Is objectification necessary for attraction?

[Malthus]

Strikes me as a non-issue. The people he's talking about are, I assume, professional models. "Objectification" is part of the job description.

No-one in the audience, for example, pretends that runway models are anything more than living hangers for use in displaying designer clothes. When does the audience care about the model's subjective needs? Now, if the person hiring the models acts as if they are things and not people, that's a genuine concern - ditto if this Esquire dude does so. But that is not I think what he's saying.

I think the issue with objectification is transference. Like the feminist concern about porn is that men might end up thinking they should treat women in their everyday lives the same way.  So via media portrayals - a mindset that women are there to sit and look pretty - not think or get involved in serious business matters.

Not that I'm arguing that's happening - just that I don't think any of that is necessary for attraction.

Men might want women walking up and down in front of them wearing designer clothes? 

But seriously - this stuff about "transference" pretty well relies on people being unable, in their everyday lives, to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

What is remarkable is how even very young children can, in fact, do just that - the kid who uses a stick as a toy sword or gun to mow down legions of imaginary enemies does not, by and large, suddenly turn around and murder his or her school chums just because of attitudes formed concerning the amusing nature of massacre; he or she is not destined to grow up to become a Cossack. Similarly, the disintegration of the Hays Code on comic books did not, contrary to 1950s expectations, lead to mass juvenile delinquency and homosexuality ( ).  And of objectification via porn were as serious a concern in real life as 1970s feminists assumed, the advent of the Internet has effectively doomed us all. 

That said - I agree, I don't see any connection between "objectification" and attraction. If there was, presumably the less individual personality displayed, the less the attraction, looks being equal - and it doesn't work that way (at least, I assume it doesn't!)

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah, I think you're pretty much nailed my thoughts on the topic. I'll let you continue to carry the torch. Thanks, g!

Your thoughts on the topic are that you can't really say if objectification is happening?

[Valmy]

I think the issue with objectification is transference. Like the feminist concern about porn is that men might end up thinking they should treat women in their everyday lives the same way.  So via media portrayals - a mindset that women are there to sit and look pretty - not think or get involved in serious business matters.

Not that I'm arguing that's happening - just that I don't think any of that is necessary for attraction.

Sounds like the same thinking for banning violent video games.  Meh.

[Malthus]

I think the issue with objectification is transference. Like the feminist concern about porn is that men might end up thinking they should treat women in their everyday lives the same way.  So via media portrayals - a mindset that women are there to sit and look pretty - not think or get involved in serious business matters.

Not that I'm arguing that's happening - just that I don't think any of that is necessary for attraction.

Sounds like the same thinking for banning violent video games.  Meh.

Though mind you, playing Europa Universalis and Civilization *has* inspired me to attempt to take over the world ... 

So far, it's not going very well though. 

[frunk]

I'm pretty sure that a picture of a person is an object, not an actual human being.  It makes sense to me to treat pictures as objects, actual people as living things and to have a clear distinction between the two.  I think we would be worried about the mental state of people who treated pictures as if they were alive.

[Legbiter]

Yes.

Failure to pass boner test, no approach, no convo, hence no nothing.

Men are very much focused on the visual when it comes to sexual cues, hence high heels, miniskirts, makeup and revealing dresses by women. Women of a certain outlook find this biological imperative replusive, men should just be neutral, boner-wise when a "portly" woman waddles into view, sits next down to them and starts talking.

When she reveals her "charming" personality along with her financial independence, college degrees earned and relates a funny story from her globetrotting days, men have no reason not to pop wood right there and then.

Except that men don't respond sexually to status cues like women do. What these women have been doing is just solipsitically projecting their own 'gina tingles onto men because...beats me. Men and women are exactly the same?