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Zach Gilmore

Philosophy of Sex and Gender

10/28/21

Final Essay

Throughout the semester, I have learned a great deal about gender roles in society; the

levels of objectification between people, both harmful and acceptable; and about different

types of sexuality. I already knew about these concepts on some level, but this class really

opened my eyes to the extremity and how widespread objectification is in society. I don’t feel

sexually attracted to people of any gender, which has affected my experiences with these

issues. Most people might think that asexuals like myself are naturally inclined to refrain from

objectification and not be affected by it, and on some level, they would be right. However, I can

and do experience it on some level. For instance, I can sometimes notice if people are physically

attractive and appreciate them the way most people would appreciate artwork. I know from

visiting ace communities that many aces experience discrimination from other groups, most

notably, heterosexuality. This made me wonder about how heterosexual objectification harms

people of various sexualities, and to what extent.

Before I can explain how heterosexual objectification harms people of different groups, I

first need to define what it is. Objectification is simply the act of making or treating someone as

a thing, despite them not actually being a thing. There are around seven different forms of

objectification, and many cases typically involve multiple forms overlapping with each other.

Sexual objectification, more specifically, is when people, usually women, are portrayed in a
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dehumanizing manner as “sexual objects, things, or commodities”. According to Nussbaum,

there are seven main forms of objectification, but it seems to me that some forms are more

prominent than others. I think when discussing harmful objectification in general, the most

significant forms are: instrumentality, a tool for one’s own purposes; denial of autonomy;

violability, showing a lack of boundaries; and denial of subjectivity, when any feelings or

experience the object may have are ignored (Nussbaum, 1995).

As feminism grew, it became more widespread that men’s sexual objectification of

women is a central problem in women’s lives, and that correcting that problem is at the core of

feminist politics. However, introducing factors into the equation, such as sexual minorities,

leads to a much more complex topic—and a multitude of complex answers. The experiences

that queer people face throughout their lives, even when not out to anyone, affect them in

unique ways to each other. What makes matters worse is that very little research is dedicated

to how people in various sexual minorities are affected by this, so methods on how to

specifically help them are much rarer than they should be. In our heteronormative patriarchal

society, people generally turn a blind eye to objectification, especially with non-heterosexual

groups, or they give excuses as to why it’s not that big a deal.

Objectification theory is a philosophical idea that began to take significant impact in the

20th century. It analyzes the ways that women are perceived as sexual objects in society. The

theory claims that as people become more exposed to sexualized images in media, especially

when the images represent certain groups, they slowly internalize other people’s perspectives

of themselves. This allegedly leads to greater focus on their body’s appearance, and less focus

on the body’s overall health, which in turn can result in a decrease in that person’s physical and
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mental state. Symptoms can include dysmorphia, depression, eating disorders, anxiety, and

more. This case, known as self-objectification, was broken down into two forms: trait-level and

state-level. State-level focuses on how self-objectification increases in the short-term, while

trait-level relates to how much a specific person has internalized it (Garcia, 2021).

People are constantly surrounded by instances of sexual objectification, regardless of

their sexuality. As technology becomes more advanced and social media becomes more

popular, many scientists have wondered how it affects self-objectification in people, especially

women. Social media usage has been linked to increasing body dissatisfaction on a global scale,

but the analysis was on a broad, global level. One study attempted to figure out on a much

smaller yet more specific scale (Garcia, 2021). It monitored the daily Instagram use of dozens of

women, and related it to questions asked about their daily and overall mood, and about their

level of body shame. The idea was to determine the impact that Instagram had on women on a

daily level. After all, many people who take part in social media experience it on a day-to-day

basis, so it is very important that the repercussions of it are studied.

