What does this mean? If taken literally, it means nothing because objects don’t have sexuality; only beings do. But to say that porn portrays women as “sexual beings” makes for poor rhetoric. Usually, the term sex objects means showing women as body parts, reducing them to physical objects. What is wrong with this? Women are as much their bodies as they are their minds or souls. No one gets upset if you present women as “brains” or as spiritual beings. If I concentrated on a woman’s sense of humor to the exclusion of her other characteristics, is this degrading? Why is it degrading to focus on her sexuality?
This extract, from A Feminist Defence of Pornography, demonstrates the ambiguity of objectification. The writer clearly doesn’t quite get it.
Objectification is about becoming a practically inanimate object. When choosing a second hand coffee table, a customer might request the dimensions, the age, and a brief description. When choosing soft pornography, a customer might request the dimensions, the age, and a brief description. Let me show this comparison:
Second-hand coffee table, pre-loved.co.uk:
“Beautiful mahogany sideboard cabinet that is over 15 years old.
Dimensions: Width 139cm, Height 81cm and Depth 45cm.”
One of ‘the girls’, page3.com:
Rosie, 18, From Middlesex.
Vitals: 30E/F-24-35 Appearances: 68 Last Appearance:14-DEC-09
Objectification isn’t as complicated as the extract at the top purports it to be. Hopefully with the coffee table analogy we can see that this isn’t anything like appreciating a person’s mind or spirituality. “Women are as much their bodies as they are their minds or souls,” the author writes. However this is not true: a body is still a body when it is dead. The other two cease to exist because they, truly, are the essence of life.
Objects don’t have spirituality, they have dimensions, stats, ‘vitals’. They are bound by their presence in the physical world, the most basic of judgements being that of visible, external attributes.
The qualities of a person and their personality cannot be objectified like their body can.
Another error from the perspective of the extract is that the author makes the mistake of thinking that mainstream pornography at least is about ‘sexuality’. Certainly if we take page 3 as our example, there is nothing of the girls’ individual sexualities. The focus is on the sexuality of the male readership. People can talk about their sexuality without being objectified. But page 3 is about the object, the female body, and the numbers that define its worth.
The extract seems to think that objectification signifies focus on one aspect to the detriment of all others. This is not the case. The ‘vitals’ that page 3 provide their customers with are nothing like the descriptors of a person – catholic, atheist, vegetarian, meat-eater, anarchist, statist, capitalist, communist.
These girls have no such descriptions.
They are pieces of meat, they are dimensions, and they are second hand coffee tables.
This article was originally posted on i-am-the-lighthouse.tumblr.com
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I am gay and watch gay porn. What is the consensus on this?
I think that most gay porn objectifies men. I’ve seen a lot. I am a gay man.
The images and story lines are not like sex I have had, or at least, not the sort of sex that I have had that I enjoy. They look like they are engaged in some kind of job that they dont’ get any pleasure out of, even when they have completed it! The men don’t look happy to have sex in most of the gay porn I have seen. A lot of the stories seem to be about tricking people into sex, or proving some kind of hypermasculinity or involve some kind of humiliation.
I was sexually assaulted as a child and some of the feelings gay porn evokes in me remind me of that: obsession, fascination, shame and humiliation.
One of the posts below talks of humiliation and degradation in pornography. The opposite might be celebration, or terms like generosity or thankfulness or enjoyment. I don’t see those qualities in most gay pornography.
I tried putting “smile” as a search term into a gay porn site once and got nothing back.
Whilst there are vast amounts of gay pornography in the world, just as there are vast numbers of novels or films, the actual story lines and emotional content is pretty limited, yet there is an endless fascination with it.
Why is this? What emotional need is it fulfilling?
I don’t think it is just about arousing sexual interest. If it was the content would be more varied and the story lines richer and more interesting.
As for the effect on gay men or society in general I have not given it much thought, or read any comment – enlighten me someone, give me some references, broaden my bedtime reading – you can only read The Complete Works of Saki so often!
Hi Mz Vanilla,
You are welcome to check out my posts on gay pornography. The blog’s name is A Radical Profeminist. Also, I recommend reading the work of Christopher Kendall (his books are on Amazon.com: , and the chapter titled “Communion” in Andrea Dworkin’s book Intercourse, which analyses and discusses the ethics of the work of James Baldwin.
