In which I put my ranting boots on.

[cidercupcakes]

This is all pretty old news to the HAES folks on my flist, I think, but I've seen a couple of posts/comments pop up that have really infuriated me, and I just need to let off some steam

Comments

[cidercupcakes]

YYYYYY. And this is where, as you point out, it starts to tie into the sex-positive movement, because guess what, sometimes women -- and men -- like being sexualized! And of course there's the whole debate of what's sexualization vs. what's just sexual objectification and blah blah blah, but the short answer is that acting like no sane woman would ever want to be seen as sexual is really offensive, and those who do must be damaged or crazy or unintelligent, is pretty problematic in its own way, if not always as blatant or dangerous a way as simply sexualizing/sexually objectifying all women by default.

Like, absolutely we can and should talk about objectification and the male gaze and exploitation, because having said all this, the way women are treated in magazines and on TV and in movies is more often than not pretty offensive, and the way that, say, women are reduced merely to the parts of them that are sexually attractive in men's magazines is really problematic too. But by reducing them to helpless children who need Real Feminists to save them, you're not doing them a whole lot more good, and you're not really helping anything because you're not going after the root of the problem.

[escritoireazul]

Dude, yes, all of this.