The entire point of Instagram is for people to post visual-based media, which largely

includes idealized images of people. According to objectification theory, daily exposure of this

content should lead to an increase of self-objectification, which in turn would result in an

overall decrease in well-being. The study found that, indeed, daily Instagram usage resulted in

an increase of state-level self-objectification, and a decrease of daily satisfaction. The article

then theorizes that, even though the state-level increase was small, it could have far-reaching

consequences (Garcia, 2021). After all, the more often that people are exposed to ideas, the

more likely they are to internalize those beliefs, even when their conscious mind is against it.
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Objectification theory confirms this, stating that repeated instances of self-objectification are

what leads to an increase on the trait-level scale. The study does not determine the effect that

state-level self-objectification has on trait-level objectification, since it only took place over a

few weeks; not long enough to effectively track the latter type.

Societies worldwide have established a patriarchal culture; one where men are seen as

dominant, but only if they conform to traditional masculine gender roles. Some people call this

idea “Guyland”, where men can live regularly in it as long as they follow its strict rules. For

instance, men are taught—either directly or indirectly—to view women as creatures to be used

and objectified for their own ends. Society tells them to openly act this way, even when women

tell them to stop, because “they secretly want it” or “she was just, you know, there”. They take

what they want, screw the consequences, because they know that other men are not

particularly likely to rat them out. This is a clear case of violability, as these men deem it

perfectly acceptable to treat women’s boundaries as insignificant as traffic lights in racing

games. Our patriarchal society teaches men to have a sort of “code of silence” with each other

regarding certain acts, which includes sexually assaulting women. Even when those

aforementioned acts are brought to light, it’s unlikely that the people in authority will do

anything significant about it, since anti-feminists are quick to blame the victims for

“constraining male sexuality” (Kimmel, 2018). This also relates to denial of subjectivity, since

the victim’s feelings and testimony aren’t considered by the people who are supposed to help

them.

Women can live in Guyland too, but as second-class citizens at best, and only if they

constantly mistrust each other for the attention of men. Like men, women are taught to act in a
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certain way in order to be accepted among their peers, but unlike men, society forces them to

take a submissive role and accept whatever happens to them. Also unlike men, women are

taught that their relationships with other women are flimsy, and whomever betrays the other

first ends up ahead (Kimmel, 2018). As women are exposed to more and more sexual

objectification, they internalize men’s standards of attractiveness as their own, which can lead

to increased self-objectification and body surveillance (Garcia, 2021).

When discussing the sexual objectification of people in the LGBT+ community, their

experiences can be similar or worse than that of their cishet counterparts. Not only can they

come across the previously mentioned forms of objectification, there’s another form that

becomes much more prevalent in this case: fungibility; or in other words, “treating an object as

interchangeable with other objects of the same and/or similar types” (Nussbaum, 1995). There

are quite a few negative stereotypes regarding each group in the LGBT+ community, or the

community as a whole, and at least some of them involve some form of sexual objectification.

Each of these groups has to deal with specific problems that happen as a result of this

fungibility.

Bisexual women undergo unique experiences of discrimination and sexualization. For

instance, they may be less likely to internalize the heteronormative standards of attractiveness,

and that objectification of them is more context-specific than heterosexual women. Still, they

are much more likely to experience sexual assault, and are portrayed in media as sexually

promiscuous (Polihronakis, 2021). In addition, they have to deal with discrimination from both

heterosexual and queer groups; each group perceiving them as belonging to the other one. One
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study found that discrimination specifically focused on a woman’s bisexuality was more likely to

increase her internalization and body shame.

Studies found that women are less likely to engage in safe-sex practices when they are

sexually objectified by both outside sources and themselves (Polihronakis, 2021). This lack of

safe sex has a positive correlation with sexual violence and number of sex partners. Considering

the aforementioned discrimination and objectification that bisexual women experience, it

stands to reason that they are at greater risk than other women. It turns out, the discrimination

resulted in the riskier sex behaviors, rather than the other way around.

