#Fem11 Pt 2: Challenging Sex Object Culture

This seminar was really popular, and held by the activist group OBJECT, which opposes the sex object culture. That is, the objectification of women – through lapdancing clubs, sexist advertising, and the media in general. What is objectification? The following words and phrases explain how women are objectified/the characteristics of objectification:

• Instrumentalism (eg, only to provide sexual gratification)
• Denial of autonomy
• Inertness
• Fungibility (that women are interchangeable)
• Violability
• Ownership
• Denial of subjectivity (dismissive of feelings, perspective)
• Reduction to a body
• Reduction to appearance (as discussed at the Endangered Bodies seminar)
• Silencing

The group have already worked on several campaigns including staging a protest against lapdancing clubs, and this hilarious anti-lad’s mags stunt in Tesco (best to watch from 1min30 as the beginning is the preparation):

The group, along with the Fawcett Society were also heavily involved in the campaign for the reclassification of lapdancing venues as “sexual entertainment venues”. This meant stricter regulation on who could and who couldn’t open lapdancing clubs – they were previously classified in the same group as coffee shops. Their latest campaign is ‘Stop Press Porn’ and aims to stop porn from being so easily accessible in supermarkets etc. In this video, which was also shown in the seminar, the spokeswoman for Object argues about lad’s mags with a former editor of one:

While I generally agree with their point about porn and about objectification, and I quite like the way they have tackled some issues (the pyjama Tesco protest is hilarious and creative) there’s something I can’t really put my finger on that I’m not sure about. Sorry, that’s a really useless analysis of something that was very interesting and very prevalent in society. Reducing women to objects is restrictive and harmful but I think that this comes across wrongly as prudish, and that perhaps some of the language used is inaccessible and hard to follow. When we say objectification, what we mean is the general societal idea that women are to be looked at, to be touched, and admired, and they should be passive and inert. Of course, this strips women of their autonomy and ability to make decisions, it is part of a wider culture that says it is ok to rape, and that it’s ok to do whatever you want to a woman as long as you get your rocks off. So you see, it’s not a good thing at all.

I don’t really have much to add to this really, other than to raise the point that this is an issue, and very harmful to women (and men in some circumstances – the best example I can give is that teenage boys don’t really learn how relationships work, how to respect their female peers – because in porn and in lads magazines, the sex is on tap and freely available). I realise that there is an argument that most people realise films are not realistic but I dismiss this entirely because a) this is probably most people’s first introduction to sex when they are at an impressionable age b) sex, and the reality of it, is rarely discussed in mainstream education and media. My sex education film was one video of a man and woman rigidly laying side by side holding hands, then having awkward, technical sex (man on top of course) – and then it cut to a cartoon image of the mechanics of sex. So who is going to make feminist porn or sex education videos purely for the purpose of adding it to the school curriculum to show boys/young men how sex really works? Who is going to sit down and explain to a bunch of teenaged boys that women come in all different sizes and shapes, that pornstar bodies are not the norm? Exactly. We are setting them up for disappointment and encouraging misogynistic attitudes.