Am I Being A Prude, Or Overly Sensitive?

[Dana1010]

@Pencil, there have actually been wildly fluctuating attitudes towards homosexuality throughout time. In ancient Greece, it was considered totally normal for men to have sexual relations with each before marrying their wife. There has never been a time or place where men considered it desirable for a woman to be passed around like a joint before marriage.

 

[Ronin]

I resent the women who do these kinds of things, as it seems that they give the impression that all women are willing to do these kinds of things.

Whoever gets the wrong impression about anyone's occupation is to be held responsible for their wrong impression, not the people they're dealing with.
It's interesting some people have so much of resentment for people that, say, Jesus respected immensely, and urged to be treated without it.

 

[scout86]

I've spent the last several minutes trying to talk myself out of another response to all this. I've had a problem with "knowing when to quit my whole life....." But, my T keeps saying he thinks i should be more of who I really am more of the time. And I really am someone who doesn't know when to quit.

I'm nearly sure this won't make any difference BUT,

@Dana1010, you mentioned your personal experience. Personal experience can provide useful information on which to base opinions, no doubt about it. It helps the accuracy of those opinions if the experiences are broad and/or deep. What I can find here for your descriptions of your own personal experiences is

I've been acquainted with a couple of dancers over the years, as well as some non dancers who knew dancers.

and

Girls who have done sex work and chosen not to hide it date guys who are vastly beneath them--that's what I can see with my eyes. I also have seen all my life that girls who get a rep are used for "hook ups" and not made into girlfriends or wives

I'm not saying it's impossible for you to have any valid insights based on that. I WILL say it seems like a pretty darn small sample size and it might be a bit less that representative of the entire population.

And then we have

I note that it's been common knowledge for literally ages, and then common knowledge just filters our perception

"Common knowledge"? Common knowledge seems to you like a good thing to base an opinion on? At one time, it was "common knowledge" that the world was flat and the earth was the center of the universe. In some parts of the world, it was "common knowledge" that the world sat on the back of a turtle.

Just because "everyone" believes something is true doesn't mean that it IS. Further, it's a big world (as has already been pointed out several times) what's "common knowledge" in one part might be vastly different than whats common knowledge someplace else.

There has never been a time or place where men considered it desirable for a woman to be passed around like a joint before marriage.

I suppose that's "common knowledge". But there were human societies before marriage and there have been a wide range of ideas on what's appropriate sexual behavior. By "passed around like a joint" I'm honestly not sure if you mean gang rape or society where partnerships are extremely informal, fluid, and non-judgmental, or something else. I'm not even sure that joints are passed around the same way everywhere!

I still think you're entitled to your opinions. I disagree with a lot of them, but that's hardly a problem. I just think you would have a more persuasive argument if it was based in a wider sample of the world.

 

[Anarchy]

In ancient Greece, it was considered totally normal for men to have sexual relations with each before marrying their wife.

My understanding was that it was accepted for a man who hd already raised a family, to go chase boys.

There has never been a time or place where men considered it desirable for a woman to be passed around like a joint before marriage.

I think there are, or were before missionaries spread fear of hell fire and damnation, cultures where teenagers tried each other to see what worked and what didn't.

What does appear in chronicles, was a competition between a Roman emporer's wife and a leading courtezan, to see who could shag the most men in 24 hours, I can't remember either who won, or which emporer one of the competitors was maried to. His response was along the lines of disinterested "well done dear".

@Dana1010 , you really should read Kuhn, the whole field of what do we actually know, with what certainty and what it might be possible to know and how, is fascinating, and far less straight forward than popular opinion would suggest.

 

[RussH]

to all of you, thank you for your many responses. As the originator of the post, I am asking that you stay on topic; the objectification people for the purpose of profit, and how said objectification is perceived as prermission, by some people to abuse others.

Please feel free to discuss the topic, but do so in a respectful manner, and not in an argumentative manner.

 

[Eleanor]

Sorry @RussH that the thread got so hijacked. I think the hijacking indicates that there is a lot to feel ambivalent about here. Some people do take photos and other media portrayals as permission to abuse others. Some people take leaving your keys in your car or your door unlocked as permission to steal from you. In none of these cases is the abuser's implication correct. At the same time the individuals participating in the objectifying productions (as subject or producer or distributor) may be getting something out of it - making money if nothing else. So long as they aren't directly hurting each other or others... no harm no foul. At the purely practical level it seems to me that no one should be understood to sign up for abuse, and so no one should abuse anyone else. Personal responsibility. If people don't like it, they shouldn't buy/look at it (hard in newsstands, true, but who goes to newsstands anymore?)

The trickier bit, for me, is this question of the climate and environment which enables and in some cases even encourages abuse. When abusers live in a culture where there are lines that if you cross them... "you were asking for it." And there are clearly media productions that celebrate or at a minimum normalize abuse. (Fifty shades, anyone?) When the rest of the culture including families and law enforcement support that reasoning... then people who have been abused... keep getting abused. The gang rape of a young girl on a bus in India provoked exactly this response : "Well, she was responsible because she was out at night by herself." Those rapists got prosecuted, but there is good reason to believe that it was only because it became an international cause celebre .

