Sexy vs. Sexualized: The Difference

[Hal Jordan]

I agree that women sexualize women as well. Porn and stripping are clearly fully sexualized industries. Dressing sexy to get a job is a bit different, because you should try to look good for a job interview. Acting sexy to get out of a traffic ticket is a bit murky, imo.

Look at it this way, I can't help being sexy. I'm naturally going to appear that way. It would take effort for me to be sexualized, however.

[Captain Obvious]

I agree that women sexualize women as well. Porn and stripping are clearly fully sexualized industries. Dressing sexy to get a job is a bit different, because you should try to look good for a job interview. Acting sexy to get out of a traffic ticket is a bit murky, imo.

Look at it this way, I can't help being sexy. I'm naturally going to appear that way. It would take effort for me to be sexualized, however.

Wolfman jack beard and all?

[Hal Jordan]

Wolfman jack beard and all?

The beard is a major part of my sexiness.

Coming to you from the depths of inner space

[IMPress Polly]

Ethereal wrote:
As for tying the narrative into the women's suffrage movement, that would make a lot of sense. However, assuming they go that route, they should do it in a way that is true to the spirit of that era, and not try to lecture the audience from a modernist perspective.

To judge by the fact that most of the advertising for this movie has been in places like ABC, Freeform, and Marie Claire magazine and circulated most heavily on explicitly feminist web sited like the Mary Sue, I'd say that (for once) you are not the target audience, but a peripheral element. I am the target audience, or at least part of it. I find that kind of satisfying by itself in a way, being more accustomed to being thought of as the peripheral element whose opinion doesn't matter myself. And frankly I WANT this movie to pander to me a little! This is the first (live action) superhero movie to have a solo female lead. There's a lifetime's worth of pent-up demand there to appease. 'Make me feel welcome in this world' is my sentiment. I mean not ALL the female-led superhero movies that may come out in the future should be like that of course, but I feel that the first one should be. It's Wonder Woman, for Christ sakes! She's always been a feminist icon! I believe she's the only comic book superhero to appear on the cover of Ms. magazine before. She's supposed to be unsubtly feminist and, by virtue of being an Amazonian warrior, is narratively justified in presenting any variation on feminist thought that the director wants to convey! She's supposed to be more progressive than her historical context.

What I'm trying to say is that you had Doctor Strange last fall, Logan in the winter, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 last month, you will have your sixth Spider-Man movie next month, another Thor movie this fall, Deadpool 2 in the winter, etc. etc. etc. This is all I get. Just let me have my one movie, K?

Well, in the spirit of your OP, I'd like to make a distinction between something being discussed in a political context and something being politicized. And the way I interpret your OP, you are actually arguing AGAINST the movie being politicized by the puritans on the right and the left. In other words, you recognize and accept the political dimensions of the movie and its narrative, but you aren't trying to turn the movie and every facet thereof into some kind of political statement. The actress playing Wonder Woman is hot, wears hot outfits, and is a a bad ass, and that's OKAY.

Actually, I was just defending one aspect of one movie, not drawing all those broad and sweeping conclusions.

I'm not opposed to critically analyzing a film's thematic contents at all! I just think that there are people who are overly concerned about things like how women dress (some well-intentioned and others not so much) even in empowerment fantasies. And yeah, given the precedent that this movie is setting especially, indeed I don't think this is the film to just be particularly hyper-critical of.

I guess my only objection to the OP (and it's somewhat of a minor quibble) would be the seeming implication (correct me if I'm wrong) that sexualizing someone (as the OP has defined it) is always wrong or unacceptable. Granted, in this particular context, it would be wrong to portray a superhero as a sex object, but not because of any moral or ethical reasons per se, but because it makes no sense from an artistic and aesthetic perspective to reduce a warrior to their sexual identity. However, I would argue that there are some contexts where sexualizing someone is not only acceptable, but even artistically and/or behaviorally proper. The most obvious example of when this would be warranted is in pornography, but there are other contexts where it would be acceptable. Why do we think, for example, that so many people are into BDSM? Whether we like to admit it or not, humans are excited by the idea of being reduced to nothing but a purely sexual being. Obviously, it's not healthy if you do it all the time, but in moderate doses, it can be quite healthy and liberating. I could expand on this by putting it into the larger context of our evolutionary biology, but I don't want to wander too far afield...

Well I don't want to get too far afield either, but to just briefly respond to the core case you're aiming to make here, I do, in fact, oppose pornography for the very reason you highlight.

Hal Jordan wrote:
As to the sexy/sexualized argument, I think I can simplify it for those that don't seem to get the difference. Look at sexy as more having to do with looks (and yes, attitude plays a role. Some attitudes are just damn sexy.), while sexualized is more based in action.

I agree that women sexualize women as well. Porn and stripping are clearly fully sexualized industries. Dressing sexy to get a job is a bit different, because you should try to look good for a job interview. Acting sexy to get out of a traffic ticket is a bit murky, imo.
Look at it this way, I can't help being sexy. I'm naturally going to appear that way. It would take effort for me to be sexualized, however.

Here's what I mean when I say that someone is being sexually objectified in a real-world setting: When I say that someone is being sexualized, I mean that they are being thought of or acted upon in a certain way that separates their bodies from their souls, like their will doesn't matter because they are just things for one to consume. Like the mentality you saw on display in that infamous Access Hollywood video.

"Sexy" is about expressing your own sexuality. Sexualization about controlling someone else's.

