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Notes -
Sexual Objectification
There is something that bothers me about watching progressive/feminist content on youtube, especially regarding the topic of objectification, and its particularly emphasized in this video, as follows:
To rehash for someone not familiar, objectification is defined as: the act of treating a person as an object, a commodity, or a tool, rather than as a whole human being with their own agency, feelings, and rights. The most common form, (sexual) occurs when a person is reduced to a mere object of sexual desire. It often involves judging someone solely based on their physical attributes or breaking their body into separate, "consumable" parts (e.g., focusing only on legs or a torso).
The main issue here is that this idea, at least on the surface is that it seems to be fundamentally in conflict with the the sexual revolution and sex positivity of many previous & current progressive movements. Pornography, prostitution, and strip clubs all fit the objectification bill quite neatly, and the data seems to support the authors argument that "sexual objectification" leads to or plays some role in many of these harms:
I struggle to see how these individuals may square this perspective that sex work is valid, despite fitting the bill of objectification. Perhaps there is something I'm missing?
This is the classic case of society having a different set of standards for men and women. Women are liberated beings and can have sex with who they want. Men are dangerous predators until proven otherwise, and must keep their desires in check.
Because women are free, liberated individuals who can choose to use their bodies however they please, sex work is a valid occupation that should not be shamed.
Because men are dangerous and predatory, any man who uses sex workers is the worst kind of person who sees women as merely objects with no agency or value besides the hole between their legs.
Thus, being a sex worker is perfectly valid, although dangerous. Buying the services of a sex worker is one of the worst thing a man can do.
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Even if we take this figure seriously, what fraction of retail workers experience economic violence on the job at some point? "Sexual violence" is defined broadly - if we defined "economic violence" equally broadly then it wouldn't need to be a robbery - a shoplifter pushing past a security guard would qualify.
Honestly, why shouldn't we define "economic violence" that way?
Stealing sexual value is to women like stealing economic value is to men (for control over that is what that sex uses to impress the other), so a regime that treated men and women equally should logically treat both just as seriously.
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That's one hell of an error bar, so the research is garbage.
Repeat after me: progressives are not liberals. I get that it's very confusing, especially if you're in certain bubbles that made much hay claiming they were the same (because in large degree the marriage of convenience between the two was still running at the time). The difference is that liberals actually like sex and aren't turbo-butthurt about its existence, while progressives are existentially threatened by anyone else but them controlling sex and sexual expression (because it is all the value they offer- that's part of why they're so attached to education as an alternate path). Needless to say this is mostly a thing with female progressives; the men might parrot it but they don't truly understand it (the ones that do tend to be traditionalists, which is just progressivism with the opposite gender valence).
The clue is that progressives tend to believe it should be legal to sell sex, but illegal to buy it, which takes the price of sex up to infinity. Any sex (or sexual expression) that occurs must be maximally monetized, or it's offering an alternative to that monopoly.
This is why progressives get extremely angry about older men dating younger women: the
mottecope is "she's being taken advantage of", thebaileytruth is "she's getting more money for the sex than I ever would, which drives the price I can get for my sex down".When women say the existence of something "devalues sex", they're being literal because it actually does.
So it's not the sexual objectification they're objecting to, it's getting around the fee they feel is due. Sexual labor (which for women is "being observed while sexually desirable") without pay. Progressives don't like sex work because it makes that fee legible, which is a threat; its legality is generally a compromise they struck with the liberals in the original anti-traditionalist compact. They do reserve the right to play at sexual labor, though, which is how they justify to themselves having made that deal, and is also why they don't really have much problem with non-straight sex (it's orthogonal to the market).
Which is why it's also important to identify what kind of feminist you're dealing with- some are just happy not to be under traditionalism (and will deploy patriarchy and equality arguments to that end- that's who they originally came from, and still have some truth to them), while others are trying to impose a matriarchy instead (and generally using the descriptive liberal arguments as prescriptive weapons).
Score one for AI. Claude traced it to here, and said it was a range of results across different studies (with different methodologies and populations), not error bars for a single measure. I retraced the source and read the abstract, but I honestly didn't gain anything that the AI didn't hand to me already.
As an aside, I've stopped listening to the news in my car because I can't fact-check them while I'm driving, but it's easy to do on the web.
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Does the author believe that female nudity and violence on screen can serve an artistic purpose? Also, can that purpose not be a feminist one? Because if the answer to those is no, as it probably is, there is scarcely a point in discussing this.
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The basic core principles of feminism are (1) more goodies (money, power, status, etc.) for women; (2) punishment and humiliation for men. Of course feminists don't like to acknowledge this to themselves or others, so instead they rely on a smorgasbord of more reasonable sounding principles such as:
(1) Women are the same as men and must be treated equally;
(2) Women are different from men and must be treated differently;
(3) Objectification of people is harmful and must be avoided; and
(4) Women are autonomous adults who should have the freedom to make their own choices in life;
(5) Women have been brainwashed by the "patriarchy" into making poor choices;
and so on.
