It’s not the legs, it’s the narcissism
Jacob Tobia in Playboy explains the wonders of being objectified. There was this bar Tobia used to go to as a Duke undergraduate.
It was the place where basketball players, sorority queens, frat stars, gay boys and queer girls alike congregated to bump, grind and…bump-n-grind.
I didn’t go all that often, but when I did choose to grace Shooters with my presence, it was an all-out affair. I’d wear my shortest skirt, a crop top, and, if you were lucky, my biggest heels. I’d arrive just a touch after midnight, strut in already buzzed, head straight to the bar and climb on top of it. On any given visit, I’d spend at least 50-percent of my time dancing on the bar: swaying my hips, dropping it low, tearing it up and trying not to kick off anyone’s drink.
Halfway through my year, I started to notice something. When my friends who were women or gay men danced on the bar, they’d get a lot more bang for their buck (literally) than I did. When they danced, people were watching. Upon their dismount from the bar, they’d get approached by potential partners, fielding propositions and advances left and right. Fast forward ten minutes, and half of them were grinding up on a partner, mid-DFMO (dance floor make-out). Fast forward an hour, and they’d be leaving together to hook up.
While my savvy dance moves and expert gyrations were appreciated by my classmates on a performative level, they never seemed to lead to anything. Unlike my peers, when I dismounted the bar, I rarely had the opportunity to mount anything else. Instead of attracting potential hook-ups, I only seemed to attract drunken cries of “YES QUEEN!” and “YOU BETTER WERK!”
My friends were being looked at in a different way than me. I was being appreciated as entertainment; they were being appreciated sexually. I was being watched; they were being sexually objectified.
Ok, but…isn’t that something to think about before you get up on the bar and start dancing? Tobia presents all this as if he’s completely unaware that only some people are considered sexy and attractive, and that therefore only some people are a welcome sight dancing on a bar. It’s not as if everybody can just hop up on the bar and expect to please. It’s as if Tobia thinks the shortest skirt, the crop top, and the (if you’re lucky) biggest (highest?) heels are all that’s required. It’s not so.
The message that being considered as a “sex-having and desiring” individual is universally negative is mostly based in the experiences of white, cis, thin, able-bodied people who have regular, and often too much, experience with sexual objectification.
Well, whether that’s true or not, it’s not really relevant when talking about people who dance on bars and those who hook up with them. That bar is clearly not a place to go if you don’t like sexual objectification. But that doesn’t seem to be relevant to Tobia.
As a trans person, that has never been my experience and I’m not alone in that. So how do we retool the conversation about objectification to more accurately represent the experiences of everyone?
We…don’t?
It’s not possible to “represent the experiences of everyone.” That’s a ludicrous question, and also a stunningly entitled one. Tobia would like to be objectified, please, so how do we take the conversation feminists want to have about objectification and make it more pleasing to Tobia? We don’t, because the conversation feminists want to have about objectification isn’t about Tobia, and doesn’t need to be, and shouldn’t be. Tobia’s experience doesn’t change women’s experience of unwanted objectification.
Tobia explains what his “feminist training” (his wot?) has taught him about objectification. He seems impatient – yeah yeah, interruption at work, yadda yadda. Sorry to bore you.
As such, my feminist training taught me that sexual objectification is categorically undesirable, categorically patriarchal. Therefore, we must fight against sexual objectification in any form and create a world where no one is sexually objectified again.
Yet, here’s the rub: if sexual objectification is so categorically awful, then why do I want it so badly?
Probably because you’re not a feminist, and because you’re horny, and because you’re not attractive to the people you want to be attractive to.
The idea that being seen as a “sex object”–at any time, ever–is universally a bad thing is too simple, like many tenets of straightforward, non-intersectional feminism. As a gender nonconforming person, I’m sexually objectified basically, well, never. When it comes to being viewed as a purely sexual being, I don’t get any.
Well ok then, let’s change feminism to make it about Jacob Tobia. Why not after all?
In a society that either desexualizes or hypersexualizes trans and gender nonconforming people, my whole existence is pretty much devoid of good sexual energy. While many of my cis women friends are trying to figure out how to drain out a swamp of unwanted male attention, I’m stuck in a desert trying to suck water from a cactus.
I can show literally my entire leg and get nothing. I can wear a skimpy dress to a club and people just look the other way. I can wear five inch heels and, while I might get lots of attention, it won’t be sexual attention.
And that is apparently the fault of feminism, the “straightforward, non-intersectional” kind as opposed to the kind that’s for Jacob Tobia.
