Men's Group

Is that it is taken as read that there is a higher, more spiritual, attraction we should be aspiring to that avoids this 'objectification' bugaboo.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that this objectification thingy is real and is damaging and is all of the horrible things that some people seem to think it is. This implies many things. But what it most implies is the idea that all possible such noble attractions exist equally. It says nothing very about the real possibility that this higher, more noble, attraction is often not possible because the spirit you're supposed to be attracted to isn't all that attractive.

I've known people of marginal moral character, dubious personality, and inerrantly selfish motive in about equal parts across gender. Are these spiritual nothings fodder for attraction? The implication in objectification theory, by virtue of its avoidance of the idea that people can seriously suck down to their rotten cores, is that we are "all beautiful" and that sexual objectification stands in the way of all of us "beautiful souls" achieving happiness, damaging us irreparably all the while, and that our society's predilection for the physically beautiful (read male gaze, patriarchy, what-have-you) should be abandoned so that all of our "beautiful souls" can achieve full flower, etc., etc.

The problem with this whole 'objectification' thing is that it denies that this so called noble attraction which is transcendent is, in and of itself 'objectification' by its own definition. What is the difference between finding someone physically vs. spiritually attractive? They both submit to individual criteria of acceptability and, as such, are subject to approval or rejection.

Now, the theory is nonsense. I know this. So to attempt to draw any conclusions from it or deconstruct it to try to eke some wisdom out of it must therefore, by corollary, be nonsense, more or less just an exercise to once again point out what has already been pointed out, that it IS in fact nonsense.

Its just fear and anger at sex and sexuality in general, and I tend to agree that it's a religious dogma of sorts akin to the anti-prurience you would see in the religious right. Lacking a god for fiat, or perhaps not wanting to be seen as relying upon a god for fiat, its adherents turned to pseudoscience for leverage.