Sexual objectification

Art and Pornography presents a series of essays
which investigate the artistic status and aesthetic
dimension of pornographic pictures, films, and
literature, and explores the distinction, if there is
any, between pornography and erotic art. Is there
any overlap between art and pornography, or are
the two mutually exclusive? If they are, why is
that? If they are not, how might we characterize
pornographic art or artistic pornography, and how
might pornographic art be distinguished, if at all,
from erotic art? Can there be aesthetic experience of
pornography? What are some of the psychological,
social, and political consequences of the creation and
appreciation of erotic art or artistic pornography?
Leading scholars from around the world address these
questions, and more, and bring together different
aesthetic perspectives and approaches to this widely
consumed, increasingly visible, yet aesthetically
underexplored cultural domain. The book, the first
of its kind in philosophical aesthetics, will contribute
to a more accurate and subtle understanding of the
many representations that incorporate explicit sexual
imagery and themes, in both high art and demotic
culture, in Western and non-Western contexts. It is
sure to stir debate, and healthy controversy.

The current qualitative study endeavoured to investigate the multi-layered meaning of billboard advertisements by elaboration, exploration and elucidation of intended meanings and cultural norms demonstrated in billboard advertisements. For this purpose, the content of eight (8) billboard advertisements was thematically analyzed utilizing Fairclough 3-Dimensional Model: Description interpretation and explanation. The obtained results showed that these billboards had underlying meanings in terms of gender objectification, female portrayal, and social stereotypes as prominent themes. Furthermore, all the selected advertisements were based on a fine designed semiotic study to motivate the users.

In contemporary society, sexual objectification is usually thought of as something that men do to women. However, this
notion risks conflating the gender of the perpetrator with the fact that men often hold more social power than women. In the
current study, we investigated whether power itself was associated with changes in processing of sexualized human targets, independent of the gender of the power holder. In Experiment 1, we primed separate groups of female participants to high-, low-, or neutral-power. We then engaged them in a recognition task involving upright or inverted sexualized images of men and women. Previous research using stimulus inversion manipulations has found that inversion of faces/bodies, but not of objects, disrupts recognition performance, suggesting a reliance on more configural processing in face/body perception compared to object perception. We found that women primed to high-power did not show an inversion effect for sexualized men but did show an inversion effect for sexualized women. In contrast, women primed to low-power showed an inversion effect for sexualized men and women. In Experiment 2, we replicated this finding and found a similar effect of power for male participants perceiving sexualized images of women. We discuss our results with reference to the literatures on objectification
and the cognitive processes involved in the perception of sexualized men and women. Our study provides seminal evidence that power, rather than gender per se, may play a central role in sexual objectification.

Un grand nombre des performances des années 1960/ 1970 se caractérise par une stratégie de prendre contrôle, par les femmes, de son propre corps et de son image . Les artistes féminins de l’époque luttent contre la manière dont les époques antérieures avaient représenté la femme et la féminité . Elles tentent de remettre en question la structure même de la représentation de la femme en refusant les symboles et les images traditionnellement lié à la féminité. En revanche, elles proposent de nouveaux et de multiples représentations, tous fondés sur l’expérience et sur la sexualité des femmes véritables, et non sur des femmes idéales et imaginaires.
          Dans cette recherche de la femme en tant qu’individu spécifique, Psyché de Gina Pane est un des exemples les plus frappants. La première partie de l’action révèle exactement cette lutte contre les images traditionnelles de la femme poursuit par les artistes se vouant au féminisme. L’artiste est agenouillée devant un miroir. A l’aide d’un rouge à lèvres et d’un crayon en khôl elle retrace les formes de sa bouche ouverte et de ses yeux sur ses reflets. Par la suite, tandis qu’elle continue à contempler son reflet dans le miroir (et l’image qui se superpose à son propre visage), elle prend une lame de rasoir et s’inflige des coups - elle crée l’impression de pleurer des véritables « larmes de sang » . Une stratégie visant à détruire le symbolisme féminin si bien établi dans le monde artistique, Psyché dénonce les verrous moraux qui pèsent sur le corps féminin. L’action vise à démystifier l’image du corps, et à le libérer.