I want to be sexually objectified and it never happens. I want people to appreciate the time and effort that I put into my body and my look. I want people to look at my perfectly applied lipstick and want me because of it. I want my long legs to give people feels. I want to dance on the bar and leave boys breathless, panting, and desperate to talk to me.
In other words he wants to be an extraordinarily sexy gorgeous woman. I suspect a lot of women want that too, especially when very young, but guess what, they don’t get what they want either. Life is like that. Disappointment and frustration happen. They’re not unique to Jacob Tobia or to trans people.
There is an argument, or at least a discussion, to be had about how what’s seen as ‘desirable’ (by men) is shaped, and how much of the problem with objectification is a concomitant refusal to also subjectify (setting up the dichotomy that a person who’s ‘conventionally’ attractive cannot also be ‘conventionally’ competent, as though there were some sort of conservation of desirability law at work). But this….really reads as more a lamentation than a discussion, and a narcissistic one, at that.
So is he having a sad because straight men aren’t sexually attracted to a person with a penis?
Well, what the fuck does he expect? That straight men change their sexual orientation so he can get laid? I suppose not wanting to fuck him is transphobic.
Guess what, Mr. Entitled? Equal rights doesn’t mean that people are forced to fancy you.
This attitude that sexual objectification is the same thing as being sexually desired is really anti-feminist. Feminists weren’t/aren’t evil killjoys saying that men shouldn’t sexually desire women, or that women shouldn’t want to be sexually desired. They’re objecting to being treated like sex objects whose own feelings don’t matter. It’s not sexual objectification if you’re obviously trying to be sexy and a guy appreciates that. It’s sexual objectification if a guy ogles and gropes you when you obviously don’t want it, when you’re trying to give a business presentation, walk down the street, etc.
1. Where do I sign up for Feminist Training?
2. I’m sure even feminists enjoy being desired from time to time, but objectified by a screaming mass of drunks who only want to fuck them? Well, maybe some do…
3. Surely it must drift across Jacob’s mind every now and then that to be objectified/desired to the point of hooking up publicly requires you to be appealing to a partner in a very specific way. Being trans is pretty niche and most people are actually very specific in what they want. I knew a guy who claimed (and was widely though to) sleep with almost anyone. I was able to define every partner I knew of by a narrow range of sex, age, height and butt shape. But hey, he would sleep with women of any hair colour and breast size as long as all those other criteria were matched. You just can’t expect to be found desirable because you’ve put effort into your clothes, grooming and moves.
I agree with Anna’s comment #3 about feminism maintaining a distinction between sexual objectification versus being sexually desired, so I searched that Playboy article and headline (minus comments): The character string object got 45 hits, versus desir got 11 hits (to find desire and desirability, etc.)
I don’t mean CTRL-F to be a gotcha argument (and it was CMD-F on my Mac), but I do mean that if the author had centered the article on desire and desirability instead of objectification, then the article would have collapsed to the fact that the author is writing about their experience of not being desirable.
What a dog’s breakfast.
Please. Who promotes this message? Not feminism. Feminism doesn’t think “sex-having and desiring” is negative at all. “Sex-having and desiring” are not the same thing as “being sexually objectified.” Desiring and enjoying sex are subjective experiences. Subject, object. Different words and everything, Jacob.
“Sex-having and desiring” are not the same as being found sexually attractive, either, which seems to be what Tobia think he’s entitled to by virtue of his big shoes.
By the by, didn’t Playboy used to have a reputation for featuring good writing? What the fuckety fuck even is this mess?
Excuse my own weird failures of subject-verb agreement.
I wouldn’t mind turning women’s heads when I walk down the street. It doesn’t happen. I’m not sure that means the system is broken.
Reading that article I was immediately struck by a sense of ‘here we go again’, remembering that article about the three super woke nitwits complaining about not getting laid as much as they’d like. Imagine my surprise then when I followed the link and discovered… that this was written by one of those nitwits!
I hear the weather is lovely this time of year on Planet Tobias.
So, the point of feminism is supposed to be getting laid? Amazing that the MRA’s have a problem with it!