When it comes to representation of queer characters in media, gay men seem to have

more of it than lesbian women (Annati and Ramsey, 2021). Much of the lesbian representation

that does exist isn’t usually great either; such as being pushed towards heterosexuality. It’s no

secret that a lot of lesbian portrayal is made for a male audience to admire rather than for

actual lesbian women. Heterosexual men actually seem to be encouraging of lesbianism, except

not out of the kindness of their hearts. Rather, they see it as an opportunity to be with multiple

women at a time; their gross fantasies inspired and furthered by the aforementioned lesbian

media tropes. All of this assumably causes problems similar to that of heterosexual or bisexual

women: significant internalization and self-objectification.

Seeking to understand the implications this could have on lesbian women, a study was

performed to monitor the relationship between how they see themselves and how they see

lesbian characters in the media (Annati and Ramsey, 2021). The researchers gathered 179

lesbian women and asked them various questions about how they viewed representation. The

results showed that: the most common portrayals were the “hot” and “feminine” lesbians,
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made for the male gaze, characters “realizing” they were actually heterosexual, and other

common stereotypes. All of those were as hypothesized. However, results in other cases were

surprising. For instance, one hypothesis was that showing lesbians portrayals of sexualized

characters would lead to higher self-objectification and body shame, and negative mood. This

ended up not being the case. In fact, due to the scarcity of lesbian representation, lesbian

women who view any existing cases—stereotypical or not—are likely to find them empowering

(Annati and Ramsey, 2021). I’m not saying that people shouldn’t try to write good

representation of lesbian characters. For one thing, it could very well eventually get under their

skin similarly to other sexual minorities; and secondly, as those who have lived in Guyland can

testify, the unrealistic expectations that lesbians and non-lesbians have from bad portrayals can

still cause a lot of harm, regardless if people feel empowered by them or not.

While not as pervasive nor as common as women, men can also suffer from

objectification and body-image dissatisfaction. Several studies analyzed this in heterosexual

men and how it relates to objectification theory. According to prolonged analysis,

advertisements that target men have become more objectifying lately than in the past (Davids,

2018). The study showed surprising mixed results. For instance, sexual objectification was

shown to have a positive relationship with body shame, but such a relationship was not found

with body surveillance nor self-objectification. In addition, self-objectification was not a

predicting factor for body shame. What makes these results so confusing is that they are very

different from that of women, who typically have positive relationships involving all three on

some level. Additional testing showed that when men don’t naturally conform with masculine

gender roles, they can feel pressured to hyper-express in other roles, which can lead to
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instances of gender role conflict. This is exactly why studying diverse groups involving

objectification theory is important. Many different sexual minorities have different, unique

experiences from each other, so their reactions to similar experiences differ from each other.

By performing all these different studies, objectification theory can be expanded upon to better

benefit people of all genders and all sexualities.

The concepts of masculinity and femininity are important in how people of all genders

and sexualities perceive themselves. Strangely enough, they seem to not have been widely

explored in relation to body image. After all, body image issues are very important factors that

can lead to health problems, such as eating disorders. Certain studies have shown that queer

people have higher levels of risk for developing an eating disorder sometime in their lives than

cishet people. To shed some light on this, a study was done involving hundreds of men and

women, both homosexual and heterosexual. The study wanted to analyze whether various

combinations of masculine and feminine gender-typed traits influenced the risk of body image

concerns among men and women of differing sexualities. It turns out that gay men and lesbians

with more body surveillance and body shame showed an increase in femininity and a decrease

in masculinity (Massey, 2020).

Regarding different sexualities, gay and bisexual men struggle more often with these

issues than heterosexual men. One of these reasons is due to the various gender roles that

society forces people to follow. Internalized heterosexism is generally linked to masculinity,

while queer men are seen as more feminine. This tends to contrast with the ideal masculine

body that is desired by most men. As a result, gay and bisexual men are more likely to seek out

that ideal body type, which leads to a higher risk of body-image dissatisfaction. Men who are
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far from fitting this standard, particularly overweight men, tend to be ignored by the queer

community. Coupled with being excluded from other groups for being queer, they become

even more likely to develop unhealthy disorders. Sexual objectification of gay and bisexual men

is also more common than with heterosexuals, and the former two tend to be more vulnerable

to the negative internalization this can have (Chaney, 2021).

