Revnak said:
I'll just go ahead and guess where we're going to wind up with this, you're going to remain firmly convinced that sexism in the form of sexual objectification or exploitation does not exist, is not an issue, or is equal between the sexes despite all evidence to the contrary and I'm going to wind up with an ulcer from all the people who come onto these forums without a lick of sense.
This is actually an interesting question that made me think a bit.
Do I think sexual exploitation exists?
Yes, but I think that it exists because and not in spite of feminist efforts - and it is perpetrated by women, not men. The problem with the feminists is that they created the problem - sexualization of women - by "liberating" them, then striving to remove any and all consequences for bad decisions made by "liberated" women.
Sexual exploitation is something of a misnomer. Exploitation implies coercion. The ugly truth is, though, most women who choose to objectify themselves by flirting with every guy they meet, by wearing overly revealing clothing, etc, do so by choice. Women do this, freely, for personal gain, in the form of ego, money, or social advancement.
That's what "liberation" means - the freedom to do as one pleases.
But no one's actions take place in a vacuum...if a woman shows her goods to guys under the guise of liberation...who do you blame, the girl, or the guys? What about the women who have to "keep pace"?
Now that the grievous faults of feminist "liberation" have become all too clear - how the "patriarchal" notions of decency and sexual restraint ultimately served to protect women - the feminists have scurried to try to establish those same protections, by demonizing the male sex drive, trying to HATE it out of existence, rather than treating it as the natural counterpart of the female sex drive.
Which brings us here. Feminists tilting at windmills.
It's like that old Soviet joke about Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev on a train. The train doesn't move, so Stalin orders the engineer to be shot. The train still isn't moving. Khrushchev posthumously pardons the engineer. The train still does not move. So then Brezhnev pulls down the window blind and declares, "Let us pretend the train is moving."
Whining and griping about scantily clad babes in video games or movies, or about "wardrobe malfunctions", while garbage like Jersey Beach and Sex in the City are prime-time entertainment - while young women burn the candle at both ends, put themselves in compromising positions, or mismanage their sexual capital, with imprudent marriages, relationships etc - is "pulling down the window blind in an effort to pretend the train is moving".
Sexual exploitation of women (and men) exists, but it exists not because of men, scantily clad women in games etc, or the male sex drive, but because of capitalism and the vacillation of traditional values - indeed, the very concept of any values at all - that the feminists themselves championed - selling heterosexual women the moon, "you can have whatever you want when you're LIBERATED!!!" in the service of the hatred of men.
Do we have to return to the zipped-up days of the 1950s? Should we? Can we?
The answer to all is "no". I believe Hegelian dialectics apply here - what we will see is a synthesis of the old and the new.
What we need is not to try to reject the male sex drive or the male desire to ogle sexy chicks, but to figure out how to create social values that leave everyone reasonably happy. Including satisfying the male desire to ogle sexy chicks.