          A travers cet exemple spécifique de Pane, tout en introduisant également l’approche d’autres artistes et une comparaison aux images plus traditionnelles qui ont pour sujet la femme et la féminité, je propose d’étudier comment les artistes de l’époque proposaient de se libérer de cette « réalité masculine », de cette représentation idéale de la femme influencé par le regard fétichiste de l’homme.

Numerous studies have found that many people believe that a provocatively dressed woman is at greater risk for sexual assault and bears some responsibility for her assault if she is attacked. Furthermore, in legal, academic, and public debates about sexual assault the appropriateness of the term ‘provocative’ as a descriptor of certain kinds of women’s clothing is rarely questioned. Thus, there is a widespread but largely unquestioned belief that it is appropriate to describe revealing or suggestive women’s clothing as ‘provocative’ and that women who wear such clothing could provoke sexual assault and harassment from men. Yet it is rarely noted that only women’s clothing is described as sexually provocative. Men’s clothing, no matter how revealing, is never described as provocative. Why is this the case?

This article challenges the assumption that it is appropriate to describe women’s clothing as provocative. Drawing on models of the legal defense of provocation and research on objectification, this article argues that the social interpretation of women’s clothing as provocative arises from the privileged social and legal status of men’s sexual arousal and the objectification of women’s bodies. Continued use of this term thereby normalizes and entrenches deeply problematic attitudes about women’s responsibility for men’s sexual behavior. These beliefs and attitudes not only affect women’s everyday experiences but also have a profound impact on how the law regards the sexual assault and harassment of women. Describing women’s clothing as provocative thus reinforces a problematic conception of women’s bodies and sexuality that is connected to women’s experiences of their bodies, their clothes, and shapes their vulnerability to sexual assault and social and legal attitudes to such attacks.

Objectification theory suggests that sexualization has significant dehumanizing consequences for how perceivers see women. To date, research has mostly documented how sexualized bodies in the mass media are objectified and dehumanized. The purpose of the present work was to test the novel cosmetics dehumanization hypothesis (CDH), that is, that subtler manifestations of sexualization, such as heavy makeup, might influence the way people attribute humanness-related traits to women. Across four experiments, 1000 participants (mostly from the United Kingdom and United States) were asked to evaluate women's faces with or without heavy makeup. Consistent with the CDH, results showed that faces with makeup were rated as less human while using complementary indicators of dehumanization: They were perceived as possessing less humanness, less agency, less experience (Experiment 1), less competence, less warmth, and less morality (Experiments 2-4) than faces without makeup. This pattern of results was observed for faces of both models (Experiments 1-2) and ordinary women (Experiments 3-4). In Experiment 4, we manipulated the part of the face that wore makeup (eye makeup vs. lipstick) and found that faces with eye makeup were attributed the least amount of warmth and competence. A meta-analysis based on Experiments 2-4 confirmed the robustness of the findings, which were not moderated by either participant gender or sexual orientation. Whereas prior studies suggested that a focus on faces may serve as an antidote for objectification and related dehumanization, the present set of experiments indicates that this strategy might not always be effective.

This project reopens John Milton’s Paradise Lost with a view to better understanding Eve’s culpability in the biblical fall of human kind. Through the process of this reopening, Eve’s day-to-day life within Milton’s Paradise is assessed anew using contemporary feminist critical methods that expose her triple objectification at the hands of God, Adam and Satan, in an environment of widespread and entrenched sexual inequality. It will be shown that the contemporary nature of these observations work to reposition Milton’s Eve as an agitated unequal, thereby allowing for an amelioration of the high level of culpability traditionally attributed to her actions in Paradise. The Nussbaumian approach to objectification analysis taken in this project marks a break from recent historicist trends that have analysed Eve within Milton studies during the last two decades. Using a more comprehensive method of close analysis that encompasses not only Eve’s Paradisal context (landscape, infrastructure and inhabitants), but also the scenes of her creation and temptation, this project accounts for most layers of Eve’s life. It is argued that from this position we are in a much better position to challenge the judgements—divine or otherwise—that Eve’s actions within Milton’s Paradise have attracted through time.