Even though both men and women suffer from objectification, the road to treating the

problem is not the same for both sexes. Objectification theory was historically associated with

women, and it hasn’t caught up with how to help self-objectified men. Many clinicians are not

well trained to counsel males or non-heterosexuals, and most of the treatment strategies they

use to help with body-image dissatisfaction were specifically designed to help women. The

experiences of men are different than the experiences of women, so what works for one of

them isn’t necessarily a solution for the other. So, even though men are less likely than women

to develop body issues that require clinical treatment, it is more difficult for them to obtain

helpful treatment if they do have said body issues (Davids, 2018). There are some treatment

options, such as early recollections, that, while not having much research done on how it works

on queer men, do show some promise and hope for further testing (Chaney, 2021).

Despite being arguably the least known and represented sexual minority, asexuality

does suffer from discrimination and objectification in some ways. Asexuality at its most basic is

when a person feels little to no sexual attraction. Something important to note is that the

desire to act is different from an attraction towards something relating to that desire. Case in

point: desiring to swim in a pool is different from feeling a sort of attraction towards that pool

(Brunning and McKeever). Despite this, people in the ace community experience sexual
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objectification from other groups. One common acephobic response is that we are actually

“insert other sexuality here”, or that we just can’t get in a real relationship. Some argue that we

are simply being celibate. Even when asexual people are in a relationship, since many of us can

feel romantic attraction, the comments are similar, so we can’t win either way.

Compared to other sexual minorities, asexuality is arguably the least understood and

represented one. There is relatively very little research that specifically focuses on asexual

people and how objectification affects them. In my unbiased opinion, this is a very wasted

opportunity. Not only could more research result in more public knowledge and acceptance of

asexual people, it could also help challenge the idea that sexuality and objectification have to

be omnipresent forces among all humans. To help explain this, a study published by Scherrer

was done in 2008 with 102 asexuals regarding their sexual identity via open-ended questions.

While many of them described their definition of asexuality similarly to the dictionary

definition, about half gave a different and/or more detailed explanation. Some focused on

attraction or behavior itself, and others focused more on relationships. A common theme

among those stories was the importance of boundaries between physical affection and sexual

interactions (Scherrer, 2008). One important thing to take note of in the study was how people

separate sexual and non-sexual acts. Depending on the person, some participants participated

in acts that are generally thought to be sexual in nature yet didn’t consider them as such.

According to the article, this “challenges the sexual/non-sexual binary as it questions how and

why certain behaviors are designated as sexual and others as non-sexual” (Scherrer, 2008). By

understanding that this binary is closer to a spectrum, we challenge the cultural mindsets of
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objectification and sexuality. (So basically, asexuals are higher beings who don’t succumb to the

matters of the flesh)

Society encourages the concept that masculinity and femininity are a binary option:

either people conform to whichever one their sex is more closely related with, or they are

stigmatized and discriminated against. Luckily, this view is becoming more outdated as more

information about the gender spectrum is discovered and brought to light. People are slowly

becoming more accepting that all or even most gender traits are not an inherent part of each

person’s gender or sex, the key word here being “slowly”. It’s quite apparent that gender roles

are still highly forced in society. From the very moment a child is born, there is an expectation

of guidelines for it to follow simply based on their sex. These guidelines are encouraged in

subtle and non-subtle ways from an extremely young age. Many parents encourage their male

children to become involved in almost exclusively masculine roles, and female children in

feminine roles. For instance, many heterosexual parents show their children how couples are

“supposed” to behave based on their sex, such as: men are the breadwinners and women are

the housekeepers. Men watch sports while women do most of the child-raising. This line of

thinking is continuously enforced, even if said roles are harmful, or if a child just doesn’t want

to take part in them; both reasons being equally valid.

