Gender And Sexuality From Another Angle

I'm reading from the book The Dialectic of Sex by Shulamith Firestone. Its a very interesting book to read. One part particularily caught my eye today. She talks about society sees women as sex objects and men not so. (Note, for example, the way people react to the idea of homosexual men verse homosexual women. A lot of people will react negatively to the idea of men being sexual together, even while they're accepting of the idea of women being sexual together.)

Women as sexual objects.... women as sexual beings. Firestone writes:

"Why do women, for example, get aroused by a poronograghy of female bodies? In their ordinary experience of female nudity, ssay in a gym locker room, the sight of other nude females might be interesting (though probably only insofar as they rate by male sexual standards), but not directly erotic. Cultural distortion of sexuality explains also how female sexuality gets twisted into narcissism: women make love to themselves vicariously through the man, rather than directly making love to him. At times this cultural barrage of man/subject, woman/object desensitizes women to male forms to such a degree that they are even orgasmically affected."

In that one paragraph she brings up so many different issues. There is the issue of women being aroused by other women's bodies, and in saying that she almost seems to be implying that at least some lesbian tendancies could because women are so socialized to be the sexual object that they see each other as sexual objects.

Then there's the idea of women making love to themselves through the man, rather than directly making love to him. And that I'm probably guilty for at times too... being so aware of myself as a sexual body, instead of seeing him as a being experiencing my body, than him as a sexual body in himeself.

Can you picture a guy as a sexual object, in the same way that you can picture a girl?

If you picture nude statues... one of a guy, and another of a women, which do you see as being sexual? I mean, the famous statute "David"... is that statue sexual, in the way that a statue of a nude woman is? Or is that simply a nude man, and a celebration of the muscular body, rather than the celebration of a women's body. Do most people really see the women's body for its sexual use and beauty, and the mans body for its athletic ability or its use to him as an individual pursing his goals?

What do you think?

- Christy Taylor

Thoughts

Are woman aroused by images of other woman?

I certainly am, but i had assumed this was due to very much lesbian feelings of attraction. I don't understand why a "purely" Heterosexual woman would be aroused by images of other woman.

When I am aroused by other woman, it certainly isn't because "women are so socialized to be the sexual object that they see

each other as sexual objects", although it could be true sometimes.. It would be a shame to say all those lovely heart stopping droolable girls-are-cute feelings are due to how i am socialized.

women making love to themselves through the man, rather than directly making love to him.

I have experienced the strange haunting feeling of sometimes using men for my own sexual pleasure and power. This stems from many murky places. First that i find being sexual with me a lot less alarming them being sexual with him. Secondly that making love to men is tricky business. They aren't wired like i am, its hard to find the right spots.

Can you picture a guy as a sexual object, in the same way that you can picture a girl?

... I cant (I hope) picture woman or men as sexual objects in terms of sexually fulfilling me, but rather in how our society creates sexual objects. Men have been treated as sexual objects, but certainly not to the extent woman have been. Woman's bodies have been used to sell everything from car paint to baking soda.

"Do most people really see the women's body for its sexual use and beauty, and the mans body for its athletic ability or its use

to him as an individual pursing his goals?" In context of historical art, that is correct. There are very few examples of nude art i have ever that do not personify this expression. Typically nude woman are displayed slightly embarrassed at being caught naked, one hand draped over a thigh, certainly not proud or definite, while naked men are seen as untouchable examples of muscles power, leadership, typically armed with a weapon or prepared for combat. (Side note, David is not a sexual piece. I detest the assumption mass culture has made that simply because something is nude, it must therefor be purely, or mostly, sexual. He is the original Renaissance Man, harkening in a golden age of science medicine knowledge writing, he is calm self assured, a cool picture of everything divine and god-like in man.)

 -Dawn

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Is the gender of a person based purely on their genitals? Or could gender be a separate thing that we are socialized into? What about a person makes him a man? Is it the million subtle things that the person has absorbed from one’s environment? What makes a woman a female? Are those characteristics that we recognize as male or female inherently in a person, or are they human-created roles?

Simone De Beauvoir wrote that a person is not born a woman, but made a woman. She was arguing that the emotional psychological parts of being a woman is socialized into us, not born with us. Judith Butler apparently took this further and suggested that a lot of the “female body” is socialized too. Think, for example, of the way we display the body, or see the body. Think of shaving, and hairstyling, make-up. Think of high-heeled shoes that make the butt stick out. Or of muscles building, exercise. Think of how we have made certain parts of the body into “private parts”. How we try to cover up body odors. We are not just animals…. we have created ourselves again, fashioned ourselves again.

But…. But, that rant about Judith Butler was a side-topic. Think for a second about the separation between physical body and the “genders”. And, whether your straight, bi, or homosexual or whatever in between, ask yourself…. what does your physical attraction stem from? Is it from the actual physical genitals? Or does it stem from the gender, the social-roles and ways of walking, thinking, talking, etc?

If you found out that someone you were attracted to had the genitals of the other sex would that disturb you? In general, we don’t know the genitals of a person, we just assume that a person has the genitals that match their appearance…. We have certain images in our mind of what a person with a penis would look like, and other images of what a person with breasts and a womb would look like. Those images… they’re not real. They don’t have to be that way. Yet we’re attracted to them, right? So wouldn’t that mean that our sexual attraction is on a socialized level, and not an entirely physical one?

Is there such a thing as homosexuality and heterosexuality on a physical level? Are some people really attracted to the genitals of one particular gender, and not to the genitals of another? Or are those taking place on a psychological level, being attracted to all those other aspects of the person?

Or could it be that we are all on some level bisexual? That physically, our sexual preference is not something we are born with, but something that we are socialized into?

We are not born who we are, we become who we are, through the influences around us and through our choice on how to respond to them. Who here agrees with this statement? And if we are not born who we are, but made who we are, then wouldn’t that mean that our sexual attractions are also created, not born with?

Dawn wrote that "It would be a shame to say all those lovely heart stopping droolable girls-are-cute feelings are due to how i am socialized." And I would say... no, why should it be a shame? Why should we deny the influences that are upon us? Why should the fact that sexual perference has been influenced by human society make sexual perference any less worthy or pure than if it were a purely biological thing?

Just an idea.... I haven't sorted this one out fully yet, but I'm curious as to other's reactions.

- Christy

"And I would say... no, why should it be a shame? Why should we deny the influences that are upon us? Why should the fact that sexual perference has been influenced by human society make sexual perference any less worthy or pure than if it were a purely biological thing?"

Lacking time or energy [1] This is the only one i will answer for now. I suspect we are defining socalization under different catagories. The Dreaded "S" word has always been used to pressure me into acting some other way then now i was, or to suggest that i was somehow incomplet. I grew up in a backwater of a dusty prarie town, nothing in my first 16 years of existance dared to suggest that lesbians actually existed, much like the mytical Bigfoot they haunted only our dreams, and newspaper articles from "out there". How could i possibly have been socalized into the idea of lesbanisum?

I am a rebel personaility and therefor resent any and all ideas that who i am is formed by anything remotly society based. [2] Saying that i am socalized into my attractions takes away some of the brute beauty and mystery of it. I resent handing my sexual power over to anyone else... -Dawn

[1] read: brain power [2] even I can catch the irony in living a life this way, you are still shaped, if only by rebelling.