat a real person like a an object. Could it not follow that you see someone, 'think, my but she carbonates my hormones,' and then proceed to try to get to know them and woo them and have a far more complete human relationship w/them OR simply say, "Yeah, nice eyes/hair/booty/smile, whatever. Thank God I live in a universe with such beauty," w/o it adversely affecting a relationship or diminishing your attempts to treat all humans w/dignity?

it is the argument made by feminist theorists - i agree with it to some extent, other people on this thread agree with it to a greater extent.

i mean, is it wrong for women to drool over guys in WS threads? no, of course not. is it wrong for guys to drool over guys in WS threads? no.

is it wrong for guys to drool over women in WS threads? yeah, no, not at all, but maybe, kinda, sometimes, it depends... the difference is context: the history of the profound oppression (sexual and otherwise) of women by men. that shadow hangs over us, colors what we do, makes the seemingly harmless, low-level sexual objectification in question at least potentially distasteful and perhaps even harmful. sometimes. to some degree, depending on how it's presented. you know...

I mean, I have mutually flirtatious relationships w/friends where it is tacitly understood (and over many years) that it is just that and nothing more and, of course I wouldn't bother to flirt w/just an image of female beauty as opposed to a human being, but I wouldn't wink at them and say, "Wow, nice humanity," or "You have the most amazing personal dignity."

the phrase "tacitly understood" is key, Michael

I understand the importance of historical and existing social context but I tend to try to read people as indivduals just as much. I also try not to embarrass anybody, myself included, or make them feel bad, so for people I don't know well, I just try to be well mannered.

it is the argument made by feminist theorists - i agree with it to some extent, other people on this thread agree with it to a greater extent.

― sarahel, Tuesday, 27 July 2010 22:19 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

and at least one person agrees with it to no extent whatsoever. what goes on inside a person's head is not moral/immoral desirable/indesirable until it becomes an instigator to action- that's when it becomes something that can be judged. even in theory, imo.

sure you can judge the morality and desirability of what goes on inside a person's head without it becoming an instigator to action! you can judge anything, really. Is it practical or pragmatic to do so? Is it worth doing?

sarahel, if i can derail our convo, or re-rail the thread, for me the answer as it has been described to me by many friends, and certainly colored by feminist theory at times, is that the answer to teh thread question is mostly "no". It's certainly better than it was in the past but that does not a level playing field make.

you can't judge the morality of a thought process!

oh yeah, thread answer is 'no' but now we're getting somewhere besides that :)

why can't you judge the morality of a thought process?

and the issue is only partly about morality, but also about understanding/theorizing the process - how it functions.

i disagree- the issue is completely about whether or not you can place a judgement of 'moral/immoral' or 'desirable/undesirable' on a figment of someone's imagination.

for clarification- telekinetics don't get a free pass imo

what?! darraghmac what are you saying?

^^^ why can't you judge the morality of a thought process?

because we can't evaluate what we can't perceive. and we cannot perceive thought processes that are not our own. in a sense, they don't even exist outside the head of the thinker. in pretending to judge thought processes, we're not actually judging the thoughts, but only what we imagine to be true about them, and that's a very different thing.

i've argued darraghmac's point around here before, with no success.

i'm genuinely interested in whether or not a man objectifying a woman in his head, without her knowledge or without it ever impacting in any way on his actions towards her or anyone else- can you call this objectification undesirable?

i'd have thought that that would have been the outlying position to which we could all have agreed- no, you can't. but aren't you saying it's not that simple?

genuinely interested in yr thoughts on this, maybe i'm picking you up wrong though

but you can judge your own thought processes, right? You can judge other people's thoughts if you know what they are, right?

i would question whether that internal objectification would never have an impact on the guy's actions towards the woman or anyone else.

I wouldn't wink at them and say, "Wow, nice humanity," or "You have the most amazing personal dignity."

― Un peu d'Eire, ça fait toujours Dublin (Michael White), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 11:22 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

;)

i disagree- the issue is completely about whether or not you can place a judgement of 'moral/immoral' or 'desirable/undesirable' on a figment of someone's imagination.

― "It's far from 'lol' you were reared, boy" (darraghmac), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 10:32 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you're missing the point. the issue is objectification, which in the male to female trajectory is fraught with centuries of context and is basically a no brainer.xxxxxxxxxxp

To clarify- even with full, immersive and perfect knowledge/experience of another's thought, i don't believe that you can place a value judgement on it. it can't even be said to exist in a judgable (word?) context.

xp

i'm not misisng the point, i'm trying to put an outside limit on what you mean by 'objectification'.