Specifically, of Kendall’s writings:
Gay Male Pornography: An Issue Of Sex Discrimination
See also the chapter, “Sexual Objectification and Male Supremacy” in Refusing to be a Man, by John Stoltenberg.
And if you care to, I welcome you to write to me at the email address on my blog.
I’ve struggled with the term as well. I feel the term is better as “Objectification” instead of “objectification”. Heidegger began to capitalize the “O” when he was talking about objects, because “objective” (referring to objectivism) and “Objective” (referring to inanimate objects) requires a distinction so there is no confusion between these two terms.
We deal with people in both ways, and we do so all the time. Imagine that a person is in the way of you and your child, and there is a bear about to attack your child. You will thrust the person aside who is in your way in an object-like way, because there is not time to tell them to move in a subject-like way. Dealing with people as purely “spiritual” (your words) doesn’t work, because people are neither wholly objects nor subjects — they are embodied beings, meaning they are both object and subject. Where you put the emphasis is a matter of preference. Platonists will always put the emphasis on the soul, ignoring the body. In pure Platonism, the body itself is evil really, a vehicle which corrupts the pure soul. The argument here, is that anti-porn has much deeper assumptions about metaphysics that need to be out in the open, and I applaud you for partially revealing the dualist roots it comes from.
The problem here, is that in porn if one wishes to hurt and dominate women, then these are functions of subjects, not objects. To torture one must find a sentient being, not an object, and revel in their pain. If women were purely objectified, there could be no pleasure in their pain, because objects have no such thing. A sadist requires a subject, not an object. Therefore in theory pornography increases the *subject* qualities of women as they are more prone to pain and pleasure within porno-representations.
There is something called robo-porn, and this isn’t sex with a robot (we see this more now, the man is replaced by a robot, which I think is a funny parody of the situation we have already). In robo-porn, the woman acts dead/robotic — truly Objectified. THIS is an objectified woman. In mainstream porn, the woman is active, talks/screams, shows emotion, etc, etc.
Sex is a function of the body. Clearly, the body is more emphasized in sexual representations then it will be in others. A living body feels, it works in tandum with your dualist split of “the mind/spirit” in a single embodied entity. To touch a body is to touch the mind within it equally. If anti-porn is rooted in dualism it will be difficult to turn heads considering the 20th century backlash against these old forms of philosophy. The Soul & Body thing is very Platonic, very Christian, and very moralist.
The gauntlet you have thrown down is a massive one. But let me say one last time, I know of no one attracted to objects, I know of no one that finds it more attractive when a woman is object-like than when she is animated.
Of course pornography for men focuses on the male readership — it’s for men. Porn will always be this way unless men and women are socialized into sex in exactly the same way. All porn has an intended audience. It distinguishes itself, somewhat, being like this. Does one complain that Harlequin does not meet modern male sensibilities? Of course not, because it is not for us. To a man it actually seems — this is funny — degrading. Do you complain that porn for gay men is not to your liking? Obviously not.
Part of me is an object. Part of me is a subject (“soul” for you).
Thank you for your post and for admitting that women are subject to pain in pornography. In the majority of your post however, you focus a lot on the word “objectification” used in the post and the title. I think it is interesting how you use semantics in arguing against the content of the article.
To me the writer of this article clearly uses the definition “objectification” as the
“expresssion of (something abstract) in a concrete form”
e.g. describing the beauty a lot of people see in the portrayed woman in concrete numbers.
Furthermore I would like to say that an object does not necessarily have to be inanimate – rather an object is often described as:
“a person or thing to which a specified action or feeling is directed”
which is exactly what happens in pornography. Violence, penetration, degradation and humiliation in pornography are directed towards women, thus turning them into objects.
Also it is my opinion that the quoted page 3 description makes the mind / body split rather than the writer of this piece entitled “What is Objectification?”. It refers to where her body was conceived, what it’s measurements are and when it was last seen on page 3. The point is we do not learn anything about this woman’s life or personality.
Pornography does indeed focus on the male reader- and viewership as they are pornography’s audience, but unlike you I think it is very interesting that men care about the destructive content in pornography, because the destructiveness is mainly directed at women and on a superficial level (straight) pornography does not harm men in the same way. I have no knowledge of gay male pornography. I would assume however that the power inequality portrayed in gay male pornography is similar to that portrayed in straight pornography. If I do not complain about gay male pornography, it is because I do not know anything about the matter as I have never seen any and I do not feel qualified writing about something I have only heard or read about from other people.