As several people have already pointed out, being considered to be a “sex-having and desiring” individual and being sexually objectified are not the same thing. I’d go a little further to claim that one is the opposite of the other. Being sexually objectified means being seen as basically an orifice: something akin to a Fleshlight. In fact, if you are at all familiar with PUA techniques, the theory behind the practice is that women ARE a sort of walking, talking, and generally annoying Fleshlights equipped with a sort of combination lock, and what you need to do to get yourself into that nice warm orifice is to produce the right combination of inputs to “unlock” it (i.e. get said woman alone someplace private enough where you won’t be interrupted, and either compliant enough or incapacitated enough to at least not fight back). That’s it. Everything else is technique, from negging to peacocking to frame, etc. It can be argued that PUAs take it to the extreme, and “normal” people aren’t like that. However, no matter what end of the “being objectified” spectrum you end up on, it’s no picnic, because to be objectified to any extent is to be seen as not having agency, not having feelings/needs/desires of your own to that same extent, so you might be lucky enough not to notice the difference during a short hookup, but you are bound to experience the consequences eventually, with enough exposure. Maybe it’s just me, but my inability to be reasonably confident that the person propositioning me is in fact seeing me as a sex-having and desiring individual, and not just an orifice that might prove inconveniently difficult to access (in the absence of telepathy), IS what makes casual sex so thoroughly unappealing, no matter how horny I happen to be.
Unfortunately, Tobias isn’t the only one confused about what “sexual objectification” means. As far as I can tell, this misconception is extremely common. Even to bring up the subject is to be thought a prude and to invite questions to the effect of “but don’t you want people/your partner to be attracted to you?” Again, maybe it’s just me, but I have a difficult time formulating a response that is, at the same time, coherent enough, concise enough, and simple enough not to be as wildly misinterpreted as the term “sexual objectification” itself.
As for Tobias himself… Again, as several people have already pointed out, he is also grievously confused about what it takes to be sexually attractive to other people. High heels and expertly applied lipstick (or masterful dance moves, for that matter) don’t cut it: sex, when you get down to it (please pardon the pun), is very much about the particulars and realities of the physical bodies involved. If gender performance can be said to have any useful function or purpose whatsoever, it is to signal (through use of local cultural convention) what one has to offer (so to speak) and, to a lesser extent, to whom one wishes to extend said offer. By being “gender nonconforming” in the specific context of trying to perform a “mating ritual” of sorts and “attract a mate”, Tobias is actively shooting himself in his high-heeled foot, because, even assuming that someone in his audience might find him attractive (and qualify as, at least, an acceptable partner to Tobias himself), they would be too confused by the mishmash of signals Tobias is broadcasting about what his desires and expectations (or even, perhaps, his physical attributes and capabilities) might be. Even if half the people at the bar would otherwise be game to bump and grind with him, they likely see it as a proposition fraught with too many potential pitfalls (does this person want to be addressed as a man or a woman? what equipment is actually under that skirt? what sort of sexual activities would be on the table if we go to my place? would they be offended if I asked any of this?) to bother with, given that there are other available partners. I’ve heard many trans people make the point that such questions are completely inappropriate (agreed), and also beside the point — but the latter is only true in some contexts: nobody in a business meeting, or walking down a street, or grocery shopping needs to know any of it, but a person considering having sex with you actually has a legitimate interest in knowing, preferably before declaring their interest/making an ass of themselves in public/possibly starting a scene.
So yes, in more ways than one, the entire article is a stunning display of a)misunderstanding important concepts re: society and culture, and b)a complete failure to exercise “theory of mind”.
But if you fundamentally believe that physical sex either doesn’t exist, is trivial or is the same thing as gender performance, this separation breaks down. If that’s the starting point, then being attractive does boil down to performing the right tricks and putting on the right props (expertly applied lipstick and high heels). The very idea that someone might find such a person physically unattractive becomes wrong and unfair, as the entire concept of physical reality is denied in the first place. I’d go so far as to say that such a person is treating everyone around them like a PUA treats a woman, expecting that “getting some” is just a question of performing the rightcombination of actions to unlock the achievement. Then when people don’t respond in the expected way, the fault is in the other people.
N.B. I don’t believe this at all, it just struck me that the trans rhetoric of physical sex being a made up concept would sort of logically lead into this sort of confusion.
Incidentally, of most women I know I’d say I’m the most likely to strut and flaunt, and even I wouldn’t consider the things this person does. Lounging on a settee with one’s “legs positioned just so”? Please. There’s a difference between flaunting and being a self-enamored poser.
Holms @ 9 – ohhhhh! That’s hilarious. Thanks for spotting it and letting us know.
I get somewhat of a weird vibe from the piece.
As I understand it, sexual objectification is essentially what happens when a woman’s consent is basically deemed irrelevant.