Yeah sarahel, but an impact and an impact worth worrying about? I mean c'mon, we're also mammals programmed to think about sex at a dizzying rate of occurrence and as far as I've seen, this happens to both sexes.

so, would you say - going back to the cartoonish example upthread - that fantasizing about hacking your nephew to bits with a chainsaw is not an immoral thought?

stop trying to theorise away something that happens all the time. there is no outside limit to objectification.

You can judge other people's thoughts if you know what they are, right?

I think you can judge a mental process. My problem is that people can tend to treat their own standards as universal, so they're skeeved out by anal sex or liking fish or hunting or something they don't care for and yet you CAN talk about the moral implications of unprotected sex or the state of our oceans (or the health of OMEGA 3s or whatever) or wantonly killing animals for sport vs. culling populations bereft of natural predators w/o necessarily saying that desiring any of those things is absolutely wrong.

self objectification is like bad faith in sartre

or if you want theory: the male gaze has been prevalent for god knows how long, the female gaze if at all?

xp - Michael - my personal belief is that there's only so much biological and cultural programming that we can realistically try to "escape" - i think it's important to understand/make sense of the process by which objectification occurs and to be aware of oneself doing it, and try to minimize the harmful effects on others. I don't think the fact that is inescapable makes it okay or good - I believe that human beings are inherently flawed and prone to immoral and undesireable thoughts and actions, but that we shouldn't be flogging ourselves over all of them.

that fantasizing about hacking your nephew to bits with a chainsaw is not an immoral thought?

My parents who tell me that they love me and seem to have showed said love to me on many occasions have also told me there were times when they considered infanticide. The degree of creepiness is what we're really after here, no? Thinking of harm whilst in a rage, okay maybe not the stuff of the angels, is not the same as being a sociopathic thrill-killer.

there is no outside limit to objectification.

nobody's even tried to deny it happens all the time, whatever 'it' is. acting in a way that clearly objectifies anyone is wrong. unambiguous enough yet?

now, back to:

that fantasizing about hacking your nephew to bits with a chainsaw is not an immoral thought?

i'm saying that imo you can't define it either way! it's like trying to paint wind. without the act there is simply no way in which to judge it immoral or otherwise. it's a thought about an immoral act, that's clear, but that's not what we're discussing here.

one thing that i dont really vibe w/ is this cultural programming brainwashing rhet. a lot of u r throwing around.

what do you mean by that, t?

i don't really think that brainwashing is the same as the marxist type illusion/naturalisation scenario that its pretty obvious i buy hook line etc. i think?

cultural programming brainwashing rhet

More feedback loop, though, no?

i was using "programming" as a shorthand for something pretty much like what you're talking about - going to back to the exchange upthread where Tracer & I were talking about interpellation.

i don't want to hijack this thread on a very barely-related discussion, but is there an existing thread where we could go on about the impossibility or otherwise of labelling thoughts as harmful?

Man, we've certainly been there before but where?

xp - maybe search for "catholic"?

i dont think its fair to say "oh well, these women are self objectified because they have been brainwashed to think that way by society." I think the reality is that everybody plays by the rules of the game and its hard to see that its a game sometimes, or how more specifically that people can never really understand how their specific role w/in that game affects the larger gameplay.

the game is *life*

something more cultured than i must be able to put a name or technical/philosophical name on the concept- i can't even define it neatly enough to search properly tbh.

xp i think you'll find it's spelled *lyfe*, mayyyne

@darraghmac, sorry if i came across hamfisted, i just didn't understand why you felt the need to derail sarahel's context of feminist theory into something about why blokes can't look at a woman in a certain way and it just be ok cos she doesn't know and therefore it isn't undesirable.

xxxxxp obv

nah, tbh i'm certain i'm the hamfisted one tbph, but this is probably one of the core aspects of this debate from my own point of view and i find it a little more interesting than , eh, extreme feminist theory (sorry!).

you're right in pointing out it doesn't need to be on this thread.

tbh (gotta stop with that)

no i wasn't pointing that out! keep fckng posting. but anyway...
gnight, work calls.

xp - maybe search for "catholic"?

― sarahel, Tuesday, 27 July 2010 23:00 (13 minutes ago)

ah now you're getting desperate! :)

that wasn't meant as a personal attack at all, d!

ha didn't take it as one, just that to fall back on religion is the resort of a rogue & scoundrel imo, especially in the current context where it would just bout be the ultimate in tryin to have yr cake, eat it, and possibly transubstantiate it too

no, i was just thinking that isn't that a catholic thing? The morality/immorality of thoughts?

I don't think that's exclusively Catholic.

it originates in it though

true that, Abbott - Jimmy Carter and all

Matthew 5:27-28

it's significant to catholicism, certainly- a quick search to try to find more on this brought up mainly catholic teachings where thought=deed.

but we can all agree to leave that aside, right?

xp i'm not sure anything originated in catholicism!

tks abbott.

from memory, out of interest?

haha yes ;_;

I feel pretty fucked up that the first time I showed up on this thread was to quote The Bible.