Obviously these principles are not consistent with each other; feminists just use whatever is most convenient in the moment. If someone points out the contradiction, that person is ignored or silenced with accusations of "misogyny" or whatever.
So yeah, you are not the first person to ask "what if a woman objectifies herself"? But the reality is that feminists do not sincerely care about objectification. If objectification is perceived as beneficial (for example Taylor Swift doing a concert while wearing a slutty outfit and getting paid a million dollars), they are fine with it.
I think it's also worth noting that this idea -- that nudity should serve a purpose -- is far more flexible than it seems on its surface. For example, consider the sexy naked woman who makes an appearance in The Shining. One could certainly argue that her nudity advances the plot, since it helps to demonstrate Jack Torrance's sexual excitement and the seeming attempt to seduce him. On the other hand, one could argue that basically the same thing could have been accomplished without nudity, for example by implying that the woman is naked without actually showing it. Or by putting her in a seductive dress.
It seems to me that you can pretty much always argue it one way or another. And for feminists, it will almost certainly come down to the following: If feminists don't like it, then it doesn't serve any purpose. If feminists do like it, then it does serve a purpose.
Stop saying "women" when you mean "feminists". (Incidentally, advice which most people should think about most of the time.) Feminism isn't a pure grift - individual feminists genuinely want other feminists to get more gibmedats and not just themselves - but the point isn't to uplift women as a whole, it's to subsidise a particular female life script (see Obama's notorious Life of Julia ad, but the critical point is that women who seek to have children in actually-committed relationships with men are SOL) with the goal of changing female behaviour such that a large enough pool of able women pursue meritocratic competition that they can achieve a 50-50 power elite by affirmative action without promoting obvious numpties.
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Note that in the original form, the principle was that 'If a gun is shown on stage, it must be fired later in the story.' Live-theatre productions usually do not have as elaborate set decoration as film or television.
But was it portrayed as actually happening within the storyline, or was it a dream or hallucination? (I haven't seen the show.)
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Female sexuality is NOT suppose to make logical sense. So it’s the female ID but blown up at macro societal movement scale. The early Game pioneers like that odd Magic guy but also the NYT writer guy who wrote the book The Game had a word for it: Shit Test. So I googled that word and found a definition for it that I think works:
“What Are “Shit Tests,” Really? The term “shit test” isn’t about malicious manipulation. It’s a shorthand for the subtle challenges, disagreements, or uncomfortable situations a woman might introduce into a conversation or interaction. These aren’t always obvious, and they’re rarely intended as deliberate attacks. Instead, they’re often subconscious filters, designed to quickly assess your emotional stability, confidence, integrity, and self-respect , qualities that suggest you’d be a reliable and supportive long-term partner.“
I guess I should cite but no reason to click thru: https://medium.com/@therealdating/decoding-shit-tests-in-dating-a-guide-to-confidence-and-connection-bf3a41ee45c5
So the whole you can’t objectify thing/me is sort of just a giant shit test at a societal level. My gut says any female spouting don’t objective women or me is actually just shit testing. And providing you are the right guy really wants you to have uncontrollable sexual desire for her.
One girl who I sort of loved I remember one day I was walking her home I think after dinner. I think some form of can I come I asked a few times and she said No. 15 minutes after I left I get a text why didn’t you come up. Guess I played it wrong and misread the situation.
Female sexuality should not be looked at thru a rationalist brain. It has its own games it plays.
Why not? It's just the mirror image of stuff men do that women haven't correctly communicated when to and not to do, like that whole "take them seriously but not literally, also ignore half the things she says because that's how the emotional spam filter works [and the 'attractive self-respect' thing comes from the 'doesn't respond to every emotional outburst about X']" thing.
It's not a direct counterpart, but men and women are different and start from initial conditions (inherent scarcity, etc.), so it's going to be expressed differently. Men (especially straight ones- it gets complicated when they're not) don't really have the circuitry to appreciate why you'd want a Cluster B werewolf billionaire, so it's difficult to know when to act like one (re: PUA, which as I understand it sums up to 'treat them like they're in a porno'; women will do the same thing to men sometimes, but less often because it's [socially] costlier for women to do that).
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The standard feminist answer is that women objectifying themselves is empowering, but men objectifying women is degrading to the women. Of course, there are plenty of issues you can raise with this, but the standard feminist way of dealing with it is not to think about it too hard and to shame others who do - which, to be fair, is the standard way of dealing with most/all ideologies' thorny points.
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