October 1, 2012

• Objectification and “walking vaginas”

  JDN 2456202 EDT 18:15.

   

  There’s a concept that comes up a lot in feminist discourse called “objectification”. You’ll hear this all the time: “Treating women as sex objects,” “objectifying women,” “being objectified,” etc. But what exactly does objectification mean?

  It sounds like it means “treating you as an inanimate object,” which would of course be terrible. But is that really what’s going on here?

  What is a “sex object”? Who wants to have sex with an object? In fact, can you even do that? If it’s an object, it’s not even sex anymore, it’s masturbation. There are certain kinds of things you can do to either a person or an object (lift them, push them, weigh them, stab them, etc.), but actually having sex is not really one of those options. It would certainly be very odd to say “He was having sex with the table.” Even “he was fucking the table” seems pretty bizarre, and not just as an activity, but I mean as a sentence. He’s masturbating by means of the table, but is he actually having sex with it?

  This is why it’s so baffling to me when I am told that by being sexually attracted to someone, I am “objectifying” them. No, I’m… personifying them! Or sexualizing them if you want that concept specifically. But I do not, absolutely do not, want to have sex with objects. I want to have sex with people. So by wanting to have sex with someone, I have effectively removed them from the space of entities that I consider objects (assuming I hadn’t already, which presumably I would have).

  The closest I can think of to someone actually treating women as objects is a phrase I’ve heard on two occasions: “Walking vaginas.” The first time I heard it was from a raving misogynist. The second, however, was from a very aggressive feminist (or at least self-identified feminist). Isn’t that interesting?

  I think this is a good example of what is typically meant by “objectification”: You’ve reduced women to their vaginas. (A similar effect occurs when you sometimes hear men talk about “pussy” as an uncountable noun, a substance one apparently collects.) You care about no other part of them.

  But is “all hands on deck” objectifying? It reduces sailors to their hands. Is “I need some brains on this problem” objectifying? It reduces people to their brains. Is “all eyes were on me” objectifying? It reduces people to their eyes. If these are not objectification, then why is specifically choosing the vagina objectification?

  I definitely see a problem with “walking vaginas”, but are vaginas objects? No, they really aren’t! They’re body parts, which is not at all the same thing.

  The problem with speaking of women as “walking vaginas” is that it’s so limiting. That’s all a woman is to you? Really? That’s not even all a woman is to me in terms of sex. I mean, my god man, what about her breasts, her ass, her legs, her face, her lips? A walking vagina couldn’t even give you a fucking blowjob. In fact, some of the sexiest experiences I’ve had in my life so far were all brain-to-brain, fantasies and memories expressed in digitally transmitted text. Even in terms of fucking her I want her brain.

  And that’s not even including all the other things I’d like to do with a woman besides sex: Thought-provoking conversations, sly grins, soft kisses, cuddling beneath the blankets on a cold winter night, firm hugs, crying on each other’s shoulders, walking through the park, skinny-dipping in the Gulf of Mexico, sharing stories we’ve written and art we’ve painted. You can’t do those things with a walking vagina, now can you? So if you think that’s what a woman is… you’re missing out on so much.

  But at the same time, I want to fuck women. I do. I don’t think I should have to be ashamed of that or keep it a secret. And I hope that there are some women out there who want to fuck me too. But I don’t see this as degrading or dehumanizing them; on the contrary, it is only because I see them as fully human that they seem at all viable to me as sexual partners, as opposed to masturbation aids. Sex toys are not that hard to come by; you can buy them online. Real sexual partners who are whole human beings, they’re a lot harder to get—especially good ones.

  If you don’t like the way women are portrayed in the media, or the clothes women are expected to wear, or the language people use when speaking about women, great. Let’s talk about that. I might even agree. But when I watch a video of a woman masturbating or having sex, I am not at all turning her into an object. On the contrary, I view myself as sharing in her expression of her full humanity through sexuality. An object could not pleasure itself. I wouldn’t enjoy seeing an object experience ecstasy. Indeed, the very notion strikes me as incoherent.

  Maybe there is a sort of person who actually treats women like objects, and that is rapists. Indeed, rapists are also something I find quite baffling (as well as horrifying): What exactly do you get out of raping someone? Is it just about the raw neural sensations? Then we need to invent a better fake pussy stat to give all the rapists so that they can just go to town on the fakes and leave real women alone. Or is it something sadistic, they actually like to see people in pain? (Even that wouldn’t be strictly objectification, though it’s certainly horrible.) Are they just acting on an evolutionary instinct, trying to spread their genes? Most human instincts are subject to a lot of behavioral plasticity, I don’t see why this should be an exception. Also if that’s the case, then we’re conceding that rapists are irrational, and just explaining their behavior in evolutionary terms. So in that case, yes, I guess you can speak of treating women like inanimate objects. For me half the joy of sex is sharing the experience with someone else, and rapists don’t ever get to do that.

  In general, I just don’t see how “sexual objectification” is the right way to describe things at all. For me, the ideas of sexuality and objects just don’t go together. Maybe for rapists they do, or maybe for some people who have really narrow concepts of what sex is about… but if you’re doing it right, you don’t have sex with objects. You have sex with people. The sex you want involves people.

  • 8:50 pm
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