I apologize for not being able to quote bell hooks instead.

well as an overt dogma catholicism is the birthplace of bad thoughts

not ;_;, that's awesome to me- regardless of yr feelings on catholicism i really envy anyone that can quote scritpure like that. eh i hope that's not a loaded comment, it's not meant to be.

even if mathew 5 27 is full of shit, and i'd tell him so regardless of my confirmation name.

I don't have any feelings on Catholicism. I just had to memorize a lot of scriptures growing up. The Book of Mormon ones come in handy less often.

pretty sure that it would be a source of worry for my parents/teachers/etc that i could probably quote bh ahead of the bible

It is also not possible for me to address this question without knowing something about what you allow your mind to dwell on. If you listen to rap music all day and spend hours in front of a Television set, I can guarantee you that your mind will be full of evil thoughts. If the reading material you choose is ungodly, your thoughts will be ungodly.

I often find that my attitude about the condition of the world is adversely effected by the amount of Network News I have been exposed to.

A normal, healthy person has the capacity to determine what he or she will allow his or her mind to dwell on.

If you are a Christian, you have several advantages over others with regard to mind control.

ha awesome answer internet, thanks!

t- bh?

fuck, just promised to stop posting those three letters

Also pertinent is Proverbs 23:7, "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Just to say that the idea that your thoughts have IRL consequences is in both the OT & NT.

bell hooks

not getting you t.

abbs dropping knowledge on thread. did that attitude kick off with catholicism though? hardly, i'd have thought.

(looked up bell hooks btw, no need to clarify)

there will be no level playing field for the sexes until the sexes are eliminated through genetic engineering.

did that attitude kick off with catholicism though?

I don't think Catholicism is unique here but they do go heavy on the bad thoughts thing - part of the mass is to confess to sins of thought, word and deed.
(Those Lutheran splitters use it as well)

MW: The degree of creepiness is what we're really after here, no?

Michael I think you'd agree that racism (in America for example) isn't just when a person decides to dislike someone because of the color of her skin. It's an ongoing historical process that doesn't require individuals to choose it. It's there - in neighborhoods, on television, on your street. It's the same with objectification of women. Sorry if this seems knobvious but I felt we were perhaps at knobberheads over a simply misknobberstanding.

Suzy's gonna grrrrr over the author of this piece, but I do think that many of the points raised in this article are pretty valid about the non-levelness of the playing field:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/30/casual-sexism-misogyny

(sorry, Guardian link, etc.)

that's a good solid piece (if a bit obvious). a question though - how did bidisha become..... bidisha? i see her all over the place. i used to wonder if she was real but then i saw her in the flesh one time. though even then there was something uncanny about about her, like at any moment her batteries might run out and her eyes would close and her head would tilt forward slightly.

i see her all over the place. i used to wonder if she was real but then i saw her in the flesh one time.

Funny that, I've seen her around Archway a few times

I would really rather talk about the content of that piece, rather than get snippy about the authorship, otherwise we're playing straight into the stereotypes of the behaviour she describes.

i read that this morning and groaned inside at the first para (idk but "I have never so wanted to slap a girl as I did then" isn't a joke at a woman's expense? it's expressing a violent thought about a person he knows it's taboo to be violent towards? you could probably get the same kind of laugh by suggesting you were on the verge of hitting an old person?) but the rest was really good as a kind of collation of known facts.

She seems to know more assholes than your average Joe/Jane.

Interesting to read that I hate my wife because she chooses to work part-time and spend more time with the kids.

is there something snippy about what i wrote, kate?

frankly i don't have much to say about the piece because it's OTM in pretty obvious ways. i can't imagine anyone taking issue with it.

(onimo i think she's talking in an "everything else being equal" kind of way about housework..)

onimo, i don't really know how you got that statement out of the article?

oh wait now i do

Yeah, that second to last paragraph gave me pause, though in an "OK, yeah, this is quite possibly sexism, but I'm not sure it's *misogyny* in quite the same way as the rest of the stuff you talk about in the article."

people say nasty things about other people. some of the targets are women.

great article?

(onimo i think she's talking in an "everything else being equal" kind of way about housework..)

Possibly, in which case I think she should have qualified it.

mm, I think she's dead right without saying anything that hasn't already been said here, although the kinds of examples it brings make it pretty clear that there is clearly nothing like a level playing field (as if we needed that proof). Part of it's a matter of how judgements are made of people - men are judged by their qualities first and other factors (genuine [he's an asshole] or dubious [he's ugly]) as an aside, vice versa for women. Pretty sure, for example, that without Brian Cox bringing up the average male scientists aren't too great on the hair front either.

