Quote:
Originally Posted by ernie
I don't think looking at pictures of pretty women (or men...whatever floats your boat) is necessarily akin to objectification. I think we have to realize that humans are indeed sexual beings and stop as a society trying to avoid recognizing that aspect of us. Part of being a sexual being is, like it or not, appreciating what the person in the movie, in the ad, in the magazine, or in the mall looks like. It's not shameful to be attracted to physical beauty and wanting to see such beauty (whatever you personally believe is physical beauty...and everyone is different).
I don't believe that is necessarily objectification. Objectification has another component and that lies in the intent of the looking, what one thinks and how one ends up treating that person. If I look at a what I think is a nice looking woman I am not discounting that woman is a human being with unique talents and unique personality (heck as far as I know from interviews etc that personality and what not is exactly what make someone like JLaw extremely attractive to me).
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I agree completely, but that's only half of the story. I think the comparison that was made early in this thread between the YLYL thread and the What Are You Listening To? thread was completely valid from an intent perspective.
From the viewer's/listener's point of view, appreciating or even critiquing a model's physical attractiveness is no worse than doing the same with a musician's musical ability (which is why it's important to limit the thread to photos of people who choose to release them to the world for consumption - leaked photos are more like secretly recording me singing in the shower then saying I suck, which, while true, would be unfair).
Where the comparison breaks down is when it's viewed from the perspective of others. While my lack of musical talent might lead to me having a slightly worse time at karaoke once a month, our female posters seem to believe that they're constantly having their worth evaluated based on their attractiveness. I certainly am not constantly judging women based on how they look, but I'll take their word for it that the perception is very real.
When I started reading this thread, I was more focused on the fact that I don't have any bad intent when I appreciate beautiful women, and I was probably a little defensive about the suggestion that doing so was in some way misoginistic. My thought was, if women perceive it to be something that's it's not, that's not my problem. But then I started thinking about how wrong the "Redskins" supporters are to focus only on intent, and it made me realize that I'm probably just as wrong here.
I still maintain that there's nothing wrong with enjoying the sight of attractive women and even with discussing them with your buddies just like you'd do with musicians, but if the thread makes a significant group of our posters feel less welcome, that should outweight whatever innocent intent the people in that thread have.