The classic distressed princess trope for example generally has the princess as being “pure” and “unspoiled” by such thoughts – which is to say she doesn’t have those pesky “desires” actual people have.
That is the weird feeling I get running through Tobias’ piece, Tobias desires sex, but the desires of those Tobias wants to have sex with are… not really as important as Tobias desiring sex.
It is a weird sort of objectification of the audience going through this.
Another thing, it sort of reads like Tobias has a weird adolescent idea of what being a woman is like. I mean I’m a guy so, I can’t exactly speak for the female experience, but I don’t think being a woman equals sex on tap whenever you want it.
I mean, correct me if I’m wrong about that, but it looks like the whole thing looks a bit like someone feeling like they’re missing out on a party which isn’t actually happening.
Maybe – how’s this? – “I would like to be engaged, as an equal, active participant, in sexual activity that’s an intimate shared experience, with TWO full-fledged agents in a common project.” Alternatively: no sexual objectification, but two sexual subjects.
(Mind, the quantity of two there is just conventional – presumably sexual objectification can still be avoided in orgies, and it may [kittens help you] be a risk in case of masturbation….)
I think sometimes some of this reminds me of magical thinking:
Do you know what lesbians and straight men find attractive? An “F” in the space for sex on someone’s driver’s license. Well, there’s an F on my driver’s license, so straight men and lesbians must find me attractive.
Oh yes. There’s a LOT of magical thinking in all this…which is the main reason it seems unlikely to last forever. Denial of reality just does have built-in mortality mechanisms…such as for instance the drawbacks to reducing the pool of possible sexual partners to the vanishing point.
I’m constantly turning women’s heads when I’m out for a walk, though to be honest I’m a big bloke with a face that could frighten a police horse, so I think they’re just making sure I keep walking.
@Jeff Engel – #16
Hey, thanks! The first formulation (“I would like to be engaged, as an equal, active participant, in sexual activity that’s an intimate shared experience, with TWO full-fledged agents in a common project.”) might actually be helpful, though I think I’ll have to work on translating it into less “elitist” vocabulary (no need to give people extra reasons to pelt me with rotten fruit — or the more modern equivalents). Then maybe print some cards I could hand over or something (because there are holes in my head and words tend to fall out just when they are most needed), plus, something tells me that if I can’t remember it off the top of my head, my interlocutor might not readily absorb it from a drive-by spouting.
I’m pretty sure that saying “no sexual objectification, but two sexual subjects” is bound to be lost on anyone who is confused by what “objectification” means in the first place. It is common in everyday parlance to use the words subject and object interchangeably, so it’s actually difficult to reason from example there. I’m not sure where everybody else who is aware of the difference picked up their awareness, but I vividly recall being confused by an essay juxtaposing the two, and having to hunt down the definitions for the words that made the essay make sense and going over them repeatedly until I was certain I had them (pretty sure I still have them saved in a text file somewhere). This was in my early 20s, and, while I could chuck my age-inappropriate (at least in my opinion) ignorance to the fact that I didn’t even learn English until my late teens, I don’t think that would be fair: I was ignorant of the concept behind the words, and this ignorance was, at least in part, facilitated by the fact that I was surrounded by people who neither understood it themselves nor had any use for it.
I think you might be in the clear re:sexual objectification when it comes to masturbation, because the only person physically involved IS the subject, and anyone the subject might fantasize about can’t be *treated* in a sexually objectifying manner in absentia. I think it’s safe to stop short of granting subjectivity to the figments of one’s imagination. So, if you are actually concerned that people you are speaking to regularly engage in sex with 3+ participants might be offended by your defining sex as the interaction of TWO subjects, you could safely add “or more” without offending the devout onanists in the crowd. Since these are not the types of people I’m usually surrounded with, I think I’ll stick with your original formulation of “two” to soften the shock value.
The subject/object dichotomy is complicated by the fact that it is of course possible to both “objectify” someone and keep their subjectivity in mind. In a sense, any time you appraise someone’s looks you’re objectifying them. An artist painting a model is objectifying him.
Really what feminists are talking about when they talk about “objectification” is two interrelated things: 1) The near-constant reduction of women to objects (our looks and sex appeal are constantly being appraised, at least when we’re young), and our worth as human beings tends to be based on how we rate, and, 2) Said objectification usually fails to grant subjectivity to the people being appraised–in other words, they’re perceived as JUST objects.
These thoughts are of course way, way beyond Jacob here. He obviously knows nothing of feminism beyond the fact that it has something to do with being a lady, therefore he must be qualified to weigh in on it.