This study aims to examine the organizational culture by which sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual objectification coexist as institutionalized factors shaping women’s workplace experiences. The current study investigates the extent to which women experience sexual harassment and sexual objectification in their current and/or previous employment while working as managers, servers, bartenders, and hostesses in a variety of restaurants. Using snowball sampling methods, 25 women participated in feminist focused group interviews or individual interviews to share their experiences of and thoughts on sexual harassment in the restaurant industry. Findings indicate that the restaurants represented in this sample typically mirror the broader sexist, capitalist society in which women’s bodies are objectified and used as commodities in the service sector. As a result, the women in this sample faced institutionalized and interpersonal forms of sexual harassment and sexual objectification from coworkers, customers, and managers. Women’s treatment as sexualized and racialized bodies was thus linked to their self-objectification in their restaurant work and this may perhaps explain how women’s bodies thus become the service in the restaurant industry. Policy implications and ideas for further research are also discussed.

With co-authors: Debby Herbenick, Lori A Brotto, Emily A Harris, and Sara B Chadwick.
Low sexual desire in women partnered with men is typically presumed to be a problem-one that exists in women and encourages a research agenda on causation and treatment targeting women. In this paper, we present a distinct way forward for research on low sexual desire in women partnered with men that attends to a more structural explanation: heteronormativity. A heteronormative worldview assumes that relationships and structures are heterosexual, gender (usually conflated with sex) is binary and complementary, and gender roles fit within narrow bounds including nurturant labor for women. We propose the heteronormativity theory of low sexual desire in women partnered with men, arguing that heteronormative gender inequities are contributing factors. We outline four hypotheses and their predictions related to: inequitable divisions of household labor, blurring of partner and mother roles, objectification of women, and gender norms surrounding sexual initiation. We discuss some mechanisms-social, physiological, and otherwise-for the heteronormativity theory, especially related to stress, objectification, and nurturance. We close by noting some limitations of our paper and the ways that the heteronormativity theory of low sexual desire in women partnered with men provides a rigorous, generative, and empirical way forward.

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to investigate transgender People of Color’s (TPOC’s) sexual objectification experiences (SOEs). Fifteen TPOC were interviewed about their experiences with sexual objectification. Utilizing intersectionality and objectification theories as our research paradigms, results suggested that participants’ SOEs were shaped by the intersections of cissexism, sexism, and racism, and that participants experienced various levels of privilege and oppression based on their specific identities. Results revealed similarities with previous sexual objectification research as well as unique sexual objectification experiences for TPOC, including racialized sexual objectification, fetishization, genital- and gender transition-based comments, and body policing. Results also suggested that self-objectification may manifest as a desire to affirm one’s gender identity and result in physical safety anxiety. TPOC may engage in body surveillance in order to achieve transgender congruence and reduce potential victimization experiences. Mental health practitioners are encouraged to attend to how intersections of cissexism, sexism, and racism may encourage SOEs, and the ways in which such experiences may impact TPOC.

Le jeu vidéo est un monde complexe où figure d’innombrables joueurs, installés dans des jeux et dans des pratiques aux orientations diverses qui témoignent d’un engagement précis. Mais c’est grâce à Internet, au jeu vidéo en réseau que les joueurs sont alors capables de se regrouper au sein d’univers virtuels plus grands les uns que les autres. Parmi ces individus avides d’expériences fictionnelles, on y retrouve des femmes soucieuses aussi de vivre des aventures entre passionnés de jeu vidéo. Population spécifique, elle y trouve aussi un monde qui ne se révèle pas des plus égalitaires envers les femmes, et qui peuvent les ramener à des obstacles déjà rencontrés dans la vie quotidienne. Il faut alors s’interroger sur leur position dans la lutte pour la reconnaissance, les stratégies et réponses qu’elles peuvent mettre en place face à un sexisme présent dans le jeu vidéo. Le présent ouvrage vient alors dans une quête de réponses sur les expériences des joueuses régulières de jeu vidéo en ligne, en s’intéressant aux épreuves qu’elles doivent affronter, aux réponses envisagées et envisageables, mais aussi aux représentations vidéoludiques qui sont loin d’être complètement à l’écart des représentations sociétales.

