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My Boyfriend, the Objectifier
![playboy-bunny-manual-main[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/playboy-bunny-manual-main1.jpg)
When I first heard feminists complain about sexual objectification I didn’t get it. Why didn’t they want women to be sexy?
Turns out, I didn’t understand what objectification was.
Put simply, it is about seeing someone as nothing but an object – one that is sexual in nature – that exists for someone else’s pleasure. Objects don’t have feelings, thoughts or life goals, so you needn’t worry about hurting them.
So I finally got it intellectually. But I didn’t fully get how it played out until I met “Mike” (that’s what I’ll call him). And years later saw Mike’s way of seeing in a Ms. Magazine article discussing objectifying ads.
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GIRLS “On All Fours”
If we started saying, “It ain’t sex unless everyone enjoys it” would rape and “gray-rape” (where consent is unclear) become less common? And might we all enjoy sex more?
An Emmy-nominated episode of “Girls” sparks the question.
“On All Fours” finds “Natalia” ready to have sex with “Adam” because, “You’ve been really nice all week.” And then she tells him what she likes and what she doesn’t as they indulge.
The next time is very different.
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Guys: Romantic? Or Just Want One Thing?
Some reports say guys are getting more romantic. Others say they just want one thing, preferably from celluloid porn stars.
Which is it?
On the one hand guys are getting sexually addicted to their computer screens. Davy Rothbart explains that the “fireworks and whiz-bangs” of extreme porn is to real women what an Imax 3-D movie is to a flipbook. (Though he thinks it’s a problem.)
And after a tour of college campuses, Naomi Wolf concluded that far from turbocharging women’s objectification and turning men into wild, raping beasts, Internet porn is turning men off real women.
But others have found young men becoming more romantic than their older brothers and fathers. Ninety-five percent of whom would prefer to have sex with someone they love over sex with a “hot” woman. Over half only want sex with someone they love.
What’s with the conflicting data?
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Looking Sexual vs Being Sexual
Is “beauty” really sex? Does a woman’s sexuality correspond to what she looks like? Does she have the right to sexual pleasure and self-esteem because she’s a person, or must she earn that right through “beauty”?
– Naomi Wolf
![Black_and_White_love_romance_kiss1[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/black_and_white_love_romance_kiss11.jpg)
A lot of women and men confuse looking sexual with being sexual. We look at an attractive woman and think, oh, she’s really sexual. Then we see a not-so-pretty woman and suppose she’s not.
But “pretty” and “sexuality” are actually two different things. Sex is all about feeling, not the surface experience of just existing, however beautifully.
But as Naomi Wolf points out in The Beauty Myth, too many women don’t enjoy sex because they think they don’t look sexy enough. And since a lot of women think they don’t look sexy because of their body type, age, or low self-esteem, a lot of women miss out on great sex.
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Does Porn Objectify? Experts Disagree
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When men view porn do they see women as mindless objects? Psychologist, Kurt Gray and his colleagues wanted to know.
Humans have needs, goals, emotions, the ability to act, and hopes and dreams for the future. Mere objects don’t.
So the researchers showed men pictures of women in various states of dress and undress and asked how much “agency” they had, meaning self control and the ability to plan and act. They also asked about their ability to feel fear, desire and pleasure.
The study focused on these two areas because research on the mind shows that that’s how we categorize humans.
Turns out, the more skin women reveal, the less they seem agentic, but the more they are thought to feel.
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Betas Pushing Theory That Insults Them
Some guys who call themselves “Betas” (gentler, less macho men) complain that women want successful, dominating “Alphas,” instead of them.
Despite evidence to the contrary.
Turns out, women actually prefer Betas. I know I do. (Well, I prefer most Betas: the one’s who aren’t complaining about what idiots women are for wanting Alphas.)
Actually, they aren’t always complaining. They are often explaining, matter-of-factly, that women want Alphas because of evolution. Because dominating genes are just better genes, or something.
And sometimes these guys aren’t just telling me. They are adamantly pushing a cause.
I “get” the complaining. Who wants to feel rejected?
But why are they so tied to a theory that puts them down? And that leaves them no hope (in their minds)?
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Nice Girl Doing Cheap Tricks
By Lexi White
Cruising East Palo Alto in a ‘97 RAV4, rappers cussing through blown out speakers, I’m strung out looking for a fix. I need to get high. My body beaten, black eye and bloody lip. Stringy hair and lackluster skin. I need to get high. My insides are empty and dark. My spirit is long gone. I need to get high. I am looking for a lonely John who wants a cheap trick. I need to get high.
But I can’t get high anymore. I am trapped in a miserable hopeless cycle and see no way out. I have written myself off. I am destined to be a dope fiend and I accept my pathetic short life because the occasional bliss that copious amounts of drugs give me keeps me handcuffed. I have faint whispers of something different…
It wasn’t always like this.
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Advice Women-Haters Could Use Via Ashton Kutcher
You may have seen Ashton Kutcher’s Teen Choice Awards speech. After all, it went viral.
He says a lot of great stuff. I’ll focus on this:
The sexiest thing in the entire world… is being really smart. And being thoughtful. And being generous. Everything else is crap, I promise you! It’s just crap that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less.
Now, Ashton Kutcher can’t help but be sexy, so what does he know?
On the other hand, anyone could become more attractive by following his advice.
Think about it.
Being smart is a confidence-builder. And confident is the sexiest thing you can be.
The thoughtful and generous also hold an air of confidence. And they don’t scare people off.
Unlike some men who write to tell me how much they hate women because they can’t get one. Like this guy:
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Sex ‘s Us
Sex is a bad thing, I learned growing up. I don’t know that anyone directly told me that, but that sure was the sense I got.
The religion I grew up in has the highest level of sexual dysfunction in America. My parents and friends came out of that religion and I didn’t talk about sex with any of them. I did notice squirming when “things” came up. Sex ed at school was about contraception and disease. And nasty whispers spread about girls who got pregnant.
Maybe John Harvey Kellogg grew up the same way. He created Kellogg’s Cornflakes in hopes of weakening the sex drive.
By the time I had an orgasm I didn’t know what it was. But I was embarrassed and determined to never let that happen again, no matter how good it felt.
I sure could have used Rohan Healy’s book, SEX, Not as a Separate Subject, which could also be called, “Things I wish I’d learned in middle school – or at least college.”
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Women Want Betas
A lot of guys think women only want so-called Alphas — big, muscular, domineering guys. But a study at the University of Tennessee and published in PNAS, found that most women actually want more reliable and generous “Betas.”
The preference for Betas began much earlier than expected, shortly after humans began living in large social groups, according to a study that used mathematical models to determine when humans first began living monogamously.
Before that, the most dominant men had the most access to women. Apparently, Betas have more brains than brawn and realized that even if they couldn’t compete physically they could attract women by devoting themselves to just one.
And, as fathers became monogamous instead of widely spreading their seed, children got more resources, had better survival rates, and developed bigger brains, too.
Which reminds me of a question I’m sometimes asked: Why do men get aroused through intercourse but women more often thru outercourse (the clitoris)?
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