Sexism and Men's Issues

I think there needs to be a bigger focus on the time and place aspect of objectification, rather than a blanket objectification = bad. I mean, if you see someone in beach wear you're not going to expect to discuss a treatise on potential cancer treatments. If you see someone in a lab coat, that's a far more reasonable assumption of what might come out of a discussion. And as a different kind of objectification, when I go to the dentist, I don't care about what they look like, what they're feeling, or even what their names are. I care about getting the service I pay for done in a professional manner. Doesn't mean I can't care about the other stuff if there's some small talk, but that's not the point of the visit.

If you just say it's bad, you're alienating people. If you say there's a time and place for it, you invite thought about when and where it's appropriate, and probably also what it actually means to objectify people.

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As a semi-aside, I'd also add that things can be objectified, as well as people.

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No they can't. Objectification in social philosophy is treating people like a thing rather than a person, with feelings and dignity. "Objectifying things" is a tautology.

edited 21st Nov '14 6:38:31 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

I'm quite good at objectifying as a subset of psychology, because I am an expert which I know is a tautology

Also, as a mention to the study thing, I think it reveals something and it is interesting in its own but it is possibly subject to malinterpretation and grotesque oversimplification in some senses. While the pictures' content undeniably point out this cognitive little thing, to call it something, I find overly simplifying that it is "demonstrated" by "The same area of the brain of when we use tools lights up!".

Yeah, it also lights up when we use tools, it does not mean we see tools without appreciation, or regard, or that the same area also doesn't light up when we are doing other stuff. The brain is far more complicated than "Oh and this area objectifies people". I am more, far more, interested in the result of the way people phrase things there, going from "She pushes" to "I push" and such, as it is more evidential of the sort of cognitive processes.

if anything, it probably means that someone with less clothing is, at least, given more attention but I think it is far fetched to say she is outright objectified. At least, I do not think the experiment indisputably proves that.

I think people should be less of a jerk and stop judging people based on appearance and such and instead judge them on competence :P Hell one of my best friends during college was a woman that my other friends and family and such deemed as pretty ugly but I prefered working with her and talking with her than with any other "prettier" person because, god dammit she was a good work partner.

I love breasts (And big butts, I cannot lie) as much as the next guy (in fact, I assure you even more), but under no objective measure of competence should beauty be considered. Unless it is like. For supermodels or something. I guess.

edited 21st Nov '14 6:51:43 AM by Aszur

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

what a sad world we live in where asking people to be respectful to others is useless.

I would love the blatant "Don't be a dick. Don't think with your dick. Even women can be dicks. So, stop being dicks!" but I don't think we can get that mass marketed to the family demographic.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

A woman named Richard would be weird...

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

That's been the central message of just about every religion ever and it hasn't happened yet. Humans are, after all, bastards. All of them. It's just a matter of degree.

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

It's not that they think of sex. It's that they think of sex as a means to their own ends only, with the other person a mere object or instrument to serve that end.

Sexualizing someone or thinking they're sexy isn't the same thing as objectification. You can find someone sexually attractive without reducing them to an object and you can objectify someone without sexual intent at all (We Have Reserves for example).

That distinction is sadly lost in most cases, if it's even intended.

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Yeah, and as I said: this is news to whom? Anyone who's had any sort of purely sexual encounter will see that is just how people think: When they get horny all the normal, nice, sociable stuff goes out the window and getting their end away takes priority. That's why there are so many of us little critters running around.

Anyway, what's wrong with seeing a picture of naked person purely in terms of sex? We aren't used to seeing each other naked, so nudity usually implies imminent sex. You'd get the same reaction in a culture where people were naked all the time but the photo showed the person wearing that culture's 'we're going to have sex' hat.

The picture, after all, is merely an object with characteristics that are visual cues to cause sexual arousal and no other human characteristics at all.

This is bad science and just makes the people who did the study look like nerdy eggheads who don't understand sex or normal people's reactions to it.

edited 22nd Nov '14 3:07:32 AM by InverurieJones

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

You didn't get my point at all. My point was that only thinking of sex isn't the same thing as thinking of others as mere objects.

Sex is normal, nice, sociable stuff. Or it should be at any rate. Everything that involves another person is social. That's why it is bad. If you don't regard another person as a person, why should you treat them as such.

So it is news to me, that an activity that involves another person (and not just marginally) can be viewed as something only for yourself. That's sociopathy.

Seeing a photo of an attractive person (Or just seeing an attractive stranger), pausing mentally to think "nice" about their body or whatever, and continuing on with your day is really better classified as a minor form of mental masturbation. It's harmless and doesn't actually involve the other person in anyway.

It's only really a problem if you actually treat someone negatively as a result from those thoughts.

I agree with .

Also, in relation to this whole thing of trying to uncover pedo rings within the British Government in the 70's and 80's, apparently most of the victims and perps were males. Not only were they sexually abused and traded around but apparently more than a few were murdered according to a few cops of the time and victims but the perps, being M Ps and such, were deemed "untouchable" by the police. That can't be true, can it? Sexual abuse I can believe being covered up but not murder of kids on such a scale. If most of the victims were male, why? Wouldn't the majority of pedos be straight? I get how most of the pedos were men but not how so many seemed to be homosexual or bisexual.

