Love Me Like a Female Object

Curiously, and apropos of my last essay on being mannequin-ed into a (submissive) conscious object, whenever I encounter the erotic objectification of women –whether kinky (okay, really only semi-kinky) or not, whether pornographic or not: rather than mentally joining the objectifying of the woman as I suspect most men mentally might, I have always tended instead (as far back as pre-pubescence and almost exclusively now that I’m thirty-something) to immediately (in a visceral, semi-electric response – whether empathetically, sympathetically or erotically) identify with the objectified woman.

This difference between wanting to treat another as an object and wanting to be treated by another as an object is interesting in light of my inner responses to various depictions (whether kinky, straight, pornographic, safe for work, hetrosexual, homosexual, etc.) – because I identify (empathetically, sympathetically or erotically) with (the willing or unwilling) objectified (captive, displayed, eroticized, sexualized) woman but do not similarly identify with the objectified man.

One might think this difference is simply due to the fact I’m a heterosexual uxorious guy and the ‘being objectified’ love symbol could be functional for me in a relationship (as could obedience, or power [also here], or female led and who knows how many others). But the ‘could be functionality’ I concern myself less with than the possibility that this might indicate some sexist bias on my part, for regardless whether one wants to objectify women or be an objectified woman what I’m not very keen about is the unconscious predjudice and assumption that it’s natural, okay, permissable, normal or acceptable for women to be objectified because they are women.