Mots clés : reconnaissance, monde social du jeu vidéo en ligne, joueuses régulières de jeu vidéo en ligne, pratique compétitive, représentations vidéoludiques, sexisme hostile, sexisme bienveillant, groupement, avatar, rôles sexués, représentations stéréotypées, épreuves générales, épreuves sexistes, prise de parole, défection, ressource, masculin, féminin.

The song is an integral part of Bollywood films, just as it is integral to cultural and religious practices in India. This key component of mainstream Indian films, can provide a space to explore and negotiate in general terms modernity and tradition, and specific to this essay, the sacred and the sexy using the female form.

Just to add, I wrote this essay for my Bachelor's thesis in 2014. Since then Bollywood has changed and some references now feel outdated. Not to mention, in the time since I first wrote this essay, I have gained a broader understanding of the application of South Asian identities and not just just Indian or hindu-centric ideas.

Although sexual objectification is commonplace in media culture, music videos provide the most potent examples of it. In the current study, we developed a coding system to measure sexual objectification and its correlates in music videos. Our analysis compared sexual objectification across artists’ gender and musical genres (R&B/hip hop, pop, and country). Compared to male artists, female artists were more sexually objectified, held to stricter appearance standards, and were more likely to demonstrate sexually alluring behavior.
Additionally, sexual objectification was more prominent in R&B/hip hop and pop videos than in country videos. The results are discussed in light of objectification theory and sexual agency.

In literary works, it is observed that female bodies are endangered because of their male counterparts’ obsession with perfection. This is what we see in Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark” and Browning’s dramatic monologue “My Last Duchess”. Though both the literary works are from different genre, these works share a common theme where the female figures are the subjects of their husband’s obsession and embracing death as the consequence of obsession. Nathaniel Hawthorne is an American author of 19th century who has incorporated the theme of obsession in his short story “The Birthmark” and showed how Aylmer’s obsession with perfection in physical beauty ultimately causes Georgiana’s death. On the other hand, Browning is a Victorian poet who has demonstrated the endangerment of female figure and marital violence during Victorian era toward the Duchess due to the Duke’s obsession with reputation and possessiveness in “My Last Duchess”.
In my paper, I will discuss the theme of obsession and how female bodies are endangered due to their male counterparts’ obsession in Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” and Browning’s “My Last Duchess”. Additionally, I will have psychoanalytic and feminism study to discuss the psyche of Aylmer and the Duke as well as to understand the inferior position of Georgiana and the Duchess.

Il presente articolo ruota attorno al concetto di oggettivazione del corpo femminile, alla cui base vi è l'azione che la cultura, la società e i meccanismi di comunicazione attuali come pubblicità, pornografia e le immagini, in generale, che sviliscono il genere femminile, attuano principalmente sulla sessualità. Agendo su di essa, si agisce sul corpo al fine di modellarlo esteticamente ed esteriormente, ma non solo. L'utilizzo che i mass media fanno del corpo femminile, infatti, è atto allo scopo di orientare la figura o il ruolo, mediante una sua falsificata rappresentazione, mantenendo, in tal modo, inalterati gli stereotipi, per poi, concludere con una breve disamina sul rapporto tra oggettivazione del corpo femminile e utilizzo delle tecnologie.

This dissertation will question whether lad culture has impacted upon attitudes towards sexual violence against women. In order to research this topic, I will conduct several interviews and focus groups with females between the ages of 17-22 who may have experienced lad culture. I will also run a focus group with a group of typical ‘lads’ to get an unbiased view of the subject. Finally, I will analyse the discourse and images within popular ‘lad’ magazines such as ‘Nuts’ and ‘Zoo’ along with social media websites like ‘The Uni Lad’ and ‘The Lad Bible.’ Despite post-feminist scholars suggesting that ‘lad culture’ can be a form of empowerment for women, my argument will state that ‘laddism’ represent women as dehumanized sex objects. Therefore, ‘lad culture’ conditions men to view women as items to be ‘conquered’ and thus trivializes and normalises sexual violence and harassment. Likewise, women who are not deemed ‘fit’ by lads face ridicule and dehumanization within magazines and websites, often leading to sexually or physically violent threats. Furthermore, the dissertation will argue that women who react to sexist and derogatory comments face negative backlash and are accused of “not getting the joke” or being “uptight.” Overall, the dissertation concludes that laddism negatively represents women and attempts to justify and trivialize sexual violence against women.