The name's Axel. Wanna check out Aim 4 The Head, my Zombie Apocalypse spoof comic?: http://www.smackjeeves.com/comicprofile.php?id=138048

So, are the pervasive images of half naked women on a vast majority of announcements and commercials be it of hot dogs, cars, or PVC pipes just a form of harmless mental masturbation?

The fact our language (or brains, though again I contend with that bit) reflects some tendencies speaks of a more influential thing than a simple round of "5-against-one-and-the-loser-cries".

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Also, in relation to this whole thing of trying to uncover pedo rings within the British Government in the 70's and 80's, apparently most of the victims and perps were males. Not only were they sexually abused and traded around but apparently more than a few were murdered according to a few cops of the time and victims but the perps, being M Ps and such, were deemed "untouchable" by the police. That can't be true, can it? Sexual abuse I can believe being covered up but not murder of kids on such a scale. If most of the victims were male, why? Wouldn't the majority of pedos be straight? I get how most of the pedos were men but not how so many seemed to be homosexual or bisexual.

Paedophilia tends to skip past the usual sexuality barriers, for the simple reason that boys and girls are both pretty much the same shape at that age. A breakdown on the research. The gender skew you're looking at seems to have been a combination of multiple factors. First, most of the really widespread abusers were male for the simple reason that Britain's entrenched gender inequality meant that men were far more likely to obtain the power and influence necessary to fuck that many kids and get away with it. Second, the reportage is playing up the male victims because a good number of the most senior molesters used the same supplier, a notorious brothel called Elm Guest House that took boys from a number of orphanages with the collusion of the staff. The kids were all male because British orphanages are often gender-segregated, and, as mentioned above, paedophiles don't tend to give a damn about gender so long as they're young enough. Molesters who didn't primarily use EGH, like Jimmy Savile, were more gender-neutral in their choice of victims. Third, there was an effort by paedophiles in the 1970s to integrate with the growing gay-rights movement in order to legitimise their abuse. Since the UK gay-rights movement was, at the time, largely run by gay men, this meant a whole lot of romanticising of the 'love' between men and boys in order to market to their target audience and identify their two causes. See also, NAMBLA. Elm Guest House was marketed as a gay brothel, not a paedophile brothel, and did indeed have some older workers in addition to the little boys, but its true nature was something of an open secret.

This article may seem a bit conspiracy-theoryish, but it's a good breakdown of the Elm Guest House situation with links to some solid sources, and Exaro's articles have been the driving force behind much of the present investigation.

edited 24th Nov '14 10:21:05 AM by Iaculus

What's precedent ever done for us?

That's a distinctly modern viewpoint and one that is constantly in debate. In the past, something wasn't considered "acceptable unless you act on it". If you had thoughts or ideas which went contrary to society's base assumptions, that needed to be dealt with. If I had to hazard a guess, it wasn't until Western society started trying to put a wedge between "belief" and "reality" that the whole "acceptable unless acted upon" attitude began to slowly take form.

While on the one hand, this is great for avoiding thought-policing and preventing an outside authority from persecuting someone just for what they think, in a very extreme form, it also says that nothing bad can ever come about from "just thoughts". In this extreme, it prescribes the value of "harmless" (as you said) and ignores faulty base assumptions which lead to micro-aggressions or unconscious bigotry. Such as a group of people who hold unconscious beliefs about a group of people and act accordingly without ever questioning (or even THINKING about) whether or not these beliefs are wrong and thus need to be challenged.

Or, to summarize, mere thoughts being "acceptable" unless acted upon does not mean they are also "harmless". Especially when you take the Tragedy of the Commons into account.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but sexual orientation is typically secondary to a pedophile. They get their kicks from other factors, such as power and control. Many pedophiles are persons who otherwise consider themselves straight.

edited 24th Nov '14 10:44:29 AM by KingZeal

@ Iaculus: the link on pedophilia vs homosexuality was eye-opening. Thanks. Obviously sexual abuse on that scale can and has been covered up, but what about murder? One victim claimed to have seen at least 3 boys throttled to death by their abusers. After all the shit that's coming to the surface I wouldn't be shocked. But is it possible child murder could be covered up like that?

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Very possible, if the person or people involved were placed highly enough. And these people were.

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Especially when the kids have no one to miss them.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

The more... industrial elements of the UK's institutional child abuse mostly involved kids from the care system. In other words, the sort who nobody would miss. There've been nasty rumours for years about Ted Heath and the boys who supposedly never came back from yachting trips with him, but until now, they were thought wildly implausible.

What's precedent ever done for us?

Man stabbed and almost paralyzed for defending his girlfriend from a cat caller.

Woman attacked for telling a harasser to leave her alone.

Woman has her neck slashed for attempting to ignore a catcaller.

Man gets jaw broken defending his pregnant girlfriend from catcallers.

Man knocked unconscious for defending women from catcallers.

Teen girl shot for telling catcallers to leave her alone.

We have really got to do something about this toxic masculinity practice.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

the fuck you think masculinity is toxic ill kill u gab

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Unfortunately the kind of people who commit crimes like this are not people who will be reached by a message, no matter how eloquently put or how far it spreads across social media.

If you want change, you'll have to start from the very bottom, with poverty.

There are many wealthy men who are infected with this behavior as well. In fact, some are driven to success because of this very attitude.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Gab, I suspect if you want to change things — it might end up being via Genetic Engineering. These tendencies might be hard-wired. Remember what humanity naturally evolved to face. It wasn't this.

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