What many women consider “objectification,” many men would consider “appreciation.” It’s the kind of attention that they desire and understand.

In our house there are two different styles for sorting socks. I take my socks out of the dryer and tie each pair up in a knot. My wife, on the other hand, takes each pair and inserts one into the other without tying. This means that we’re regularly giving the other person what *we* want in terms of sock-processing, and insisting that they should want what *we* want, rather than taking the time to understand and accept that each person has different sock-processing preferences.

That having been said, people on both sides of the “objectfication” argument seem to be doing the sock-processing thing: we’re giving the other person what *we* want, and insisting that our view is *the* *correct* view. Actually, what I see is the guys being a little more open to change here than the women – they understand that the women don’t want what they would want, and are willing to try something different. But the women feel that giving the guys what they want is de-facto degrading to the men.

Besides, let’s be honest – I teach HS students, and have listened in on the conversations of the girls – and they can objectify with the best of them.

Now, with all of that prefatory stuff out of the way, the people who object to the OSBP on the grounds of it being just another lame excuse for the objectification of women are using *their* standards of objectification, and insisting that everyone, all women, and all men, feel the same way. But the simple fact of the matter is that there are many women who aren’t quite as uptight about this as those who object.

And this is perhaps where the problem comes up. 25 years ago, a female friend of mine complained that the problem with the sexual revolution and the ability to choose was that while it made it possible for a girl to say “yes,” if she wanted to, it made it nearly impossible for her to say “no,” because boorish guys didn’t or *wouldn’t* understand that the new ability to choose also involved the option of choosing not to. As a result, the seemingly few girls who chose not to felt put upon not necessarily by the guys, but by the majority of other girls who indirectly put pressure on them by *their* choices.

In terms of the OSBP, this means that while it may be true that a majority of women were cool with this, were *really* cool with this, they indirectly put pressure on those who *weren’t* cool with it. This is probably why a number of women have a problem with it, they’re the ones who *aren’t* cool with it, and resent being put into the position of looking “uncool,” when that was never the intent in the first place. They would rather have “uncool” be the true default, without the option of people even being able to announce that they were cool.

I’ve often asked why we treat sex and “sexual” body parts differently than we treat eating and digestive organs. Why can we openly tell jokes about teeth, but not tits? Is it objectifying a person to want to touch their hands?

But I’ve gone on way too long here, so I’ll stop now.

Fortunately you can join others in the movement:

http://misia.livejournal.com/1055120.html

Et in titcadia ego.

What’s funny to me is that I accept that this was a fun sexy thing for many of the people who participated. Low risk swinging for dorks, fine. I’m ok with this as a “this one time, at a con…” story. Kinda weird, and I’m sure it was uncomfortable for some of the women, and probably men, who participated.

But the pompous, self-justifying tone and the tragic, alas-our-boobtopia-could-never-live-in-this-unenlightened-world really grates. Whatever or cultural hang-ups about sex may be, (one-sided) games of truth-or-dare seem unlikely to breask them.