December 12, 1937 - August 21, 1974
30 Days of De-Objectification:
Wrap-Up
Back
in 1981, there was a television show called Walking Tall, which was
inspired by the life of Sheriff Buford Pusser. The real-life Sheriff
Pusser fought corruption in McNairy County, Tennessee. He was due to
portray himself in the sequel to the 1973 film about his life, but
died under mysterious circumstances in a single-car accident. Many
people believe that his vehicle was sabotaged.
One
of the lines in the theme song for the television show was “sometimes
right hurts you more than wrong.”
I
was struggling with a lot of issues at that point in my life. I was
sixteen years old and far from popular. I gave in to peer pressure in
several instances because I wanted to be liked. Still, I tried to
make sure that my core values didn’t change. I didn’t join in
bullying kids who were even less popular than I was. I did, however,
do some things that I’m not proud of, mostly minor acts of
vandalism on school property.
I
also allowed boys to do things to me that I really didn’t want to
do, because I wanted to feel loved. Instead, I ended up feeling even
worse about myself.
I
haven’t had an easy life, and I haven’t always done the right
thing. I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons.
Many
years later, the line from the theme song of that short-lived
television program that I loved still sticks with me. I still try to
live by it, even though I’ll probably always fall short.
Doing
what’s right isn’t easy, especially when you’re young and
wanting to be accepted.
Sometimes
the “cool” thing is the wrong thing.
Some
people act like it’s cool to belittle other people for aspects of
their appearance, such as their size and the clothes they wear.
Those
who belittle others to make themselves feel big tend to be extremely
insecure. They take their own self-doubts out on others. These are
hardly people that should be emulated.
It
seems to me that some people join in the trend of expressing lewd and
objectifying thoughts about people like actors and musicians because
those individuals don’t seem real to them.
They
are real, no matter how remote they may seem to be.
Most
people do not like being objectified.
I
would be extremely creeped out if I were to discover that someone had
been writing graphic sexual fantasies about me and perhaps pairing me
with one of my associates in these fantasies.
It
seems very disrespectful to me to objectify anyone, let alone someone
markedly older than myself.
I’ve
found people who are a good deal older than me attractive. I couldn’t
imagine implying that these men were fodder for sexual fantasies, let
alone broadcasting such fantasies for public consumption.
Nobody
should be thought of as only a sex object, and people who have become
vulnerable due to infirmity should be afforded special consideration
in this regard. I say this as a person who is experiencing
deteriorating physical health myself. The last thing I want is for
someone to look at me and see nothing but a thing to be masturbated
over.
I am
unsure how anyone could fail to see it as anything but incredibly
insulting to look at a picture of a person who accomplished a great
deal in their life, and instead of thinking “I really admire what
this person was able to do,” the viewer of the photograph thinks:
“Damn, he was hot! I want him to ram his rod up my coal chute like
a runaway mine cart!”
I
sometimes wonder if younger people have been taught the concept of
putting themselves in another person’s shoes.
Would
the people objectifying older and dead musicians like to have others
objectifying them in the same way?
“Your
accomplishments are meaningless. Only your genitals matter.”
That’s
pretty disgusting.
I’m
fairly sure everything I’ve written in this series has made not one
damn bit of difference.
I
wrote it anyway, because, if intent means anything, I’d like to
think it made a difference on some level to the people being
objectified.
I
want them to know that their accomplishments matter more than their
sex appeal to me.
~The Cheese Hath Grated It~
I've never understood this. Is it the high of a momentary self-gratification that blocks out all your troubles and then becomes a cycle, a habit, an addiction?
ReplyDeleteProbably something like that. I think they feel like these people aren't real, so it's okay in their book to write crude things about them for public consumption. Um... there are FICTIONAL characters, who actually aren't real, that you could do that with instead. Just a thought.
DeleteI would die of embarrassment if any of the more explicit things I wrote in my personal and private notebooks when I was a teenager were ever made public. At least some members of the younger generation seem to have no sense of shame in that regard. I don't think this is a good thing.