As bad as the discrimination between cishet men and women is, the societal roles and

lessons about queer people are at least as bad, if not worse. Many people who identify as

something other than cis and/or heterosexual do not have the support of those who are

supposed to help them in times of stress: parents, friends, peers, teachers, etc. Instead, they

are met with violence, abuse, ignorance, and more. Even when queer people aren’t out to
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anyone, they still have to hear and see morons bully and harass people like them. It can be

extremely damaging to experience all this. Compared to cishet humans, those in the LGBTQ+

are significantly more likely to develop mental health problems, sexual risk taking, and various

other health problems; physical abuse being among them. These issues are a result of the

abuse and sexual objectification that queer people receive simply based on them not being

cishet (Illingworth and Murphy, 2004).

Increased body surveillance among gay men and lesbian women, when compared to

their heterosexual counterparts, have been shown as a factor for increased femininity and

decreased masculinity. This makes sense, as queerness among men in society is typically

associated with femininity (yet this strangely contrasts with masculine gay men being more

accepted in mainstream than feminine gay men). Unfortunately, this can lead to gay men

feeling increased body shame if they don’t experience the level of masculinity that they desire.

Lesbian women are somewhat different in this case. Masculine lesbian women tend to be more

accepted by the LGBT+ community, so feminine lesbian women are more likely to feel body

shame and self-consciousness. Some lesbians may attempt to take on stereotypical masculine

roles in order to better fit in, yet also try to balance them with their own identity. Basically,

both gay men and lesbian women are more inclined to act masculine to protect themselves

from feelings of body shame. (Massey, 2020) I believe that this relation goes all the way back to

objectification theory. Both groups, willing or not, are subjected to the oppressive male gaze.

They, like everyone else, grow up in a patriarchal society that sees them as feminine Others to

be objectified. In response, gay men and lesbian women realized that one pathway that could
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lead them to greater acceptance, even if it’s token acceptance, was adopting masculinity in

their lifestyles and habits.

It has been shown with heterosexual men that factors generally related to each other,

such as self-objectification and body shame, have a lesser relationship with each other than

expected (Davids, 2018). I think this is because of the different standards that men are held to,

as opposed to women. Because men generally aren’t as objectified as women are, and

heterosexual men least of all, they internalize those negative feelings less often, and experience

less pressure on how to fix themselves. Again, it’s not the sexuality itself that leads to these

cases, rather the cumulative expectations that society pushes onto them.

When going back to the Instagram study, I noticed one of the questions asked what the

main reason was for the women to use Instagram regarding body image. The primary reason, it

turns out, was “Impressing Friends/Followers” (Garcia, 2021). I think that this one question

greatly ties in with objectification theory. On social media, people are constantly bombarded

with images of people in their idealized self. Similar to how Guyland influences women to act in

a certain way to acquire/maintain a significant social status, social media does this on a similar

yet smaller scale. It can result in women tying their self-image to how others perceive them,

rather than how they perceive themselves.

While both men and women can be victims of objectification, heterosexuals are typically

sexualized and objectified at a lesser rate than their non-hetero counterparts (Chaney, 2021).

Many reasons for this can be given via scientific explanations, but I want to get a little more

philosophical here. I think that the biggest reason for all of this is because the LGBTQ+

community is still seen as an Other: a lesser group. In pretty much all of history, any group that
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is seen as a minority is automatically considered to be a lower class of people. Whenever this

happens, society teaches that that group does not deserve the same rights as the majority.

Minorities get less representation in media, and less research is devoted to their needs, which

leads to their overall conditions worsening. The majority then believes that this is a direct result

of the minority group itself, rather than the systemic problems that force the group to act in

such a way.

When it comes to negative stereotypes about queer minorities, such as with bisexual

women being more promiscuous, the discrimination tends to result in the stereotype itself,

rather than the other way around. You might not be surprised to hear that a lot of people

aren’t completely accepting of sexual minorities, thus many of those stupid people latch on to

stupid ideas of what they think those groups act like. I think that many bisexuals who agree to

less than safe sex with their partners do so to avoid risking their relationships. As mentioned

before, bisexuals are discriminated against more often than most other groups in the LGBTQ+

community, so they may feel like a refusal would result in distain or even outright rejection.