And the climate is not just a problem in terms of rape, but it seems like it makes it harder to have a healthy relationship. When people are objects, well, we don't have very deep relationships with our kitchen chairs as a rule. And intimacy is harder when we have unrealistic expectations about it.

Then there is the even fuzzier problem about blurring the lines between public and private. Every society has de facto lines between what is shared and what is TMI. So is the behavior of the model on the cover of SI across that line? It seems to me that it would be more appropriate in private. But it is a performance... right? This is where I get muddled. Is she "acting" and does it make a difference? Sometimes performances are performances. When I go see Hamlet played onstage I am not tempted (or invited) to go up and intervene in the bloodbath at the end. The blurring of the lines between performance and participation is a perennial problem with overtly sexual performances in our society. Which is kind of strange if you think about it.

So I guess I'm with you in being deeply ambivalent about the SI cover. I can see it as a good thing from one perspective, and a bad thing from another. And I can't reconcile the two perspectives.

Are you being too sensitive? I don't think so, given the complexity of the situation. Are you being prudish? Maybe, maybe not. Prudery being defined against social standards which are very much in flux here.

 

[Friday]

to all of you, thank you for your many responses. As the originator of the post, I am asking that you stay on topic; the objectification people for the purpose of profit, and how said objectification is perceived as prermission, by some people to abuse others.

However, not all of us are willing to make ourselves into sex objects and it causes the ones who don't want this kind of attention in their lives a lot of trouble.

Sorry @RussH that the thread got so hijacked.

I'm not so entirely sure it did get hijacked. There were clearly several different ways it could have spun off under the above stated intent (pick a Bachelor of Arts major, any BA!)

I think that the knee-jerk reaction to deny others the same freedoms we grant ourselves (our choice of employment, avocation, entertainment, choosing our own ethical mores, following the dictates of our own consciences, etc.), when they disagree with our own decisions in any realm is a very human trait. "I don't want to, so you can't, either." People start wars over these issues. Blow up abortion clinics. Riot against gay marriage. Insist on full Burkha. Kick women out of combat jobs (or jobs, period, not just the Taliban but the US & UK have done it a few times over the past couple centuries). Segregate by race. By sex. Enact laws. NGOs like Human Rights Watch exist due to this very tendency to try and force other people to choose as we do. As do many dents in drywall from the forehead of parents of toddlers ;) I don't wanna! So no ones gonna!!!!

When you say that objectification for profit is wrong, @RussH ? My knee jerk is "Then don't do it. :)" If it's wrong for you, that's your business, and you have every right to adhere to the dictates of your own conscience. If you choose to draw the line at profit, but not at religion (objectification is a structural component of most religions, even "no idols before me" abrahamic triad of Judeo/christian/Islamic religions have their saints & martyrs), or not at leadership (people becoming symbols to follow from the battlefield, to the board room, to the highest levels of government), or any other area of the private sector... I won't disagree with you. We are each of us free to choose our symbols, our heroes & heroines.

If you choose to believe that women's hair, or breasts, or thighs... Or men's chests, arms, legs (or any part of anyone, really)...are a private sexual matter between spouses, and should never be viewed by anyone outside of the covenant of marriage? I grant you the dignity of your own modesty.

I also ask for the same consideration.

I choose to fight in wars... While many women abhor the idea. Please don't ban me from my chosen field of employment, because others of my sex wish to live their lives differently. Bedroom, boardroom, classroom, wardroom, council room... Women find as many lives to their liking as men. Allow us to choose our own, as you choose yours.

I choose to wear my hair unbound, my breasts strapped up six ways from Sunday, my shoulders bare, my legs showing. Please don't assume my character and morals are less than those who cover themselves in full hijab. I am the same person wearing my Abaya in Saudi (I actually kinda dig abayas), as I am in sky high heels and little more than a smile on the runway, or in full battle rattle in a frozen mud hole. I know, because I've done all 3. Allow me to define my own character, and not tie it to my appearance, but give me my own dignity as well.

Moral laws... Time and time again... Simply lead to revolt. Military or social revolution. A thousand thousand times throughout history, have we attempted to force others to follow our religions, our dress codes, our sexual choices, our parenting choices, our marriage choices, our employment choices, our modesty choices, our aesthetic choices, etc. How we define "good" choices... As clearly only those that make "good" choices are human, and deserving of the same rights, responsibilities, privileges, and respect... Is a common argument. <chuckling> The laws that never cause outcry or revolt all revolve around one very simple principle "Don't take something that belongs to someone else." (Life, health, money, property, etc.). The rest all gets very muddled, (does this land belong to you, this spouse, this child, etc.) but the results are the same.

