Oh god. I just realized that this is probably part of the problem when people talk about Nice Guys (TM). They’re probably actually upset about nice guys who think they deserve sex for being nice, but no one ever frickin’ mentions that, they just say how much they hate when guys who are in love with them are also nice to them and their friends. If someone had JUST FRICKIN’ EXPLAINED that the problem only starts when you start feeling entitled and pressuring them, they could have saved me like ten years of being terrified to befriend any girl I was attracted to for fear of being called a Nice Guy (TM) and therefore Worse Than Hitler (TM).

An observation on this, as I trawl your archives:

As a recovering Nice Guy, I’ve never felt like it was about “deserving” sex, per se. It’s way more nuanced than that:

– I want the kind of relationship that I want, with the intensity that I want it. I *think*, if I understand basic cultural values correctly, that I can assert that I have a right to want things, independent of my right to have them.

– I see that {person X} fulfills most of the criteria that I want, so I get socially closer to them to find out if I fulfill any of the criteria that *they* want.

– After forming a friendship with them (which happens naturally as a result of getting closer to them, not as some ploy to get in their pants), I see that they claim to want various traits that they claim I possess. I therefore mention that they also possess various traits that *I* want in a partner, and ask if maybe we could try adjusting our ‘friendship’ into a ‘relationship’, or at least go somewhere in the ‘FWB’ zone (depending on their desires).

– They insist that this Can’t Happen for reasons that seem utterly illogical, such as “you possess {trait that I want} in too high a quality!”, or “I don’t {possess trait that I have personally observed them to possess}!”. If they had simply said “eww, no”, or even a more polite “sorry I don’t like you that way”, this would be the end of it. But because they attempted to provide $REASONS – $REASONS which do not logically cohere with my understanding of the situation – I am not dissuaded; I am confused.

My response to confusion is to attempt to investigate. This means inspecting the contents of their mind, which means asking questions and presenting my understanding of the situation when that understanding conflicts with the answers I am given.

This is seen as Being Pushy. Therefore, I am being a Nice Guy, and should kindly die in the nearest fire.

Confusion intensifies.

After several attempts to tease the situation apart, I recognize that “you possess {trait that I want} in too high a quality!”, or “I don’t {possess trait that I have personally observed them to possess}!” are code-words for “I am attempting to let you down easy”. So when I hear these words, I back off – because I want to be respectful.

I am then told that I am angering them, because I don’t “go for it” – that sometimes a girl “wants you to pursue her even when she says no”. I inform the girl that “I thought no meant no, and that pursuing after the girl has hinted to stop was being kinda creepy-stalkerish”. I am then informed that that’s SOMETIMES true and SOMETIMES not, but not given any explanation of when it is or isn’t.

Confusion intensifies.

I find other places on the internet that explain that the distinguishing trait is “1. be attractive, 2. don’t be unattractive.”

Confusion dissolves, and bitterness takes root.

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“ok, i rarely post on romance, but i will say this since i seem to be saying this a lot my girlfriends this week and have no idea why, (in the air(?): from what i see as the best romances, — men come to women. they know where to find you, if they want you. it’s been like that for millennia, plus it is so, so, much sexier that way. so, ya, don’t overcomplicate it, or stress out. ya know? (i.e. take said brain/ “head” – remove it – think with heart).”

Guess the gender of the poster. Is this a call for men to objectify women? How is it not?

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Objectification’s not necessarily a problem at the individual level. When Person A uses Person B as a means to an end, as long as B’s not being harmed, then it’s ethically unproblematic (at least for us utilitarian-minded folks). The tricky thing is that when you have a lot of A’s systematically treating a lot of B’s as a means to an end in the same kind of way, it can start to become a problem. Because at that scale, it can affect the way A’s and B’s think about each other — people’s attitudes are influenced by the way the people around them think and act. So it can have this self-reinforcing ripple effect that ends up stifling other kinds of interactions and relationships that many A’s and B’s would’ve found fulfilling.

So, that’s my current theory. It’s the best I can do at reconciling the facts that (1) I’m not at all bothered by the idea of a particular man being interested in a particular woman only for sex, and (2) I hate the idea of a society in which most men are only interested in women for sex (and I think such a society would be seriously sub-optimal for both men and women).

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For most men, first they get an unpleasant image in their head that might require brainsoap. Then they get the willies. And then they have trouble being near said sexually repulsive woman in the future, even though as an acquaintance/friend/non-sexual entity she is non-bothersome…for reasons of disgust.

Huh, that basically never happens to me. Well, there was that time that that short, pimply Asian girl kind-of hit on me, but I barely knew her — if someone has actually been my friend for any amount of time, no matter how ugly they are, I mithridatize against their ugliness so that the idea of a “roll in the hay”, while still not appealing, definitely won’t be a Langford basilisk. (But then again, watching 2 Girls 1 Cup didn’t have any long-lasting impact on me, even for “long” = “five minutes”.)

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I wonder if part of this is ‘what does it mean to say Bob and Alice start a relationship?’

If the only thing Bob knows about Alice is that she is a fat transgender asian woman, then Bob might want a ‘relationship’ with Alice for one of two reasons.