Director Vyshakh’s Pulimurugan made waves over the South Indian cinema, solely by its box office collections. It was never critically accepted beyond the level of a masala action entertainer with the usual ingredients. (Will the state award for the best stunts count?) For the much-revered National award-winning actor Mohanlal who is known for his natural portrayal of roles, this became a feather in the cap again as its collection went above 150cr and he was also lauded for the stunts he performed for the film (given his age and physique). The cinema went on to be dubbed in various other languages and for a common audience outside Kerala it became a representative of Malayalam Cinema. Now the big dollar question; How are women portrayed in this 150cr grossing movie? The film has a fair share of female actors. But what kind of roles do they perform? Are they falling under a chauvinist narrative? 
Misogynistic films are there in Indian cinema from time immemorial and now the perspectives are deliberately trying to be shifted and still why just “Pulimurugan” to be analysed for its portrayal of women? For all the reasons mentioned earlier. When it became the biggest box office hit in Malayalam, it also became a widely seen movie and whatever shown in the movie have entertained a wide range of audience and thus what all constructs it passes on or creates about the women have also been sub consciously digested by a wide audience. After all it was considered a family hit. Thus Pulimurugan, the highest grossing Malayalam movie is going to be inspected for its portrayal of women.

[this is the developed version of conference speech "Cain inanimate objects be more sexually attractive than people?" expanded with the hypothesis of return of magical thinking as an explanation of anthropomorphizing attitude towards robots]
This chapter elaborates on the issue of loving dolls and robots. The topic has been already broadly discussed by academics representing diverse disciplines as well as implemented into mass culture – mainly due to the fact that people who have strong affections towards inanimate objects are already a part of reality and cannot be perceived as a matter of distant future or a part of some science-fiction scenario anymore. On the one hand, the chapter delivers a claim that people who engage into intimate relationships with inanimate objects cannot be seen simply as crazy social outcasts, since their activity is a result of tendencies and processes that are prevalent in contemporary Western culture. In other words, the chapter argues that doll lovers and robot lovers are not following some other path than the rest of society – not only do they pursue in the same direction but they also might be simply few steps ahead. On the other hand, it is argued that further continuation of that journey involves some serious risks. In other words, the fact that we are all heading in this direction, does not mean that the direction is appropriate. The main risk is that the solipsist who create their own subjective worlds in search for personal freedom will tend to objectify other human beings and in the end they will find themselves imprisoned in a kind of autistic reality. Finally, the paper presents hypothesis that the mental processes that are connected with intimate relationships with inanimate objects are – in specific sense – connected with return of magical thinking typical for so called primitive cultures. The analyses refer not only to philosophical, psychological and sociological studies but also to popular culture, e.g. to a documentary movie Guys and Dolls and a specific episode of TV series House M.D.

This paper applies a feminist post-structural discourse analysis to an excerpt from the DVD release Girls Gone Wild: Finally 18, vol 3 (2007) in order to investigate themes of language and gender, making salient themes of power, normativity, performativity, objectification, infantilization, humor, laughter, and self-disclosure. The study finds that both interlocutors in the scene - interviewer and interviewee - employ gendered language performances for different purposes in accordance with relevant discourses. Notably, the interviewer uses language strategies that masks his superior power.