Thus they are less likely to resist or argue with their partner if it means maintaining that

relationship, even if it poses a greater danger to their health.

The article by Scherrer discussed the different ways that asexual people determine their

identity, and how those ideas could be understood easier by society. One of Scherrer’s

suggested methods was to define asexuality under a tight(er) set list of traits to distinguish it

from misconceptions, such as celibacy. On paper, this method has some promise. After all,

asexuality rejects the idea that all humans desire sex on some level, and many people would

have a difficult time picturing that without an easier explanation. I disagree with this plan.
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Asexuality covers such a wide spectrum that solidifying the “requirements” could end up

excluding its lesser known branches. It is such a little-discussed topic that for most of my life I

confused aesthetic attraction and extremely rare romantic attraction with heterosexuality. If it

took so long for me to learn about the more well-known ace identities such as aegosexual and

demisexual, a narrower explanation of asexuality would leave out the lesser known identities,

such as lithosexual and reciprosexual. That would lead to those identities being even less

widespread, causing people who don’t know they have such identities to have a much harder

time figuring it out.

While objectification, by definition, takes away the perspective of a person or group’s

humanity, that doesn’t mean it is a universally bad thing. In certain cases, some of the seven

forms of objectification can lead to a more overall positive result. For example, several of the

forms involve “denial of autonomy”, or in other words: treating an object as lacking in agency

and autonomy. With certain groups of people, such as babies and senile folks, it makes sense to

treat them in this way. They don’t typically have the mental capacity to behave reasonably. As a

result, decisions regarding their health are given to other people more suited for the job, such

as relatives or trained professionals.

When it comes to objectification, it’s hard to argue that it is a significant cause for harm

among people of all genders and sexualities. However, I would also like to argue that in some

cases, objectification can lead to positive actions resulting an improvement in people’s short-

term and long-term overall well-being. From my perspective, this can be traced back to one of

the main forms of objectification: inertness. This form is when the objectifier treats something

as “lacking in agency and activity” (Nussbaum, 1995). As I mentioned before, and what can
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probably be guessed by living in society for a while, many people in the LGBT+ community don’t

have the same opportunities that cishet people do. They lack the agency and activities that

could help them because they are restricted from accessing those activities by the majority.

People that recognize this inertness in these communities can better understand what they are

going through and thus act in ways to be good allies.

One of the most powerful tools to help people in the LGBT+ community is trust. Being

forced into a metaphorical minefield of not knowing who, if anyone, will accept you is a living

nightmare. There are two definitions of trust relevant to this situation. The first is trusting out

of knowledge that the trustee will benefit from acting in correspondence to that trust, such as a

long-term partnership between two businessmen (Illingsworth and Murphy, 2004). For

instance, queer people coming out to each other may be less likely to out the other person to

homophobes, as that person could do the same to them. While not exactly a purehearted

reason, this would fit under the definition listed and could be potentially effective. Another,

more wholesome case would be that when a queer person comes out to an accepting ally or

fellow queer person, the relationship between those two would undoubtedly increase. The first

person would now have someone extra to confide in about issues relating to their sexuality

and/or gender. The second person, if they are cishet, can gain more insight into the LGBT+

community, and how to be a better friend and ally. As such, both parties increase their overall

well-being with each other.

The second definition relies more on individuals and how they believe in the

trustworthiness of others, looking at things like their personal life experiences. Based on how

trust is shown or not shown to people, it will affect how much they are willing to trust or
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mistrust others with valuable secrets later in life. Actual trust, after all, is very hard to get, and

very easy to break once it is obtained. It is extremely valuable, since it is “a social good to be

protected as much as air and water. When it is damaged, the community as a whole suffers and

when it is destroyed, societies falter and collapse” (Illingsworth and Murphy, 2004). Many

LGBT+ people have really high standards for trust, considering the likelihood of someone they

encounter being unaccepting of them, and the situations where people already betrayed that

trust. If a cishet person can genuinely earn and maintain the trust of someone in the LGBT+

community, that trust might not only save their life, it may also convince them to reach out to

other potential allies and make their bonds of trust even stronger.