Where Chris's simplistic analysis falters is in its failure to consider social context. Yes, women can definitely objectify themselves. I certainly have many times. But that doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens in the context of patriarchy.

[Chris]

Unless you're locked up in your room looking at a mirror, sexy, sexualized is social. All my examples were social.

But, yea, I see, women sexualize themselves because of patriarchy. Abstractions like that don't mean a whole lot.

[Archer0915]

I saw an article in WAPO about a theater that was only allowing women to see the first showing of wonder Woman.

I say make all showings women's only.

I can dress up like a woman if needed.

[IMPress Polly]

Chris wrote:
But, yea, I see, women sexualize themselves because of patriarchy. Abstractions like that don't mean a whole lot.

Well let's get more specific then. Based on my personal experience working as a stripper and prostitute in my college years, I would say that taking up that line of work requires the perfect combination of high body confidence and low self-esteem.

In connection to the former, you know, most people get pretty nervous about merely giving a speech in front of an audience, let alone removing most of all of their clothes in front of one. There are wallflowers who go into stripping, but they never make it past the first day. You have to be someone who has been told regularly that you're beautiful, hot, cute, stuff like that in order to have the level of body confidence required.

In connection to the latter, almost every girl and woman in the sex industry has been sexually abused before and/or are drug addicts, and for the exceptions to those rules, were probably abandoned by their father early on in life and just never had a positive male role model. The rates of depression, PTSD, suicidal tendencies, that sort of thing are all sky high among sex workers and the average life expectancy in those fields is very low. This is the kind of mentality that it takes to be willing to put up with being grabbed and groped and even physically attacked on a regular basis even when it's against the rules and to just be willing to completely debase yourself and do whatever the most hideous, demented, hateful guy on Earth commands you to for hours. On top of that, everyone hates sex workers. Women hate you for the attention that you get from men (perhaps including their's) and men just view you as a worthless, throwaway piece of meat. Accordingly, you have to be willing to lie to yourself a lot and convince yourself that that's what love is. And you have to be willing to be hated even by your family because you may well be disowned. I mean, yeah, the business pays. It's the only business that pays women more than men on an hourly basis. (A fact which ought to tell you something about what we as a society value in women.) But there's a tremendous social and psychological price tag attached to it. For me, that price tag became too high eventually and I just couldn't go on anymore. They couldn't pay me enough. I think you'll find the same attitude among most of the women who worked in the sex industry in the past.

[Chris]

Well let's get more specific then. Based on my personal experience working as a stripper and prostitute in my college years, I would say that taking up that line of work requires the perfect combination of high body confidence and low self-esteem.

In connection to the former, you know, most people get pretty nervous about merely giving a speech in front of an audience, let alone removing most of all of their clothes in front of one. There are wallflowers who go into stripping, but they never make it past the first day. You have to be someone who has been told regularly that you're beautiful, hot, cute, stuff like that in order to have the level of body confidence required.

In connection to the latter, almost every girl and woman in the sex industry has been sexually abused before and/or are drug addicts, and for the exceptions to those rules, were probably abandoned by their father early on in life and just never had a positive male role model. The rates of depression, PTSD, suicidal tendencies, that sort of thing are all sky high among sex workers and the average life expectancy in those fields is very low. This is the kind of mentality that it takes to be willing to put up with being grabbed and groped and even physically attacked on a regular basis even when it's against the rules and to just be willing to completely debase yourself and do whatever the most hideous, demented, hateful guy on Earth commands you to for hours. On top of that, everyone hates sex workers. Women hate you for the attention that you get from men (perhaps including their's) and men just view you as a worthless, throwaway piece of meat. Accordingly, you have to be willing to lie to yourself a lot and convince yourself that that's what love is. And you have to be willing to be hated even by your family because you may well be disowned. I mean, yeah, the business pays. It's the only business that pays women more than men on an hourly basis. (A fact which ought to tell you something about what we as a society value in women.) But there's a tremendous social and psychological price tag attached to it. For me, that price tag became too high eventually and I just couldn't go on anymore. They couldn't pay me enough. I think you'll find the same attitude among most of the women who worked in the sex industry in the past.

You're not really addressing what I posted.

I intend no negative judgment of hookers and strippers. I've met some who are very good decent people. But they do sexualize themselves to make money. It's a risk and I'm sure they do suffer for it, just the same as if a man secualized them.

Nor did you address your own abstract point on patriarchy.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

My rule is that in fiction (games included), sexual content which serves as a meaningful plot device is different than sexual content just for the sake of pure gratuity.

There's not a fine line, but the same's true of violence, there's a difference between violence that serves a plot device (such as in a Godfather film) and violence just for pure exploitation (such as in a slasher film).

Problem here is that the OP seems singularly fixated on "games" and not popular entertainment and culture as a whole.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

When do we discuss the sexual exploitation of men?

Well for one, it would be identical to the "whining" we here in "social justice" identity politics, just with the sexes reversed.

Second, it doesn't happen in the same degree as sexual exploitation of women due to biological differences, mainly because sex drive for women allegedly isn't as purely "visually oriented" as it is for men.

I'd say there are legitimate cultural issues to discuss, the problem is that "feminism" and identity politics muddy the water and make the issue solely about "identity politics" or "video games" rather than issues about culture on the whole.

Why this is in "Geek Out Zone" instead of the Gender and Sexuality forum I don't get either.