Another nude sports figure pointlessly objectified on a magazine cover

[Orrex]

190. I don't accept that it necessarily proceeeds that way.

It is asserted that violent video games lead to violent behavior. This is poorly correlated, if it correlates at all.

It is asserted that heavy metal music leads to violence and suicide. This is likewise poorly correlated, if at all.

On what basis do can we assert with confidence that sexualized imagery necessarily leads to the objectification of women? How is that claim fundamentally different from claims about video games or heavy metal?

I reject the claim that I, a fairly typical representative of the American white male, generally objectify women because of images in the media. I also don't accept that I'm special in this regard; if I can somehow distinguish a sexualized image in a shampoo commercial from an actual living woman, then I have to suspect that other males are equally capable of making that subtle distinction.

The constant barrage of images of women's bodies (and almost never men's bodies) used to sell product commodifies women's bodies. It makes women a commodity.

That's an interpretation. It might equally be claimed that the linking of a product's image with of a sexualized female image is intended to associate that product with sexiness. Why must we infer that the advertiser is seeking to reduce the woman? That's an inferential leap, with no indication that it must be the only correct conclusion.

Women routinely run into men who have absorbed this message.

How can you know this? Do you read their minds? Do you subject them to intensive psychological screening? Or do you observe their behavior and decide by fiat that it must result from what you identify as objectification of women in the media? At best, I submit that you make deductive leaps of greater or lesser validity based on what you see (just as men do, in fact).

I am very confident that some men do exactly what you describe. I am equally confident that other men do not but are perceived to do so. And I am confident that still others are assholes who would be assholes even if they'd never seen a sexy ad in a magazine.

I am guessing you have no idea how common it is for women to run into this attitude.

You are free to guess as you please. Do you accept that men commonly run into attitudes about which women have no idea?

I'm not claiming that men and women are equally oppressed. However, it seems that on DU men are routinely told what they think and what they know and what they can't know and what they can't understand.