While my experience with coming out to people weren’t lifesaving by any extent, having

that amount of trust with someone else was extremely satisfying and euphoric for me. Growing

up in a religious household, I thought I was just being a good Catholic boy by not wanting to

engage in sexual acts or sexual attraction. During my college sophomore years, however, I

realized that I was actually asexual. It was a lot easier for me to accept it than I thought it

would, but my parents and community would probably be a different story. I heard enough by

that time to know two things: the LGBT+ community and the church don’t mix, except in rare

cases; and that society, religious and nonreligious, is hyper-focused on sex. Many people think

that sex is a requirement of relationships, especially when it comes to marriage. As a romantic

ace, I was simultaneously interested in and scared of marrying someone; the latter for this

reason. My parents and peers sometimes hinted that I should get in a relationship, which made

me pretty uncomfortable.
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I felt like I had to tell someone about my asexuality soon, and eventually I decided on

my best friend Alice (not her real name). Not only was Alice really easy for me to talk to, she

hinted that she was a supporter of the LGBT+ community. Even so, I was still nervous when I

came out to her. Alice ended up being completely supportive of me, since she understood the

inertness that many queer people face. That encouraged me to come out to other people that I

could trust, and each of their responses so far has been awesome. Knowing that there are

people that I can trust has made me feel less objectified and more self-confident. Most

importantly of all, it gave me an idea to write for this god-forsakenly long paper.

Gender roles also played a role in my life, in both minor and major ways. I was a very

secluded person growing up, but I remember noticing a lot of these gender roles being

practiced as I grew up. The most significant times I noticed them were, obviously, among my

immediate family. Both my parents had very good jobs and made time for me and my siblings.

They also exercised regularly and had big social lives. While much about their relationship was

healthy and equal, my mother would end up doing far more housework than my father. He

would sometimes do the dishes and laundry, but much of the time he would use

instrumentality on my mom. As my siblings and I got older and we were able to contribute to

the housework, our mother took a slight reprieve, but she seemed enthralled to cleaning up the

house whenever she got the opportunity. In fact, now she considers doing chores as relaxing,

and she has a really hard time being still without something to do or clean. It always felt strange

to me that the division of labor was so uneven. Even though I know about all this and the

dangers it can have, I’m still not exactly a vigorously hardworking person like my mother. I’m

afraid that if I end up in a relationship, I would act in a similar way as my father.

Like with overall objectification, there are certain examples of sexual objectification that

would be seen as alright or even positive. It all boils down to one word: consent (although I

should probably use more words considering the length that this paper needs to be).

Instrumentality is what comes to mind in this case, because its definition doesn’t say that the

person being objectified is against it. As long as they are willingly and undoubtedly expressing

their being fine with it, or if there is reasonable belief that they wouldn’t mind, then that is

probably going to be considered a positive case. Regarding the latter, one example would be if

someone used their partner’s body as a pillow of sorts while their partner was asleep. It all

depends on the context of the situation, and on the people involved.

Heterosexual objectification exists throughout all corners of society, affecting all of us in

both blatant and subtle ways. Whether it’s the objectifier or the person being objectified, it can

cause significant harm to each person in how they view themselves, their own relationships, or

those in various groups. When it comes to people of differing sexualities, objectification affects

them in different yet significant ways. Many of these ways are harmful to the parties involved,

resulting in less self-esteem, body image issues, and more. However, objectification can be a

positive thing—and even an incredibly helpful tool—in some cases. It all depends on the people

involved, the form of objectification, and the context of the situation. Fin.

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