I am going to start with a quote which I think has been taken as gospel in pretty much every document I have read which sited it.
“Outside rape, it is rare to treat our sexual partners as objects: not only are we aware of their humanity; we are also mindful of it.” Halwani 2010, 193
I think it has been accepted too readily because it is comforting; and there is an element of truth within the quote. Yet, I am going to say I don’t believe this to be the case. I strongly suspect that in order to get what we need from a sexual encounter there must be some ruthlessness and we must treat each other as objects to some extent. And, most importantly, I think it is totally different to rape, not even in the same ball park. The most basic difference being consent but also the level of objectification from total to mindful.
The kind of ruthlessness I envision is simply what is required for you to achieve satisfaction. Within the safe bound of consent there is negotiated ruthlessness. You can not put something into another human, be that a finger, tongue, a penis or dildo, without first objectifying them. I do not think you can ride your partner until you achieve satisfaction without treating them as an object and maintaining some degree of ruthlessness for the period of that ride. You certainly can not spank someone without temporarily treating them as an object. The consent makes this form of sexual objectification “OK” for this limited time period, that is all.
Think of any sexual act you might perform with a loving partner and you are really looking to achieve some form of self satisfaction, even if you are simultaneously facilitating satisfaction for your partner. I would argue that within a loving relationship it is pretty much essential that from time to time we give permission to be treated as an object and that we objectify ourselves also. If you ask your self this question when you reach out to stroke your partners hip, are you reaching out because they want you to touch them or is it because you want them to touch you? And yet here you are touching them.
I would agree that we are, even in this state of objectification, mindful of our partners humanity, as per the quote above; but I would add that sometimes objectification is healthy; Even outside of the sexual context we see clear examples of healthy objectification. I do not believe for one second that a surgeon can plunge a knife into an inert body without first seeing them as an object to be dismantled and fixed. The boundary of consent again plays a massive part in making this act legitimate. Usually we frown on the idea of someone taking a knife to us. Or and perhaps more meaningfully, the way an infant treats its primary care giver as a transformational object is essentially healthy, but only within a specific time frame to which we as the care giver consent.
Coming back to sexual Objectification, I would go further and say most sexual fantasy we come across in psychotherapy has its feet firmly grounded in relieving guilt about ruthlessness. The fantasy serving as a route to allow what we need to express, but ordinarily repress.
I think, that what we ordinarily see as sexual objectification is almost always the act of treating the other as a transformational object. We all seek to transform our internal state of imbalance , need or desire into satisfaction, via an external object, so that we can withdraw from that need. Coming again to expectations, we already know we can not expect sex in any form with anyone, we have laws to protect people from unwanted sexual advances. The expectation reduces the other to the status of object in order to make them a means to an end
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