Cinderella Ate My Daughter is one of my favorite books of cultural and sexual criticism. In it, Peggy Orenstein laments how our culture naturally moves from such beauty-centered innocence as
to such beauty-centered sluttiness as
Take the phrase, sleeping around. It's sounds innocent enough. But the reality is something stark. To quote someone from college, that time of life when sexual partners often number in the double-digits for men and women, "I cannot recall ever rejecting an advance, and I know I never felt good afterward. On the contrary, I felt used and dirty, at once manipulative and manipulated. I hated my reputation; I hated the sex".
It bothers me to see women objectified in this way. Any woman.
I've discovered over the years that most men don't get it -- this notion of objectification. It was explained easily enough to me as a seven-year-old: Only treat women as you would your Grandmother. As a person to love and cherish. Objectification is the opposite of that. The idea is that instead of seeing a person to be loved and valued, you see an object to be used.
Our culture has spent decades training us to view sex as the ultimate sales tool. And the ultimate expression of every romantic relationship. It's dated now (1991), but the song that most epitomizes this notion is Extreme's "More Than Words", from their Pornograffiti album. The fact that this song is dated demonstrates how much this objectification has been in the cultural air we breathe. The moment we reduce others to objects of lust, we've objectified them.
My wife Kendra is a beautiful woman. And not simply because we have sex. She's beautiful because of who she is. Less an object of my lust, she's the woman with whom I share life in the most intimate of ways, and therefore have an opportunity to see all the ways she's beautiful.
From that relationship, I learn how to treat and see all women. I hope this is true of all my female friends -- though you'd have to ask them to be sure.
But that's not true of all men.
Some, I know, trade in a sexual politics and power that is reductionistic. They simply see what can be done for them by an object.
So they'll trade in favors. They'll tell dirty jokes laden with undertone. Even if they're asked to stop. They aren't marveling at a woman's dazzling wit or her caring heart. No, it's much simpler, more base than that.
What strikes me about this scenario? The double standard.
Almost universally, women -- regardless of political, religious or philosophical persuasion -- agree that the treatment and portrayal of women in advertising and media is infuriatingly unjust. Bare a woman's breasts in a movie, and it gets an R rating. Bare a man's genitalia and ... come on, when's the last time you actually saw that happen? They just don't do it. This culture respects the male body (at least nominally), but the woman's body is an object, one that is expected, by cultural norm, to be available to men. Whenever and however they want.
But, lady friends, you know what the worst part about all this is?
You let them do it. The inappropriate jokes about breasts? They continue, don't they? The "you owe me" lines? They never let up.
In fact, it seems to me, that women now encourage this sort of behavior as genuine masculinity.
It's called "sexual liberation". Witness Brittany Spears and Miley Cirus and the rest.
But is it liberating?
Because, as a male observer, everything I see appears to be chaining you to a philosophy that says you're only as valuable as you are beautiful. As far as you're willing to hop in bed without having to worry about the long-term commitment. As far as you're willing to conform to an ideal body type that cannot be attained by a healthy individual.
Ladies, I think it's time you took back your bodies -- your very selves. But lest anyone misunderstand me, I'm not a sexual prude, and advocating we go back to "the good ole days of the 1950s". Because, let's be honest, those were only "the good ole days" for a very select group of folks -- namely men. No, I think what we need is an honest renaissance of classical feminism -- reclaiming folks like Christine de Pizan, Mary Wollstonecraft, Barbara Bodichon, Marie Stopes, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Susan B Anthony, Alice Paul, Ida B Wells, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Burns, Frances Willard ... you get the idea.
What I'm really advocating here is respect.
No friendship -- no loving relationship at all -- can exist without it. Without respect, sex is nothing more than a selfish act, meant to bring fulfillment to one person, and treats the other as an object by which to acquire that fulfillment.
The body of another (whether woman or man) is not a tool for our personal pleasure.
Period.
Our bodies are holistic parts of who we are. If we respect ourselves, then the gift of sexuality becomes just that -- a gift. It's the ultimate expression of a mutual, intimate relationship. The giving and receiving of who we are as persons.
It's not a gift that can be ripped into by just anyone, without dire consequences to the deepest parts of our personhood. And hence our relationships.
Only when we express that respect toward an other, can we achieve the fullfillment that comes out of our relationships -- including our romantic ones.
That's how I hope to live my life. It may not make much difference in our culture. But I hope it makes all the difference is my wife's life, and in the lives of all my friends. Which, in the end, probably does make a big difference in my world.
So guys, lay off the objectification of one another. It's destroying our relationships. Enough, already.