1) He might believe he knows general things about the sort of people fat transgender asian women are to live with. Maybe he thinks they’re kinder, or wittier, or more likely to make relationship bonds for life, or better at cooking pizza, and Bob is seeking a life partner with these qualities. These are all good features to look for in a relationship, but it’s a bit foo-ist to think that Alice has them more than Catherine, just because they’re fat, or trans, or asian. [I always get confused by this, as clearly there are general trends – maybe on average trans people are more polite, or asian people are more accepting of difference, but it does seem to be bad to make sweeping generalisations about people based on sex or race etc etc]

2) Fat transgender asian women make him horny, and he is really turned on by the idea of sex with them. Now, hot sex is not a bad foundation for a good relationship. But what he is not saying, if he hits on Alice just because he thinks the sex will be hot, is ‘I think you are a soul mate who I want to spend my life with’. He doesn’t know anything about Alice other than fat trans asian women make him hard.

It is the second situation that I think is objectification. Now, many people think there is nothing wrong with the pursuit of hot sex for its own sake (although some religious types would disagree) but it is seeing a certain type of person (fat trans asian women) as a slot machine that can dispense an object you desire (in this case, hot sex)

As you say, there is a fair trade that can be made here. If Bob sees Alice as a slot machine that dispenses hot sex, and Alice sees Bob as a slot machine that dispenses hot sex, then hurrah for them, and I hope they don’t break the bed. (Actually, I tend a bit to the religious here, and think that just exchanging hot sex as a net win trade without strings is a bit full of perils, but let’s elide that)

But there are two asymmetries that make that model not very useful. Firstly, there are often more people prepared to ask for the thing they want dispensing (hot sex with asian trans women) than there are people to ask. Bob and Alice are in a sweet spot. But if Alice was asked by everyone on the street ‘hey, I think of you as a hot sex machine, wanna shag?’ it would get tedious well before she bumped into a sadomasichistic amputee. And just hearing over and over ‘I think of you as a hot sex machine’ is wearying and dehumanising and not very nice. I have a friend who’s a vet, and when people find out what he does, their first response is often ‘oh, my dog is sneezing, what should I do?’, to which he tends to respond ‘take it to your own vet and pay them’. But that is objectification – they’re not then interacting as ‘oh, a cool person to talk to’ they’re interacting as ‘a machine for dog fixing advice’. This is better than being objectified as a hot sex machine because vets are given higher status in society than people who sleep around.

The second asymmetry is that the things other people look for when they objectify people are often not the things that the people care about themselves. Alice was probably born fat, asian and trans. She can’t really change these traits, they probably have shaped who she is to a point, but actually she’s passionate about singing madrigals, shark wrestling, and ju jitsu, and they’re the things she spends 40 hours a week on and likes to talk about. If someone is interested in Alice because he likes fat asian trans women, not only is that objectifying, it means Alice spends a lot of time having conversations like ‘hey, you’re a fat asian trans woman’ when she wants to have conversations like ‘Do you think Fair Phyllis or the Silver Swan would be a better accompaniment to wrestle sharks to?’ [I guess this is really a side point, that objectification is bad, but objectification on things that you don’t even think are that interesting and important to you is much more annoying]

So I think objectification is about seeing people as a way to get from A to B (whether they are hot sex dispensing machines, or dinner serving machines, or report writing machines), without thinking about people as big complicated things Just As Important As You Are, who may not want to get from A to B but are in the middle of their own journey from C to D.

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This is like how I was discussing on Le Forum, except instead of calling it objectification, I compared the concept of objectification with finding someone to love based on who you want to sex, instead of finding someone to sex based on who you come to love. Which is why I have a sort-of problem with stated sexual orientation in general.

The fact is, they are interrelated concepts and just cannot exist on their own, whether you are talking about relationships or what you eat. I mean, like the sex/love thing, you can just have diet that consists of things you WANT to eat, like chips and chocolate (sex first); or you can eat things that fit the diet you decide you want to have (love). The first way objectifies food, but the second way objectifies the ideal diet. Which way is better? They are interrelated concepts because they are both about objectification.

I guess it just depends on the person(s) involved, which way is better, and where one is at in life. Though generally, most would agree I think, that having more consciousness about the deeper issue, the conceptual one, brings more benefit in the long-term, than choosing to act on more superficial desires. Choosing love over sex, choosing a diet over foods.

In short, objectifying ideals/values seems to bring more fruits to one’s life than objectifying individual characteristics, but both really ARE about objectification. Anytime we make choices to interact with the outside world, what we are interacting with necessarily becomes ‘objectified’.

Who is Ozy?

Great blog. I’m very impressed. As usual. <3

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In other words: Say what you actually want people to do that they are not doing now.

I am aware that my translation of “modesty” and “decency” above are somewhat tendentious (that is, they’re the applause lights version rather than the version you probably were thinking of). So, to take Wikipedia’s second definition of “modesty”: “more about women than men, to describe a mode of dress and deportment intended not to encourage the opposite sex; actual standards vary widely”. And similarly for “decency”. Because of this variance, you need to choose a particular place, time, and social class that you want people to emulate. Then it will turn out that the one you choose did not actually make people all that happy, or depended on large (or small) amounts of wealth and leisure time, or on people believing demonstrably false things, or was abandoned for some other perfectly good reason.

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And then there are people whose main problem is that too many people want to sleep with them, in a jerkish or greedy or demeaning way.

Everybody thinks the grass is greener on the other side and has trouble finding empathy for the other group. It is just hard to wrap your head around objectification if you’ve never had enough sexual attention — how can you possibly imagine having *too much*? or imagine complaining about having the *wrong kind*?

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