I find it quite hilariously shocking that you never have watched gay pornography. I think it would be useful for a an anti-heteropornography crusader to get that more detached, different yet familiar perspective of men being objectified.
Despite all the big words about “monster cocks” and “ass destruction” most of the gay pornography seems rather nice and considerate, although there often, but not always, is a clear active/passive power dichotomy.
In order to be balanced and fair, I’d never watched any lesbian pornography untill now. I watched a few videos and it was a strange experience. While the female body in itself seldom turns me on, I found I could masturbate to it and get an erection, even though it certainly struck me as quite lame and tame.
What surprised me the most was the absence of all the stuff you associate with female eroticism, the things women themselves say makes them feel sexy: Fashion, dresses, big hair, sexy shoes, flowers, lace etc.
I had also expected lesbian porn to be full of talk, so it surprised me that the participants just engaged in moaning instead of giggles, whispers and girl talk.
Obviously mainstream lesbian porn is tailored to men who want tits without yabbering and perhaps very masculine lesbians. No wonder many lesbians confess they watch gay (man-on-man) porn!
Perhaps because there is something far more exciting, almost taboo, in men being intimate with each other’s bodies. Many women have no boundaries and invade each other’s personal space all the time, so seeing them fingering, licking and rubbing each other feels very normal and not like a thrill at all. More like a Betty Dodson sex workshop.
A frequent criticism of my writing is that anything can be an object. Indeed, I quoted such a viewpoint at the beginning of the article (from ‘a feminist defence of pornography’). It has also been suggested that we dehumanise our doctor because we don’t know them on any personal level, and merely use their services. But this is wholly different.
It is not a matter of preference to place emphasis on a person as an object. I find your comparison of saving someone in a dangerous situation ridiculous because this is an instinctive ‘fight or flight’ mechanism. There is no instinct to set aside the human value of a woman to treat her in the same way as a second-hand coffee table.
This comparison is key to my post. She is an object not because we have given her body preferential treatment to her mind, but because her sexual attractiveness is seen as her only attribute. As Bjorn said, she is set by her origin and dimensions, not her interests, her experiences, or anything that makes her a human being like you or me.
I don’t agree that torture victims are seen as subjects. In order to commit atrocities, it is necessary for the human mind to remove itself from the situation, to believe they are objects. My usual example of an atrocity is the Zong Massacre of 1781, when around 60 slaves were thrown overboard in order to claim on insurance.
The judge remarked it would be the same if wood was thrown overboard.
Here we see the use of treating people as objects: they do not deserve respect, they do not deserve equality, they do not deserve emotion. Objectification is exactly this, the removal of human qualities in order to justify cruel treatment for selfish ends.
Of course you know of people attracted to objects. This is what pornography is. The women in pornography are not humans like we are attracted to in our lives, or our friends, they are images and videos for our enjoyment without regard for the coercion or unhappiness inherent in the making of such material.
Prince Thrash. Clever though all this is, I don’t think we are going to fail to turn heads because our argument is rooted in dualism. I came to an anti porn stance partly through working with vulnerable adults, victims of the sex industry, real people.Your argument has no relevance to them, nor to me. Your arguments are neither pro nor anti porn because you are not really writing about pornography. Pornography does not exist within theory, in lecture halls or in online discussion. The damage done to people through sexual exploitation is huge, and we must not be afraid to recognise this.
And I’m sure you don’t really think we object to pornography merely ‘because it is not to our liking’.
I understand your empathy towards women in the sex trade, but I disagree with your definition of pornography.
I think pornography is a genre, with a variety of content. I can produce pornography simply with a pencil. I can write a novel, a poem, or animate it. The use of real actors is not innate to the definition of pornography. All the old pornography – painted, sculpted, or written – did not use real people. This does not make them any less outside the realm of pornography however. I think pornography is a larger genre than what you describe and that it can be engaged with on a theoretical level.
If a person is turned on by images of women being humiliated and used, he is turned on by women’s degradation and objectification, no matter if the images are live or animated.
While the production of ‘victimless’ porn is certainly different from the video-taping of the violation of a living human being, the question of what happens during consumption remains exactly the same. The psychological response elicited in the viewer who enjoys witnessing a human being being treated as a contemptible thing is still problematic. The conditioning for tolerating violence done to others – physical or psychological or both – is as real.