Whether being cast as an instrument of women's liberation, or as collusion in their own oppression, the mini-skirt has courted controversy throughout the world and for many decades now.  But across much of sub-Saharan Africa, women accused of wearing mini-skirts that are "too short", have been violently assaulted by groups of men with a frequency and a level of violence that is particularly striking.  Through analysis of two such incidents in Zimbabwe, first in 1992 and then in 2014, it is possible to identify key factors that framed these incidents, and re-shaped their legacies in striking contrast to each other.  The basic premise of these incidents remains the same, with competing claims to law featuring prominently on both sides of the conflict: the men assaulting the women expect the criminal law to restrain such flagrant displays of women's sexual agency (as the men see themselves as stepping in where the law has failed to do so).  The mens' calls are consistently countered by women's public mobilisation, and their protests invariably demand that the law protect them from criminal assault and sexual harassment, as they assert their "right" to dress as they choose. In 1992, the men's narrative was undoubtedly in the ascendant, effectively marginalising any other voices, but by 2014 developments in social media and clear manifestations of women's public empowerment, meant that narratives of equality and justice swiftly came to prevail.
Analysis of these and other similar incidents, highlights how the already-extraordinary symbolic reach of the mini-skirt has come to be even more invested in the post-colonial context of Zimbabwe.  As a constructed mediation of the self and society, the mini-skirt also bridges the personal and political wherever it appears, and in doing so, it inevitably brings to the fore many of the conflicts around "tradition", reproductive relations and sexual autonomy that frame gender relations anywhere, but have been further fuelled by the historical dynamics specific to Zimbabwe. Here, legal and racial subjectivities have been hostage to the power and politics of colonial subjugation and settler privilege, only to be subsequently instrumentalised further as part of the revisionist historiography designed to sustain specific concepts of  "national identity" in service of a very narrowly defined "national interest".

The wide-spread sexual objectification of women in Korean popular music performance subconsciously teaches men and boys that women and girls are sexual objects that exist to please them. Simultaneously sexual objectification disempowers girls
and women by emphasizing superficial beauty. Although many decisions related to Kpop choreography, costumes, or lyrics may be attributed to music management companies, this paper analyzes how music television programs Inkigayo (Seoul
Broadcasting System) and Music Core (Munhwa Broadcasting Company) contribute to the sexual objectification of women through the ways that emcees frame performances and the ways the camera draws attention to sexualized body parts. In August 2012 racy performances by the girl group Kara raised public debate and spurred calls for amendments to the Juvenile Protection Law. At that time commentary focused on the impact of sexually provocative performances on young people. The law places responsibility for monitoring content onto the content producers and broadcasters, yet frame analysis of Kara’s performances, compared with performances in early 2013, demonstrated that neither Inkigayo nor Music Core had changed the sexually objectifying performance frame on their shows. The final version of the revised law, passed in March 2013, does not contain amendments to address these issues more stringently than in the past.

MERGING IS SEX OBVIOUSLY,  NORMAL MERGING IS KNOWING THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF BOTH BEINGS, NO YOU OR I = ONENESS,  THE TWO ANUs MERGE – IF ONE IS AN ATTACK, THEN THE ORIGINAL ANU BECOMES SMALLER, DUMBER AND WEAKER, WHICH IS WHAT IS GOING ON HERE. 

AND - OUR "REALITY" UNMASKED

In our current late-modern society, sexuality, redefined as a property of the individual, has become a major medium for self-realisation. Consequently, individuals are increasingly resorting to counselling of all kinds in order to self-reflexively enhance their sexuality. This article examines women’s tantric retreats in Northwest Europe situated within the realm of spirituality and personal growth and aimed at developing female sexual subjectivity. Based on ethnographic study and in-depth interviews, it argues that the studied retreats allowed participants to have experiences that entailed or led to a critical distancing from socially dominant representations of (self-)objectified femininity and pornified female sexuality. First, the article shows how participants gained critical awareness with regard to the detrimental effects of defining femininity through a ‘porno-chic’ appearance, sexiness and unremitting (hetero)sexual appetite. The article further highlights how, through opposing these (self-)objectifying views and foregrounding a view of the female sex as sacred, these workshops fostered experiences of embodying the divine as grounds for female worthiness and access to spiritual wisdom. Finally, the article illustrates how possibilities arose to experience both intimate touch among women and self-touch as an erotic connection with a vital flow beyond a narrow focus on sexual activity.