(and yeah, not so sure about the penultimate sentence though, unless there's a very heavy weight on that 'overwhelming' - sometimes that's just the way things work out fair and square and balanced, ya know?)

God, Darragh, you either live in some tropical paradise where the genders are completely equal, or you just repeatedly fail to *get* the most obvious points.

people say nasty things about other people. some of the targets are women.

Not quite Darragh, what she's saying is that when the targets are woman it's *because* they are woman, or that the nasty things are always couched in sexist terms (e.g. the photographer with the blurry photo is not "silly" she's a "silly tart") - the gender is always part of the insult.

I think we're all certain that it's the latter, but I don't think the first four paragraphs are examples of anything other than 'people are assholes, let me pick out four examples where they were assholes about women in very specific circumstances'.

(xp to MB)

(xposts i realised i'd just skipped over that paragraph because 1) it's the kind of thing I expect Bidisha to say based on past form and 2) I'd just read sth by Nina Power on CIF about Selma James and the demand for women's right to work less, and specifically not to work a forty-hour day and then do the majority of the housework, and kind of... interpolated that.)

It feels like those examples were chosen because she thought they were very un-specific circumstances? kids on the bus, people in a coffee shop, people in the workplace, conversations with friends.

I realise that I'm kind of stubborn and frustrating and out-of-kilter with all ILX on these kind of things, it's just that I'd be lying if I agreed that the four examples (and the general examples given) couldn't be given for men just as often.

I do find it a very interesting topic, but y'know if anyone feels I'm just here to Tuomas the same unchanging points again and again I can accept that and prob just remove myself from discussion before annoying anyone else.

(withdrawals very much out of character?)

darragh, so women can call guys "assholes" and that's the same thing as men calling women "bitch".... right?

Nope!

You won't catch me there. And I'd acknowledge that 'bitch' is a stronger word than a male specific equivalent than 'dick' or similar due to the loading of terms due to context/history/what have you.

But at the same time, I don't believe that every time the word 'bitch' is used it's a specific reference to the injustices visited on women throughout history and a further nail in the coffin of equality for all (which, y'know, I agree with as a stated aim).

Sometimes you use nasty words when you want to say something nasty about someone, and it's as simple as that.

But that's something of a corollary anyone imo.

I'd acknowledge that 'bitch' is a stronger word than a male specific equivalent than 'dick' or similar due to the loading of terms due to context/history/what have you.

But this is the entire point, not an aside. It doesn't matter what the person who says "bitch" means by it because it comes freighted with an entire history of casual sexism. If you can't say something nasty about somebody without summoning up that history then you're just addicted to cheap shots, basically.

I think we just disagree on that.

It doesn't matter what the person who says "bitch" means by it

I don't think that it's 100% the prerogative of either party to determine how a term is 'meant' one way or the other, and yes I've taken huge body blows from holding a similar opinion on other threads about racism/sexuality/whatever.

If you can't say something nasty about somebody without summoning up that history then you're just addicted to cheap shots, basically.

Well it's all kinda cheap shots at that level of discourse!

Also, the idea that individual incidents do not occur only in isolation, they occur within patterns which have meaning greater than any of the specific individual incidents in isolation.

When you are repeatedly on the receiving ends of specific words within certain contexts, they start to have an additional connotation.

I mean, didn't we just go over all this in the Ian Mackaye debates recently?

Yes.

Well it's all kinda cheap shots at that level of discourse!

But using a word like "bitch" relies specifically on its sexist overtones to make it more painful. C'mon this is not rocket science darraghmac!

When you are repeatedly on the receiving ends of specific words within certain contexts, they start to have an additional connotation.

This is a good point, and one I should probably think on.

One starts to be quite aware that it's not always the specific example - someone who's angry as they slam down the phone and snap "bitch!" because they're annoyed at the person at the other end. That can be excused as the "momentary cheap shot" - but that that article is getting into something of a pattern beyond that.

That you start to notice that the person who frequently refers to women as "bitches" is also referring to all his ex girlfriends as "hags" and that is accompanied by a reluctance to engage with women beyond their physical appearance (judging women on their looks, rather than their work, dismissing women simply for their gender, rather than their performance, making automatic assumptions about women) - then you can start to read that pattern as misogyny.

And it's not just a pattern of one person's behaviour - that you notice that the same guys on a messageboard (not this one, but just an example) who always respond to mentions of females with "would smash!" are the same ones pissing themselves laughing over the Danny Dyer "cut your ex" "jokes" - that this kind of picture starts to build up. And it's not just about individual words and individual incidents but a general culture of hostility towards women. Take any of those incidents out of context and it's "yeah, but people do that to men, too!" but the pattern and frequency and violence of those words becomes problematic.