Fede,
What can you say of horror movies? Are they not there to titillate us with decapitations, dismemberment, and disembowelings?
And what of video games, where we actually become the gun-toting maniac (Manhunt, Postal, GTA). And even when the violence is functional (war time violence as in most FPS’s) is the game not designed around some human delight in shooting people in the kneecaps, only to finish them off with a gunshot to the head as we squeal in delight at our keyboards?
If taking delight in violent and horrific acts in simulated depictions and worlds is indicative of deep issues that will one day come to the surface, then get ready, as the West is about to explode into an orgy of misanthropic — and REAL — violence, if video game and horror movie profits are any indication.
The reason we want to treat and see humans in this “contemptible” kinda way, is because we simply cannot in real life. But man, when some people start driving a car, and become frustrated, you can really see that monster surface. We pursue depictions and simulated worlds of this misanthropy because it is a “katharsis” (or purging, referring to Aristotle’s use) of these feelings. Without these “heat sinks”, then truly we’d be closer to ripping each other apart in a violent bloodbath.
Prince Thrash,
If I were sarcastic I would thank you for correcting my blindness. I didn’t realise that those people who brought us ‘Weapons of Ass Destruction’ were providing a service to humankind, making the world a safer place. Nor that the sacrifices those women made in that film were necessary to prevent me from committing sexual assault. I’m not watching pornography at present, and now I’m scared I’m going to go out and hurt a woman. I just feel so mean!!!!
I’ve honestly got to know if you are serious. You’re not, are you? Oh and I disagree with you. I think we can treat people with contempt in real life, and I know that we do. Just switch your computer off and have a look around.
Yes, and porn must be read and analyzed like any other narrative. Bring on the Science of Analysis of Pornography!
I would argue that you’ve raised an interesting point here in your opening paragraph regarding Heidegger’s distinction between the objective (the remit of objectivism, opposed to relativism or subjectivism), and the Objective (the remit of Objects-in-the-world); its not hard to see from Heidegger’s creative use of words why he thought German’s would benefit from leaning to speak German as the poet Hölderlin. However, whilst I am aware that Heidegger was a strong critic of Cartesian mind/body dualism, which the allusion above to “spirituality” certainly suggests (Descartes, inspired by Thomas Aquinas saw the mind and the soul as the same substance, discrete from extended matter).
If we are to approach this issue from a Heideggarian conception of ontology, inspired by Husserl’s phenomenology (that is, examining things in the world through our inherently subjective experiences of them, to use Kant’s language; our phenomenal perceptions, as opposed to some kind of objective (small “o”) explorations of things in themselves, the latter being Kant’s criticism of what he believes non-transcendental metaphysics attempts to do), then I would argue we need to re-read chapter 3 of Being and Time, The “Worldhood of the World”.
Whilst discussing the example of the hammer, Heidegger argues that “where something is put to use, our concern subordinates itself to the “in-order-to” which is constitutive for the equipment we are employing at the time; the less we just stare at the hammer-Thing, and the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiledly it is encountered as that which it is – as equipment.” (Being and Time, pg. 98, Blackwell Publishing 2008) In other words, Heidegger is arguing that a kind of ontological relativism (as opposed to objectivism) exists here; the character of Objects-in-the-world is expressed to us through their utility.
Now, whilst Heidegger argues that we perceive others (subjects in possession of Dasein, or being) through a kind of empathy into their moods (being modal states of being) and emotions (which are by their very nature projected onto things-in-the-world); I would argue that pornography removes this as a possibility. A character presented in pornography is interpreted through our emotions (sexual desire, being projected towards something within said piece of pornography), and therefore obtains its character through the “in-order-to”, much as the hammer obtains its definition through hammering, so does a character presented in pornography gain its character through the “in-order-to” achieve sexual gratification.
Therefore, one could argue that pornography as portraying others through the “in-order-to” could be said to distort one’s ontology, shifting the other from that in possession of being, to a tool that acquires it’s character “in-order-to” achieve sexual gratification. Of course, this same argument form could be expanded to include various other forms of media that portray characters in the “in-order-to”, but really I haven’t thought that far ahead in this line of thinking as of yet.
