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Realizing When We Objectify Women

I know I just restarted this blog but let’s get right in the thick of it, shall we.

I’m a man. Objectifying women is bad. I like looking at women. Ergo, how not to be that creep?

For as long as I can remember I have worried… Actually no that’s not strong enough, I’ve been scared that I might unknowingly do or say something that objectified a woman and she would get mad at me.

That may sound ridiculous. Especially in the light of the constant stream of stories of men who feel entitled to demean, bully and take advantage of women, including but in no way is limited to all of those who were rightfully tried on the public square via the Me Too movement.

But I’m serious. As a young man, I had trouble approaching women because of it. If there is any justice in this world, may this confession pull the average balance of decency ever so slightly back to a saner middle.

You know what my problem was? I didn’t understand what objectifying women really meant. It’s like systemic racism; I’m white and I unknowingly benefit from the system so I won’t know what racism really means unless 1) I accept that I could be part of the problem, and 2) I proactively seek to uncover where I contribute to racism. Similarly, I think it’s not immediately obvious to young men how they’re objectifying women when 1) they don’t have the maturity to consider that objectification might be sneaking into their world view, and 2) they are not actively working at understanding women.

I’m in my 50’s now so I’m by no means throwing only young dudes under the bus. I’m an equal opportunity people thrower. We grown-up men are also part of this.

Recognizing objectification is an important skill to have if we’re going to get better at not doing it. And I think we don’t talk about that enough.

As I’ve slowly become older and wiser (allegedly), I’d like to think I’ve gotten better at knowing the difference between looking and seeing. Let’s take a random example. It’s one thing to look at a woman’s elbow and find it hot as hell. It’s a better thing to see she has a complete set of body parts, with a lovely brain to boot, and be interested in knowing more about her. It’s about the whole person, see.

So yeah, you maaaay be objectifying her if you like looking at her ass and the rest of her doesn’t matter. Especially if you’re not in the least interested by what she thinks and what she’s done to get to where she is. Just sayin’.

If you’re not sure, Stark Raving has a cool checklist of what to look for in your behavior to start becoming aware of where objectification sneaks into your male gaze.

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I’m going back in

So here’s the deal. Seven years ago I convinced myself that shutting down Fruits of Libido was the right thing to do. I had limited time and space to write, and life kept getting in the way. In retrospect, it’s clear that that’s exactly why I should have kept writing; we have to make time and space for things that are important to us. But now I’m back and LVNSX is my new digs.

So hey everyone, how’s it going?

Two things happened when I stopped blogging. I lost touch with myself and I lost touch with many people. Coming to this realization was a slow process. Sorry for the cliché, but yes, it’s easy to take for granted the things you have. What I had when I was blogging? Connections, friendships, discussions, challenges, ideas, a sense of where I fit in all of it. A place to be my horny self even. All of that was eroded by the time I have spent not writing.

So I want back in. I’m craving back in. I see some people I used to follow have graduated their blogs from blogspot to first-class domains of their own. Good for you! Yep, blogging is still a thing. And why the hell not.

The “sex blog” designation or categorization is a funny thing. Sexuality is definitely part of the deal, but a sex blog is about sex like a cooking blog is about cooking. It’s not the point. We do it because it’s healthy, it nourishes, we like the smells, and it tastes really good… Yeah, does it ever.

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Angel

Some eyes will make you feel loved. Some other eyes, when you love strongly enough, can make you feel home. And then some eyes, if you are lucky enough to notice them, will make you feel as though you’ve been blessed by an angel.

I was on a several-hour flight, on my way back to the ones I love. Across the isle from me, one row forward, sat a young woman. She was maybe 19 or 20 years of age, with blonde air nonchalantly tied up in a pony tail, wearing a plain white tank top under a grey hoodie with some matching grey sweat pants. By most measure, she was an average young person. But I had seen her eyes back inside the terminal, glowing as they were from fifty feet away as she prepared to board. And those eyes… My goodness. And her face…

Some people have a power that you can sense from their expression. She was such a creature.

There are always those who insist that perfect beauty doesn’t exist, except from within the pages of color magazines manufactured through the judicious use of Photoshop filters. I have never believed that, for beauty is much more than a static image, and perfection is much more than a rare set of measurements. It isn’t the picture of a person that captures us but instead her imagined extrapolations. It is the way she moves, the way she is, the way she makes you feel when she looks at you…

Sitting diagonally from me, the young woman was radiating something special. At one moment during the flight, I happened to look in her direction and her eyes caught mine. She wasn’t just looking distractedly in my direction; she was looking straight at me. She wasn’t smiling nor glaring. There was no malice nor intrusion in her stare. Her face squarely turned toward mine, her eyes were perfectly and quietly focused on my presence.

It could have been such as the furtive look that strangers give each other in passing on the street, but it wasn’t.

In that short moment where she graced me with her gaze, I didn’t feel surprise or shyness. I didn’t feel exposed or observed or revealed. It only felt quite natural. She was just looking at me, purely and simply, intently but without prying. And being captured by her big bright eyes felt soothingly comfortable. Instead of feeling like the looker was trying to take something from me, I felt as though she was giving me something.

In the matter of a few seconds it was over, and I remember smiling.

A few rows in front of us was a couple with a baby. He was about a year-old, and was really not fond of the idea of being propelled in the middle of the sky inside a noisy pressurized cabin. The poor child cried and cried. The tears eventually turned to screams, and the mother had no choice but to stand up and try to rock him to some level of quietness. However nothing would seemingly do. The distraught woman stood there holding the screaming child as we watched.

And then the simplest of things happened: the young woman across the isle looked up at him.

I saw it all happen. She first made eye contact with him, using her body language to grab his attention, opening her eyes wide and making her face bright. As soon as he locked his focus on her, her face lit up and her mouth opened in a beautiful, loving smile. And instantly, the baby stopped crying.

I was looking at him. She was several rows away, but he was staring back at her in utter fascination, quiet as can be. She was smiling, and instantly he was soothed, just like that.

The same routine occurred several other times during the flight. And every single time, no amount of rocking and loving care from the mother would do. And then the young woman across the isle would look up from her screen or from her book, and instantly the child would meld into a soft mid-summer breeze. You could literally see on his face the glow that she radiated. It was amazing and beautiful.

Later I started daydreaming of this young woman as a baby herself, held closely by her loving mother. In my mind there was no question that the girl’s beautiful eyes had been even more pure then. I imagined her mother looking into them, and how striking those moments must have been.

How many thousands, millions of times did it repeat? Did her mother know she was giving this child a special gift? Or did she feel the same way we all did when graced with the gentle stare of this baby’s beautiful gaze?

For a time I wondered if her mother knew that she had given birth to an angel.