In this post I wrote about the nastiness inherent in hating other women for their looks. Now I have to take on the flip side of that argument–a discussion of pure physical lust.
Cassandra Says (in between pictures of one amazingly beautiful man):
Funny how taboo that still is to admit for a lot of people, that women look, that men get looked at. Personally I’m profoundly uninterested in associating with either women who won’t admit that they look or men who’re uncomfortable with being looked at. This is me, folks – I’m a sensual creature. I’m visual. I like to look.
I have a friend who constantly defends her love for Roger Federer by swearing up and down that it’s all about the game. She’s the same friend who reminds me all the time that there’s more to a man than his looks, and that I should be choosing them for their brains–a reminder that I sorely need at times.
However, this discounts a whole part of attraction and desire. I like to remind her that it’s OK to look. It’s especially OK to look at a celebrity who you’re in all likelihood never going to meet.
She doesn’t know Federer. I don’t know Clive Owen. And those people are probably quite happy that we don’t know them. We know and like what’s put out there for us to see, and the rest is kept for them and the people who actually know them.
That doesn’t necessarily contribute to dehumanizing them, something that’s inherent in the usual discussions of “objectification.” Cassuto, in The Inhuman Race, writes of the tendency of people to try to turn other people into things, but I’d argue that simply appreciating the physical beauty of another person can be the furthest thing from treating them as a thing.
I wrote here about the different types of attraction I feel, and of course they shift as you get to know someone. But that doesn’t change the original physical attraction.
I wouldn’t want to be with someone who didn’t find me attractive, who didn’t think I was the prettiest girl in the room. Of course, I want them to like my mind too, but I want that physical attraction to be there.
I think part of the problem here that sees physical attraction as shallow or objectifying is that mind/body false dichotomy. Which was always equated with mind=male and body=female. So of course women are the only ones that can be looked at sexually, and men cannot be, right? Wrong.
Because we know that it’s crap, that we are all body AND mind. To recognize that someone is pretty, to take a sexy picture of them is not to deny that other parts of them exist. Sure, there are ways to objectify someone–to treat them as if they are not a person, to abuse them, insist they do things that they don’t want to do, deny their agency and ability to choose for themselves.
Just as when you see this picture of me, 
you know that there is a face and a front of my body, and if you read my blog, you know that there are a gazillion opinions inside me too, when we look at pictures of attractive people, we know that there is a person there. We appreciate how attractive they are because they are people, not because they are things.
So it’s OK to look. The problem comes from how you treat people, not how you see them.
That’s one hell of a tattoo you’ve got there.
See, I’ve never felt any need to apologise for looking. I’m not sure what part of normal female socialisation I missed out on there, but I just don’t get it. When I realised that a lot of women do feel like it’s something they’re not supposed to do I was horrified. What a perfect way to stunt someone’s sexuality, to make them feel guilty for even looking.
This is something I’ve been struggling with for quite some time. Being a trans woman who is queer and attracted to feminine people (of any gender), I get into the “OMG the cultfems are right, I’ve got male gaze” thing, and I’m just now learning that gaze is gaze (and female desire week is helping with that).
In the end, the rule I use (regardless if I’m looking or I’m being looked at) is “look, don’t leer”. Leering, to me, crosses the line into feeling entitled to own the other person.
“I think part of the problem here that sees physical attraction as shallow or objectifying is that mind/body false dichotomy. Which was always equated with mind=male and body=female.”
I agree. Just to add to it, I think not only is the above true, but I think we also tend to view body and mind as separate entities.
I love you blog:)