To take pleasure in hurting a living beings, is somehow magically better than conceptionalizing someone as a straight up inanimate object who can feel no pain.
You’re a psychopath.
Hmmmm…. You believe that it is better to take pleasure in hurting a human being, then to assume a human being is an inanimate object who feels no emotion.
But “better for whom”? This is all about you and your perceptions of other people, rather than notice that regardless how you feel about them, they are still human beings who do in fact feel pain.
To reiterate, this is all about you and your amazing amount of narcissism. whoa.
I think we are in danger of missing one point about objectification in this discussion. Objectification is primarily a “psychological process”; it can and often does have very real negative consequences for the person doing the objectifying. Thus objectification is something we “do to ourselves” and not to others.
In the process of objectification men can be objectified equally as much as women. Why? Because the humanity of that person is reduced down to a sexual dimension. Objectification of a model means their multi-dimensionality personality is reduced down to one or two dimensions and this then presents the viewer with a kind of blank screen. This blank screen is then used to literally project the persons own desires and fantasies. Thus the objectified person can become what or who ever you wish them to be i.e. your ultimate sexual being. But as there is no actual living human person to have a relationship with the viewer feels very safe to project these desires without any come back or other consequences occurring. The viewer doesn’t have to be responsible because there is no intimacy or love or feelings involved here.
Sadly objectification also has another downside in that it can lead to a splitting within the psyche and this can in some instances lead to further mental health difficulties. Thus a price is paid for a lot of objectification done on a frequent basis, its not risk or damage free. This is one of the negatives of people using and consuming online porn.
I find the passage quoted hopelessly individualistic.
The problem isn’t “one woman” being reduced to her appearance. The problem is white and male supremacy, sexual and economic violence against women, men’s sense of entitlement to have access to and into women, and the increasingly globalised practices, systems, and institutions which regulate and control life options for women under white and male rule.
To put a psychological or primarily semantic frame around the problem of sexual objectification, to debate the meanings of words, is to avert one’s eyes from the larger picture and the deeper problem.
So, the problem in a heterosexual context is men sexually harassing women; men visually violating women and girls; men raping their female spouses and girlfriends; father figures incesting their female children; white men raping American Indian and other Indigenous women, as well as women of every other ethnicity, heritage, and race.
The problem is the corporate pimps running an industry called “pornography” which sells to men an idea of women that those pimps create–they manufacture it and mass market it. They sell this idea–a narrowly misogynistic, racist, classist, and otherwise violent one, of “woman” as thing to be used and abused by men. This idea of woman is a kind of living thing to be treated as if she weren’t actually human in the way the man using and abusing her is human. The pimp’s idea of her is that she is a kind of thing that perhaps has a range of human feelings, experiences, and conditions of being. But should she have them (in the white and male supremacist industrial [lack of] imagination), only a few feelings and experiences are meant to be elicited in this “woman”: terror, humiliation, degradation, subordination, submission, insult, and injury being central and foundational to whatever else she is presumed or allowed to feel and experience.
Far too much of any academic teaching, as opposed to the writings and reports and accounts by survivors and activists (not that these two categories are entirely mutually exclusive), tends toward abstracting real-life horror shows into intellectual discussions about meanings and definitions. Or the horror show gets treated as if it were cinematic, not lived.
I’m suggesting, from this activist’s perspective, that it is more important to note that genocide and gynocide are happening than it is to be completely clear about what those terms mean. And it is more important to take some action, hopefully with appropriate guidance and full accountability to feminist activists, to publicly challenge and work to end the atrocities than it is to discuss the meanings of their components.
There’s a place for discussion, no doubt. But one way to engage discussion is by engaging in actions against misogyny and discuss what happens when this is done, consistently, by a group of men? What forces do you come up against? Who objects and why? How do you those who wish to protect misogynist mistreatment of women propagandistically define terms and actions so as to make it appear no harm is being done–except the harm of your intrusions into men’s presumed-natural (or god-ordained) liberties and rights?
One way to find out what terms mean is to witness the injustices, mistreatment, and atrocities done to the people most often targeted for the abuses, to speak with those most seriously harmed, or with the living members of a community devastatingly impacted by such harm.
So, with objectification, I’d want to speak with women who experience it daily and have experienced terror when it was happening. Most of my female friends have plenty of stories to tell of being “objectified” by a man (whether or not they use that specific term). They can describe the fear or the terror, depending on circumstances and past history, the sense of being dehumanised, the condition of being turned into a thing, the awareness of not seen as human-for-oneself, but instead being seen as something-for-the predatory man or men.