"Bitch" is not a word I ever use or have ever used. I use plenty of others, I suppose.

It's not rocket science Tracer, but I think that just cos a derogatory term is sex-specific doesn't necessarily make it sexist as such- though I'm sure there's an overlap in probably a lot of cases, certainly.

That makes sense to me, I realise that I may not be getting this viewpoint across perfectly.

not that I want to turn this into 'gang up on darragh' day, but I'm thinkin yer claim that the examples aren't sex specific (what examples did you mean, btw? First four paragraphs or the four examples across the first two paragraphs?) is pretty clearly not right. As I've experienced it women are much less likely to talk about men's looks out of any reasonable context than the opposite that's the case of this 'Saira' (who, it comes to mind, may have a good chance of identifying herself from this article? ooer. Unless the name's been changed), men's sexual promiscuity is never a matter of criticism, aaand okay gonna assume that you didn't think "I was dubious because it's a woman author" has nothing to do with sex.

I don't know, MB- I think you're drawing from specific circumstances and working outwards with a definite viewpoint (which of course you're entitled to do) but imo the strokes are getting too broad at the stage where we have a hypothetical person who's always angry at women (of course these guys exist- they have their female counterparts too but yeah that's another argument and not a very strong one) and then we pull quickly out to 'a general culture of hostility towards women'.

I'm losing you there, if I'm honest.

re: 'Gang up on Darragh'

I'm expressing contrary viewpoints to most everyone here, but nobody is being at all unfair about it so no stress from my side.

She seems to know more assholes than your average Joe/Jane.

just cos a derogatory term is sex-specific doesn't necessarily make it sexist as such

Indeed - cf the word "asshole" or "bastard"... These are not sexist words. Huh! itsamystery.jpg

Yeah, indeed, Darragh, why should you take the cumulative experience of many women repeatedly expressing the same thing as evidence of any kind of cultural hostility, when you can keep dismissing every single example as being just "specific circumstances."

There is a great bit in the piece about the reaction difference between what would happen if the upsetting comment was light bigotry instead of light sexism. Which is totally hilarious because every white guy I've ever called out in person for institutionalized sexism in male groups has tried to turn it around by asking 'what about racism?'

In boring day-to-day life - which I think was the point of citing all these everyday, innocuous places where the thin end of the sexist-language wedge asserts itself with the tacit approval of the larger society - insults about women seem to be gendered more and introduced earlier than in male counterparts. What's silly is how much time I waste explaining this to men OVER AND OVER AGAIN as if their memories have been wiped of examples. In professional situations, it's also correct to point out that a woman calling out a man for casual sexist insults is seen as 'sensitive' or 'worthy' and her opinion discounted. Would it not be easier to find a language of criticism that did not include anyone's body parts or speculate on their sexual availability, or that of their mother?

yer claim that the examples aren't sex specific (what examples did you mean, btw? First four paragraphs or the four examples across the first two paragraphs?

First four examples

As I've experienced it women are much less likely to talk about men's looks out of any reasonable context than the opposite

Guys are horndogs, wired differently, what have you- not disputing this one. But it's not as much of a one-way street ime, and I spend most of my day with women I'm quite close too btwn work, gf and socialising (oh jesus did I just do the 'I have a great many friends who are....' line?)

men's sexual promiscuity is never a matter of criticism

I have reservations about the strength of this statement, again- ime this is a long way from a one-way street and it's gotten a lot better in my lifetime alone.

okay gonna assume that you didn't think "I was dubious because it's a woman author" has nothing to do with sex

Dude normally doesn't like books by women? Would it make my eyes bug out if he said it to me at a party? Probably not, if I'm honest. Would I assume he was missing out/judging on the wrong criteria? Yeah, obviously.

XP tracer- Bastard isn't? I'd argue it's aimed at men 95% of the time or more, and is by now quite removed from it's originations for those daliveries

(back in a mo, slow down)

men's sexual promiscuity is never a matter of criticism

Never is a bit strong

"guys are just wired differently" <- OK, I just give up. The set of cultural assumptions going on here are so engrained that I don't have the energy to go there.

Bastard isn't? I'd argue it's aimed at men 95% of the time or more, and is by now quite removed from it's originations for those daliveries

Right. It's gender-specific yet - WEIRDLY - is not freighted with sexism! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Darragh how many more ways do you want people to find to say "it's not a level playing field"? Sex-specific insults have more power in one direction than the other. It's not a difficult concept to get your head round.