According to Martha Nussbaum, objectification is essentially a form of instrumentalization or use. I argue that this instrumentalization account fails to capture the distinctive harms and wrongs of sexual objectification, because it does not explain the relationship between instrumentalization and the processes of social stereotyping that make it possible. I develop an imposition account of sexual objectification that provides such an explanation and, therefore, should be preferred over the instrumentalization account. It draws on a contrast between imposition and self-presentation and explains why sexual objectification, understood as the imposition of sex object status on women, is harmful and wrong.

In alignment with the feminist "sex wars", sexual objectification and sexual agency are considered to be opposites that exclude each other. I used the sexual script theory to perform a qualitative content analysis of the five most-watched heterosexual porn videos in the Czech Republic on Pornhub. The study shows that although sexual objectification and agency are opposite types of behavior, they do not exclude each other; they intertwine. The levels of objectification and agency depend on the roles portrayed by the actors, but even though the women in the analyzed videos are cast in more sexually experienced roles, which grants them more sexual agency, they are still more objectified than the men. To my knowledge, this is the first study to measure how the levels of sexual objectifica-tion and sexual agency vary with the different genders of the actors.

REFERENCE:
Baril, Alexandre (2018). “Confessing Society, Confessing Cis-tem: Rethinking consent through intimate images of trans* people in the media,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, vol. 39, no 2, p. 1-25.

KEYWORDS:
Transgender — Media — Hyper-visibility — Nudity — Objectification — Sexualization — Cisgenderism/Transphobia — Consent — Sexual Violence — Law — Auto-Ethnography

ABSTRACT:
Despite feminist redefinitions of sexual consent that highlight its renewable, affirmative, retractable nature, legal consent to the public distribution of any type of image requires only a single, irrevocable instance of consent. I argue that it is problematic to consider consent to publicly distribute intimate nude images in the same way as consent to sharing other images. What if consent to the public distribution of intimate images were redefined according to feminist understandings of sexual consent? Using the example of trans* people and inspired by Foucault’s work on confessing, I argue that we live in a “confessing society” that leads us to believe that disclosure of our selves is liberating and a transphobic/cisgenderist “confessing cis-tem” that, together, push trans* people to show their naked bodies/souls to satisfy public curiosity. Adopting a feminist, transactivist approach and an auto-ethnographic methodology based on my experience as a trans man who “accepted” media requests to discuss private details of my transition and have intimate images taken of my body for which my consent cannot be retracted, I present two arguments. First, for some trans* people, certain aspects of the confessing cis-tem, including social and media pressures, should be considered factors that can bias consent. Second, I call for a redefinition of consent to the distribution of intimate images: whether consent was given in biased circumstances or not, it should be possible to withdraw it, as with sexual consent. If you can reconsider being intimate with just one person, the same should be true of exposing your nudity to an audience.

Paraphilias are predominantly male sexuality disorders and sexual urges that are considered deviant with respect to cultural norms. The common paraphilias include exhibitionism, pedophilia, voyeurism and fetishism. The paraphilia that is present in the current analysis is Voyeurism. This psychological disorder is clubbed with the concept of sexual objectification. Woman is the most common victim of objectification as well as voyeuristic tendencies. Therefore both the concepts are treated through the lens of feminist theory. The comparison of both the plays brings out the crucial issue of objectification of women and both the chosen texts are full with the references to voyeuristic traits in the subjects. In Lights Out all the male characters act as voyeurs as they are engaged in watching a heinous act of gang rape from the window of their apartment but none of them tries to help the suffering woman. The crime serves them an interesting subject to be discussed about. They use religion, concept of prostitution and different forms of violence to give a particular definition to the crime. Kamala is based on a real life incident of purchasing a woman from flesh market by a journalist to present her in a press conference. In the play Jai Singh Jadav uses Kamala, the purchased woman as a perfect news item to expose the evil of flesh markets prevailing in Indian society. Kamala is treated as an object to be seen in the press conference because Jai Singh does not allow her to change her torn sari. The comparison has been done by using the grounds of literary theory of feminism.