I believe that virtually any incest survivor and survivor of child sexual abuse or rape as an adult knows, quite viscerally, what it is to be made into a thing whose physical function is to be used in such a way or series of ways as to produce the feelings the perpetrators want to feel, whether that be “powerful”, “in control”, capable of terrifying someone, capable of subordinating someone, of arousal, or of orgasmic pleasure. Often it’s a combination thereof.
It’s taken me a long time to figure out what the man who sexually assaulted me when I was twelve saw when he saw me. Or what he wanted when he saw his objectified version of me. Who was the “me” he wanted? Or, more in line with this particular discussion, “what” was the “me” he temporarily possessed and violated? Was I human to him?
I expect I was more of a projection co-produced by his mind and the society he lived in, an imagined being of some kind, who he placed in his mind and in his life as something/someone he could act out against, believing whatever he needed to believe about me in order to meet his needs. His needs and mine did not meet. His needs ruled. So this means I was not as human as him, in his mind and through his actions. That, to me, is one form of objectification.
What is Objectification? http://icio.us/y42j3f
http://www.antipornmen.org/2010/09/17/what-is-objectification/ What is objectification? I dunno but the anti-porn men make it sound HOT!
http://www.antipornmen.org/2010/09/17/what-is-objectification/ haha, I bet these guys get so much pussy (via @quietriot_girl)
RT @quietriot_girl: http://www.antipornmen.org/2010/09/17/what-is-objectification/ What is objectification? I dunno but the anti-porn me …
RT @quietriot_girl: http://www.antipornmen.org/2010/09/17/what-is-objectification/ What is objectification? I dunno but the anti-porn me …
a few days ago our group held a similar talk about this subject and you pointed out something we have not covered yet, appreciate that.
- Laura
Textbook grammar:
Man fucks woman.
Subject verb object. (SVO word order.)
But pornography does only move from bland textbook to exciting literature when the language/script is not clearly SVO – when the subject and the object roles are not so clear-cut and the object is struggling to become the subject and objectify the subject!
Sadly this almost never happens in pornography. It would be nothing sort of revolutionary if the object of “Wild Ass Bangings XXX” started to rebel by fingering the literal anus of the asshole anally raping her. Imagine the cocksure, determined expression on his face replaced with a sheepish, vulnerable, curious grin and the object assuming the role of subject!
Then would Rosie from Middlesex cease to be portrayed as an objectified equivalent of a coffee table and became an active agent, hopefully somebody who would challenge her co-actor verbally too. And by demanding more dramatic talent from her than lying down and displaying a full set of holes, I hope how she is treated professionally would also improve.
It is food for thought that the most initimate and private human act, where nuances mean more than anywhere else, is not depicted by trained dramatic actors, but by rather random people selected for their large body parts and driven by poverty and desperation. No wonder most porn is so bad!
It shocks me to think of what porn these days, especially American one, has degraded into. Why would anyone want violent degradation in porn, because violent degradation alienates people from each other and “ensemble, nous sommes moins seuls”. We are too much alone these days, why would we want to watch porn about alienation too?
By your logic, then, a CV / resume is also objectification because the focus is on statistics, track record of employment and academic qualifications.
By your logic also, something such as a cover letter in application to any place of employment is objectifying because the focus is on our abilities to perform a job.
If you have a job, you are “objectified” in that job in respect to your skills to undertake the tasks that you work for.
For example, a banker is objectified by his or her skills in that arena – as is a butcher, baker or candlestick maker.
As a sex worker, the skills needed to perform my job are primarily: performance, physical stamina, compassion, a decent insight into niche fetishes that my clients come to me for, and networking.
These features are aspects that I take a great deal of pride in and contribute hugely to not only the quality of the work I do, but my quality of living. Like many others, I accumulated an array attributes and skills from many, many other avenues of my life before I began in the sex industry and made an educated decision about which career path was most suited to me.
When I am performing a sex act on camera, I am no more objectified than the individual who is binding books, acting in a sitcom, performing a song on stage, or preparing food. And while I’m on this point, why do not carry your theme of “objectionable objectification” onto other performance artists, such as figure skaters, professional dancers, actors or actresses?