(That said, I do use the word "bitch" as an insult in very specific contexts - I might say "she's being a bitch to her friends" whereas I'd never say "those bitches over by the bar").

Guys are horndogs, wired differently, what have you- not disputing this one

Statements like these show that society gives men a pass for acting out, while women who act out are largely judged on a continuum that starts at uncouth and ends at diseased/mad. It's the lowercase version of 'boys will be boys' just as the claim of 'we're being ironic' is the new 'can't you take a joke?'

I really want to start a glam rock band called The Bastard Bitches. This will be my only contribution to this thread today. Thank you.

"n*gg*r isn't an inherently racist word, it just gets used that way a lot"

I miss people using the word "bitchin" to mean "awesome". Those were the days.

i've never once claimed it was a level playing field, matt

suzy- not tryin to make a lower case argument, sorry bout that

kate- i don't think i'm the only one making cultural assumptions, though?

this is getting a little heated, tbh. as I've said I'm not in this to annoy anyone, and I don't want to Tuomas a thread where I realise it's my natural tendency to disagree with teh consensus- everything points to it being just me, after all.

Sex-specific insults have more power in one direction than the other. It's not a difficult concept to get your head round.

for a start i actually stated this myself about 20 mins ago to tracer's point, matt

and i know it's not blowing minds or anything either, thanks

So your response is "well, *lots of people* make those sexist assumptions" - which really just backs up my "culture of misogyny" assertion. Thanks for making my point for me.

no, my point was that wide-ranging assumptions can come from any point of view in an argument

TH- i dunno if i've really pissed you off all of a sudden, or you don't liek to start putting boots into until two or three others start for you, but ?

Is the verb 'to bitch' sexist?

re: the guys are wired differently comment- i'm trying to keep up with a lot here- that was meant more as an acknowledgement that guys in groups/on their own do indeed tend towards this kind of behaviour, and that i wasn't disputing that. those reading it as a free pass or approval- i'm not actually going to apologise for several of you throwing back the laziest, most negative interpreataion (if not straight out projection) when i'm doing my best to play this straight and fair.

Other uses of the term "bitch" as a verb depend on context, really. If you use the word as frequently to describe the actions of your male friends no, not necessarily - if you only ever use the verb "bitch" or "she acted like a bitch to her friends" to describe the behaviour of females, then yes, it is sexist.

Better off using a non-loaded term like "to carp" TBH.

Unless it's piscatist to call out carp, over, say, trout, for being particularly mean fish.

;-)

Yeah, I just lazily use it as a spikier version of 'to moan'... maybe I ought not.

UK English already has as spikier "moan" verb, though! The glorious "whinge"

what are the other side's assumptions, Darragh? (not saying there's nothing, just want to get where you're coming from.)

hey maybe it's true that biological dispositions incline men to be sexist pigs, but if we're gonna live by biological justification (not that I'm saying you're saying that) then we're pretty fucked. We're culturally quite capable of weeding these things out, so calling people out on their shit is a good way to start. although tbh I don't know what point I'm making here irt what you're saying. Maybe that you're not saying it's free pass / approval, but there's maybe a hint of 'eh but whatyagonnado' to it?

darragh it's more that your argument has begun to feel like obstinance. You're convinced that casual gender-specific insults aren't connected up with sexism in any broad sense, and therefore that the Bidisha article is just a lot of what.. whining? "Playing the victim"? Jumping on somebody for being sexist when really all they're doing is blowing off steam or saying something dumb or having "a bit of fun"? You've had some pretty rational and intelligent arguments here, some from women, about why that's not the case but you don't seem to want to hear it.

It's cool, I'm not pissed off! More like, amazed.

I actually think "society gives men a free pass to act up" is also a massive oversimplication and it's untrue as often as it's true, but that's neither here nor there.

No, there's no whadyagonna do i'm actually with you 100% on weeding shit out, do prob think that there's heavy biological & cultural conditioning for men to approach the opposite sex differently than they do us, agree that there is not a level playing field as it stands and do think that calling shit out is a good start.

all clear on that so far everyone?

~*hugs*~ :o)

hey maybe it's true that biological dispositions incline men to be sexist pigs

My suspicion is that this "biological disposition" is non-existant, and is actually a cultural disposition pretending to be a biological disposition.

I really don't think there's any "biological conditioning" for men to be sexist, TBQH..

xpost yes.

Matt, I don't know if it's so much "men get a free pass" as that's a kind of shorthand for a whole host of cultural assumptions - mostly about how women's behaviour is policed (especially in any remotely sexual sense or that relating to aggression) while men tend to reinforce the same behaviour, especially when in groups.

But I am almost certain that the whole shrugging "men are just wired differently!" thing is a massive oversimplification which, in my experience, is generally connected to a whole raft of sexism and misogyny that I'm far more likely to see that as a red flag.