But on a personal level, I have had my freedom taken from me. Not when I enlisted, that was my own choice, to make certain sacrifices. Very different than when I was held against my will, denied every human right. As a result; The right to our own choices: true freedom, is more precious to me than anything. Whether I agree with someone else's choices or not, is a non issue. That you and I both have the right to make them? Too dear to ever take for granted. And too important to me to ever deny anyone else the selfsame right. Right up until they choose to deny me the same right. Or deny I have a choice to begin with.

That cover model? You see a sad object.

I see a person. Someone who has the freedom to make her own choices, and is doing so.

Which one of us is dehumanizing her?

I don't think you're a prude, or oversensitive. I do think you're treading perilously close to denying other the same rights, responsibilities, and privilege you grant yourself. You can disagree with what she does for a living, without making it wrong for her to do earn a living doing something you -or others of your acquaintance- wouldn't want to.

 

[Dana1010]

Choices, choices, choices. Let's all take a load off in the intellectual opium den of infinite and equal choices and drool ourselves into a stupor. Disagreeable things have taken place throughout history due to certain peoples' choices clashing with other peoples' choices. Other things that resulted from these clashes? Um, try every advancement in the arts and sciences, government, philosophy, the rule of law, etc. The fact that choice is good in principle doesn't mean there's no such thing as a bad choice.

 

[Friday]

That you and I both have the right to make them? Too dear to ever take for granted. And too important to me to ever deny anyone else the selfsame right. Right up until they choose to deny me the same right. Or deny I have a choice to begin with..

@dana ...Does my wearing a tank top take away your choice to wear long sleeves? Nope.

No matter how much it pisses you off that I'm wearing a tank top, no matter how many people ask you to wear a tank top, think you'd look cute in one, gosh it's hot/ why not put on a tank top?... nothing but nothing is stopping you from wearing long sleeves. Whether you do so proudly, or ashamed because most others are sleeveless, is a personal choice. But you go an try and push a bill through or change the law so that tank tops are illegal? You're still allowed to wear long sleeves.

I can't think of a single thing that either of us (or anyone) can choose in regards to our own comportment (how we define our own modesty, how/where/when we choose to work, etc,). that takes away the choice of any other individual.

Rape...takes away the other person's choices.
Kidnapping... Takes away the other person's choices.
Murder... Takes away the other person's choices.
Slavery
Assault
Abuse
Trafficking
Bank robbery
List just goes on & on

Living in a free society means most of our crimes are surrounding taking someone else's choices from them. Also why most of our revolutions have been about giving back choices we took from our own people, or were taken from us. It's not about everyone's choices being equal. It's about everyone having the same right to make their own choices.

Consent. The difference between sex & rape. The right to make a choice.

Yep. Choices, choices, choices.

ETA... I think I've said everything I can on the subject of Russ's original question. Both personal perspective on working in the industry mid thread, life outside it early thread, and my own opinions about the kind of society which not only allows but encourages personal freedom (choice, that word again) & responsibility, just now. So with respect to all, I'm bowing out from this point onward. Anyone wants to debate finer points or wild tangents can shoot me a PM. Anything I could say on the original topic at this point would just be repeating myself.

 

[RussH]

:banghead:
@FridayJones I have said this several times, and I will state it very clearly now; I have never said this model should not have a choice in what she does, it is her choice. The whole point of my post is how the objectification of a person, or persons opens the doors for abuse.
I am not against this model making the choices she made. I am against people being dehumanized because that leads to abuse, and I am against abuse.

I do think you're treading perilously close to denying other the same rights, responsibilities, and privilege you grant yourself.

Bull crap.
There is nothing I have said that would imply that I want to impose my will on others. the only purpose of my post is that I am saddened that corporations will objective a person for profit, because that objectification can and will lead to abuse of individuals, and yes I will oppose abuse.

 

[Kintsugi]

@RussH I've stewed a bit over this thread, particularly your responses, and I've cooked up a bit of a theory, if you will.

I've come to the conclusion that maybe this photo is the teeny weeny tip of the iceberg you're responding to.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Let me put it this way. It is often difficult for many races to get top dollar, leading role type gigs in the blockbuster movie industry. Think about how many blockbuster films had black male leads. Now tally up how many individual actors you're thinking of. The industry is majorly designed so that minority races are typecast for less prominent roles (it's okay to have a black sidekick as long as the lead is white).

So maybe what the issue really is for you is that these entertainment industries pander shamelessly to the misogynistic (among, as noted, other things) underbelly of our societal norms, which is undeniably a factor in many abuse cases, and that this pandering perpetuates the objectification of women by capitalizing on their sex appeal rather than the many other contributions that largely go unreflected in most mass media.

Yes, that was a damn long sentence.

 

[Dana1010]

I am saddened that corporations will objective a person for profit, because that objectification can and will lead to abuse of individuals, and yes I will oppose abuse.

I'd like to say that I don't think the objectification of people in the media (even porn) leads to abuse in real life. We all see these images, and only a fraction of us ever actually abuse anyone--so what gives? Abusers existed before mass media, photography, film, etc. It may even give them a release valve for their urges, so they will spare innocent people.