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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   17384 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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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:

So if something doesn't serve a purpose (nudity and sex scenes), it's clear the only purpose it serves is to scratch an itch of the artists. This is something called Chekhov's gun, which is a storytelling principle that says if a gun is shown on screen, it must be fired later in the story. And if it isn't, the filmmaker made a promise to the audience that they didn't keep.

It's absolutely the same with female nudity and violence on screen. If it serves no artistic purpose, then the sole purpose becomes the objectification of women and the normalization of violence.

You know, like that scene where Cassie (Refering to the show euphoria) turns into a giant. Absolutely unnecessary. And it's completely inconsistent with the show's genre, which has no magical elements up until that point. We already got the point that Cassie is defined by her breasts from the 15-minute montage leading up to that scene and the other 200 shots of her naked throughout the show. Like, we got it, right? We got that point.

We actually didn't need you to bend the genre of the show in order to show her boobs in a giant form. In general, the amount of unnecessary nudity and the way that the camera lingers on women's naked bodies, or bodies in general, is beyond what is needed to make the point that they're in a lurid, exploitative industry.

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:

Sex workers are a vulnerable group of individuals that experience sexual violence on the job, but it is difficult and limiting for workers to report their assault (Sex Workers Project, 2020). Sex workers are adults who receive money or goods in exchange for consensual sexual acts. According to research, globally, sex workers have a 45% to 75% chance of experiencing sexual violence on the job (Sex Workers Project, 2020).

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?

Imagine you're at an evening social event. It's comprised of men and women around your age. GigaChad is there as well. At some point, one of the women starts complaining about objectification and the male gaze. In the midst of her spiel, GigaChad (who was talking to another woman) turns to her and says with a smirk, "you don't need to worry, no one is objectifying you."

Do you think the woman would be pleased or upset by this comment? What does your answer tell you about the underlying true nature of complaints about objectification?

Is "people will happily debase themselves for someone they have the hots for" a compelling argument that debasement is actually good?

On the flip side, the stereotypical 45 year old overweight Karen wife implicitly offers the deal that if you shower her with gifts and expensive dates she will not nag you quite as much for a week and you might even get to have sex. The MRA-adjacent sphere is quick to point out that it is unfair to men that society basically approves of this arrangement where they have to dump their paycheck in return for basic human decency/being treated like they have any worth at all. Yet, male simps will happily dump their paycheck for a mention by a titty streamer, a smidgen of attention from a hot classmate, or a 60-second handshake with a J-pop idol. Does their existence invalidate the MRA complaint?

(Also, your fantasy scenario is implausible mostly because the GigaChad as imagined by male incels and female 50 Shades readers, who is so hot that he can make stranger women drop their panties with a wink and drop creepy porno pickup lines and be universally liked for it, does not actually exist, any more than the mythical GigaStacy who can be like "you will buy me that diamond necklace, right" to a random man does. In both cases the outside onlooker confuses instances of dominance over a self-selected followership for a universal power.)

the GigaChad as imagined by male incels and female 50 Shades readers, who is so hot that he can make stranger women drop their panties with a wink

Clavicular might not be quite capable of doing this but Roy's standard is somewhat lower. For example, Clavicular was talking with some girl that wanted to be exclusive with him and he went 'lol no, I'm gonna fuck other women' and she instantly folds:

https://x.com/permabulla/status/2045527650098171927

That seems pretty analogous to what roy was saying?

Gigachads and gigastacies might be very rare but are not wholly imaginary.

If the standard is just "one guy somewhere has said something that is generally considered bad to a woman and she was okay with it", then surely the instances of whipped husbands and wallet-cattle men should count too (and say the same thing about the "underlying true nature of complaints about" men being used as paypigs).

In fact, if that's the standard, a lot more things meet it. For example, the existence of 80 hour workweek hot-desking, hot-bedding startup drones in SF exposes the underlying true nature of complaints about workplace exploitation and work/life balance: you don't actually want reasonable working conditions, you are just waiting for a hot GigaChad industry like SV startups to give you the tingles!

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