Seems about right. Also I am moving to Greece / Australia, see you guys later.
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Yeah, but can those dudes converse wittily and write a poignant blogge post? I DON’T THINK SO!
I’ll be in Montenegro.
So, it seems sorta hypocritical that a lot of people got upset at the Bleacher Report for doing the “top 100 hottest Olympians” and (rightfully) pointed out the sexism inherent in that, but it’s ok when it’s men for us to ogle and reduce to objects? =/
Yes.
(p.s. I was just WAITING for this comment. I’m impressed it came so quickly!)
I’ll just take a jaunt to Olympic village right now, thanks.
Team USA. All the way.
Yes. It’s OK.
#26:
Probably not something to love about Men’s Water Polo.
@Li– I’d heard that water polo players are actually faster swimmers than racing swimmers, they just don’t bother with competing in that area because they don’t care. Also, James Mangussen can call me anytime.
I would have banked on hatwalk as the best thing…
I just don’t get it when they all look like they’re wearing baby bonnets :-/
All these men appear rather…abbreviated, to say it politely.
Eh, I suppose they keep the temperature turned way down inside of all those buildings.
Those men are gorgeous…and I like that many of them have actual chest hair!
And yes, straight women DO appreciate the male form in all kinds of varieties. Men should hear MORE about how they are attractive and desirable in their physical selves.
However, note the presence of positive and admiring comments and the absence of negative, degrading and dehumanizing comments (from the female handles, anyways…marksman, I’m giving you the side-eye for casting aspersions related to cold water. We’ve all seen Seinfeld) .
Admiration/attraction =/= objectification. Its subtle, I know…try to keep up. ;)
Unless #7 has insinuated himself into team Montenegro’s trunks for some tactical reason, he’s not Greek.
Come to Australia, our economy is better than Greece, and we all grow up ogling such physical specimens. No, really, honestly, we do. It’s commonplace.
The dangly bits are hidden inside a solid protection, in Italian it’s called conchiglia (shell). Because there isn’t always an underwater camera nearby. Or at least that’s what I was told by male friends who did waterpolo (at much lower level).
And yes, exactly about the lack of complaints about the men who failed to shave (or to apply a faux fur).
Bonus geographical remark: Jugoslavia used to be a fantastic team. Now there’s Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro – bad for their results, but four times as much eye candy for us.
Hello, Greece.
The baby hats are kind of subversive.
Well, it was an obvious comment after all. I have no good picture of your view on objectification theories, and this may not be hypocritical at all, but according to many feminists it would be an issue.
Isn’t it? If we are just talking about sexual admiration of the physical form with no relation to the person as an individual: How is that not objectification? If you use that rule, then a vast portion of what is normally classified as objectification would be excluded.
Admiration of someone’s sexy physique doesn’t objectify them any more than a discussion narrowly focused on their athletic ability renders them Water Polo Objects. It can be a different story when done in conjunction with pervasive cultural messaging that members of the admired person’s gender are only here for sex.
If you’re talking max appeal, combining both eye-candy for the women, and a name based pun candy for the immature schoolboy in us all, then clearly Team GB’s backstroke specialist Liam Tancock ticks all the boxes. And no, I don’t know if he normally does his backstroke out doors in the nude.
eye-candy for the women,
Gay men don’t exist in your world? Or lesbian women who wouldn’t necessarily see these guys as eye candy?
I know that Feministe is extremely heterocentric in general, but It’s really not that difficult to try to use inclusive language.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I was just referring to the women who had commented and were criticized for it…everyone should feel free to enjoy the eye candy!
Pretty much this. Honestly, next we’ll be arguing that it’s just as hurtful for a POC to call a white person a ‘cracker’ as it is for a white person to call a POC something terrible.
I really, genuinely don’t understand why this is OK and this:
http://deadspin.com/5927354/dancing-jiggling-hurdler-lady-is-the-worlds-new-favorite-hurdler
is not.
I get the argument that men objectified women (and so we should set aside our privilege and cease that).
I *also* understand the argument that historically, the trend of sexualization and objectification was one-way, so it’s less harmful when women, as a group, objectify men (so that they can do so without feeling guilty).
But the two arguments in conjunction sort of sound like: You stop doing X, because it hurts me. Now let me do X, because I never got a chance to. It would be like someone lecturing you that you drink too much and then you find them holed up in their cubicle with a fifth of bourbon…
How about we just acknowledge that it’s possible for both men and women to admire sexy people, for their sexiness, without it being a gross violation or terrible thing?
Its not a case of turnabout being fair play. Divorced from their context in systematic oppression, a lot of problematic things wouldn’t be bad in the first place. Take mansplaining. People frequently make claims that are contradicted by well known facts they’re aware of themselves. In a vacuum no harm is done by pointing it out, even if it turns out you did so hastily and the person’s claim is totally consistent with it. In a world where people of marginalized identities are disproportionately assumed to “not get it,” it becomes incumbent on me to be very careful when I raise an objection to something someone says in a feminist space.