You're convinced that casual gender-specific insults aren't connected up with sexism in any broad sense

i'm not, in fact i may be actually saying quite the opposite- that in a broad sense yes, but in each specific sense this-is-evidence-of-misogynism then i think no.

i don't tend to use sexist insults, btw, and i use a lot of bad language, so while i'm not doubt obstinate i'm not discussing this from an 'i do all of this and i'm right' POV- i think (may be wrong) that this is the guy you're arguing with sometimes, but it's not me.

Jumping on somebody for being sexist when really all they're doing is blowing off steam

This is closest, yes.

You've had some pretty rational and intelligent arguments here, some from women, about why that's not the case but you don't seem to want to hear it.

well i haven't had a chance to think on MB's line below fully, but tbh i've, as posted below, acknowledged it as a direct hit- that's a pretty big climbdown in these kind of ILX arguments ime? (for me it is anyway :) )

When you are repeatedly on the receiving ends of specific words within certain contexts, they start to have an additional connotation.

This is a good point, and one I should probably think on.

― "It's far from 'lol' you were reared, boy" (darraghmac), Friday, July 30, 2010 11:26 AM (45 minutes ago)

ya I don't think so either re biology, jus sayin that even if there were biological disposition it's not really the point and it would still be A Bad Thing rather than justification.

MY EXPERIENCE (red flag of subjectivity here) is that women are certainly capable of the "horndogging behaviour" but that if they express it, they instantly get massive slapdowns while men get a sly "wink wink nudge nudge lads". This is the kind of cultural conditioning I'm talking about.

Repeat to fade and you get the kind of "cultural disposition pretending to be a biological disposition" that Matt mentions.

the whole shrugging "men are just wired differently!" thing is a massive oversimplification which, in my experience, is generally connected to a whole raft of sexism and misogyny

well i mean if i'm going to be called out for stating things 'from my experience', then i'd like it acknowledged that you're connecting me (and not just you, MB, in fairness) to a whole host of negative behaviours and attitudes that I'm not actually representing nor wishign to represent here.

re: biological differences- maybe the testosterone, sexual aggression, competitiveness stuff is all nonsense, or not. i don't know that we can start from a template of men = women ina biological sense (as far as biology goes in the specific sense we're taking here regarding approach to the opposite sex) but i have no problem treating it as a moot point when these things can and should eb controlled by the individual and society as opposed to being the mythical 'free pass' that i'm not arguing for anyway.

Darragh, if you insist on using sexist stereotypes, misogynist phrases and tired old tropes to prop up your arguments, while refusing, repeatedly, to countanance any explanation of why these stereotypes are sexist, these phrases are misogynist and the old tropes are tired, you cannot be surprised if we cannot tell your good pure useage of them from the usual loaded kind.

Like I suggested before on this thread, it might help if you wave an inflatable dick around your head so that we can tell.

Now I'm off to horndog over some pictures of Aphex Twin's pidyn.

YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED BE A HORNDOG WE'VE BEEN THROUGH THIS

wdyll waving an inflatable dick around your head

Darragh, if you insist on using sexist stereotypes, misogynist phrases and tired old tropes to prop up your arguments

Again, this is rly where we're butting heads, and if it's through my use of clumsily selected language/phrases (i've tried to identify the hotpoints and clarify when called out) then sorry- i don't think it's 100% me being a total fucking idiot though- i realise it's tiresome for a lot of you to go through this again and again and it does translate into jumping straight to 'worst interpretation possible' sometimes.

anyway we're not getting anywhere here with this level of murkiness. hopefully merdeyeux's post and my full endorsement of most of the good stuff gets me back to some sort of reasonable standing again? if not then i'm just sexist i guess, sorry bout that :(

I actually don't know what you're trying to argue any more.

i don't know who can claim that as a victory, but damned if i'm starting again

RT @feministhulk: HULK FIND COMPLICITY BETWEEN ALL SYSTEMS OF OPPRESSION. RESULT: HULK HAVE VERY DIVERSE PORTFOLIO OF SMASH.

lol is that one of our thread?

lol at the extent to which i disagree w/ everything darragh says on this thread. <3 u boo tho

like the most obvious thing is that it is only BECAUSE of our incredibly sexist/misogynist culture that "bitch" for eg. has no male equivalent of equal severity. its force draws from the weeping blister of oppression iirc.

read that as "weeping blipster of oppression"

that works too

(class/race/gender)

well, one way to think about the sexist nature of the derogatory language we use when the subject is female is to consider the "default human" that our language and thinking imply. i'd argue that in america, among most white people, there exists a conceptual abstraction, a human ideal, and that that ideal is typically a white male. this is not what we typically think of as racism or sexism, but to the extent that white males did and still do dominate the cultural discourse in america, it can have racist and sexist consequences.

as an example, consider the stick figure:

http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/sticks.jpg

the stick figure is a very simple way of abstracting a person, a human being, but even though it consists of only four lines and a circle, it is usually (if passively) thought to possess both gender and race. the stick figure is a white male. we know this because in order to make the stick figure a female, you have to add additional details:

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTg1QiJk3UKWp-Jdj24UAe4wPO9BntMzYYe6Itq0Wtu2uvC_rU&t=1&usg=__k09uK3tAGlyfBb29lYsoDD0x8L0=

to make him non-white, you have to darken his "skin" or add some other stereotypically identifying trait. this gets back to the discussion in the "white artists" thread. it is the invocation of difference, of separation from and inferiority to a dominant norm that gives ostracizing (racist/sexist) language its power. so when a women is called a "bitch" or "fat cow" or a "slut" or whatever, it's not just her behavior and/or appearance that are being attacked. by implication, she is being criticized just for being female. the disparagement of and contempt for womanhood in general amplifies such insults in a way that makes them unique. we simply cannot insult men in this manner. there is no corresponding cultural/literal power imbalance to give weight to the words.

weeping blister ew

thread is BASED

hey if anyone wants to tell me what mackinnon is good, tho im kinda looking for something pithy and that gives me an gen clue abt her approach, the legal background persp. makes me curious.

kinda curious from her def. of pornography ("subordination of women") how like gay porn, amateur porn etc. figure

I had a debate about this just earlier.

http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4263599

^^^in that thread: unconscious misogyny from try-hard fools

wtf r u doing posting on DIS

acoleuthic is cheating on us

dead to me now :(

i don't understand the britishisms

what wankers (a Britishism understood by all!). And to think that we hung drew and quartered Darragh. Think we can put him back together?

Well, I grew tired of debating with morons, thought I'd bring it here! I've said before that I visit DiS for different reasons to ILX - it's more Brit-centric and it has more coverage of certain musical sectors which I enjoy

but I visit ILX for, like, intelligent and interesting discussion, just so happened that I found a load of 'intelligent' contemporary Brits being fucking idiots and like the white knight I am I felt compelled to step in, slap-hand first

"white knight"???

race/class/gender

LOL

plax <3 and otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT_EdH6YcP8

term of abuse on British internet for any male that dares push feminist causes; peddled by insecure possibly-bigoted twerps

^^ that was one of the worst songs from that musical

British internet seems so much more polite then - white knight vs. Cap'n save-a-ho

ANYWAY. I take it THIS thread actually got good? Worth a read? I wish to know!

British internet is polite; also passive-aggressive and petty

also this lines down the side crap i mean

worse than trying to read bco imo

"Last month I graced the overground line's replacement bus service to Gospel Oak, north London."

is that british internet equivalent thread title for "i'm ion a bus"?

yes

as I said, her turn of phrase is faltering and she has a slight penchant for self-absorption but her heart is in the right place

btw the catherine mckinnon episode of charlie rose is awesome!

just fyi

To quote myself:

I wouldn't have gone out of my way to praise it but seeing this thread on DiS with a fuckton of vitriol hurled in its direction struck me as being symptomatic of a mentality which states that "anyone who attempts to argue upon CERTAIN topics with a loose coherence and a gabbling superficiality will be STRUCK DOWN with our RIGHTEOUS FIRE, but argue about some other topic that isn't loaded in such a manner as to potentially accuse some of our language and behaviour as bigoted, and we won't need to get defensive, so we'll hold back our blast"

^^^this is the attitude towards feminist discourse which prevails among even the more intelligent sector of British men - and if you think she's UNDERMINING the feminist cause then who's she undermining it for? you, the discerning reader? surely not, because you already know better!

ilx is the british internet u noobs

in 2005, possibly 2006, ILX became American, and we ain't changing that dude

bullshit

seems at least half american to me

i.e., not specifically british

theres like four british ilxors tops

ok, have it this way: ILX is British for 3 hours a day, between 9am BST and midday BST, and it is American for 18 hours. between 7am and 9am BST it is frankly anyone's, usually the Aussies'

let's go back to the stick figures, please

It's kind of sad to me that on that board, which seems to be full of not-hugely-thoughtful people, everyone still finds broadsheet columns to be vapid & shallow & a basically dislikable form - is this just an "I don't know any Bush voters" thing or do people somewhere actually like them?

i mean yeah there's less molesworth-speak now

can't remember who's in charge but iirc they're scottish?

xp

now. is this thread worth reading, plz

read it and tell me