From Google:
How is that different that what you’re doing here?
From Google:
How is that different that what you’re doing here? (Ignoring the inherent sexism the term “mansplaining,” of course – we all know that a woman could never “explain something in a condescending or self-justifying manner” to a man. /s)
I’ve never heard anyone say its wrong to admire sexy women for their sexiness or to talk about as much. There’s just a much wider range of problematic ways for it to be done than with men.
Well, there IS the difference in power dynamics and such, obviously. When a man admires a hot woman, there is a set of connotations regarding what he can DO about it that are not usually present when a woman admires a hot man.
I also don’t see anybody in the comments saying that Guy X should get out of polo or doesn’t deserve sponsorships because he has a slightly flabby belly or something.
It’s an ambiguous and thin line, for sure.
Also, what Wallyinternet said.
@DP
Sorry, my analogy was imperfect because calling names is hurtful whereas I don’t think admiring people’s bodies is inherently a bad thing.
Aight, makes sense. So it’s sort of like…admiring bodies is OK in some contexts but not OK in others, and typically for men there are going to be more contexts in which it is harmful than for women, because of the power differential described.
I can get behind that.
Am I the only one that noticed that the Buzzfeed photo essay was put together by a guy? Unless I’m misreading something. His name is Matt and his picture certainly reads as male, anyway. Not that it matters.
And yes, it is OK, with me. Much more than OK. This isn’t a case of NSFW exactly, but I’m going to enjoy perusing this at leisure much more at home later.
Oh, look, objectification of athletes from people who decry the objectification of athletes. Ah, and with a gold metal in mental gymnastics to explain how it’s SO TOTULLY DIFFRENT, U GUISE!
http://qkme.me/3qaxj2
Bravo. Thighlights at Jezebel would be proud.
Up next, perhaps, an article puzzled over how the ‘myth’ that the movement is somehow hypocritical has spread. However could we combat that perception?
Oh, and before anyone comes back with that spectacular move of “Context means it’s not as bad when we do it”, I’m not saying it’s just as bad. I’m not making an issue of magnitude of badness. Bad things are not made good by the existence of even worse bad things.
Where are we getting the idea that being sexually attracted to other human beings is “bad”? Where are we getting the idea that admiring images of the human body is “bad”?
“Objectification” does not mean “looking at someone” or even “looking at someone in a sexual manner.” Appreciating women’s bodies, or men’s bodies, is not in and of itself a bad thing. What IS a bad thing is the routine use of women’s bodies as objects to appeal to male sexual desire, focusing on male agency and the male gaze, positioning women as a group as things to be looked at and not as people who are also agents. What is a bad thing is using women’s bodies as stand-ins for sex itself in order to sell everything from cars to candy to beer. What is a bad thing is the consistent imaging of the female body as fragile and subservient and existing for the visual pleasure of men.
None of that is happening here; none of that is even happening in the reverse (and frankly can’t happen in the reverse, because there’s no wider cultural understanding of the male body representing sex, or being an object solely for female viewing pleasure). Appreciating, or being sexually aroused by, another human being’s body is not the problem.
Also: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+is+the+male+gaze%3F
Another looming part of the discussion is that male athletes are overwhelming admired, recognized, validation, written up in the media, interviewed, praised, etc. for being Athletes; any attention to their looks is far second. Female athletes, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly admired, recognized, validation, written up in the media, interviewed, praised, etc. for being Hot/Fuckable; any attention to their athletic accomplishments/standing and skill is far second.
e.g., the jiggling/dancer lady hurdler isn’t even IN the Olympics…she’s a not that good, but she’s getting a lot of media time because of her looks/dancing around like a non-athlete. Meanwhile, actual Olympic medal contenders who happen to be female are getting critiqued for their looks left and right, especially if they don’t measure up to the conventional media model type. Examples:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/olympics/swimming/7376003/Swimmers-Dolphin-face-tag-draws-fire
http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/07/29/a-weighty-issue-at-olympics-swimmer-leisel-jones-is-fit-not-fat/
http://zoepablosmith.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/thanks-but-no-thanks/
http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/conan-obriens-fat-girl-rapist-joke-olympian-holley-mangold/
So it’s not just incident X vs incident Y or an isolated occurrence, but an overall repeatable pattern through time that clearly values the female athletes’ beauty and fuckability over their actual accomplishments, skills, and training. Go to any online sports article written about a female athlete in the mainstream media and read the comments if you don’t believe me. If all people were saying is “Wow…she’s so talented and pretty too!”, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Re: objectification/treating people like inhuman objects to be evaluated, critiqued, dismissed in bad faith, also note the absence here of:
a) comments ripping apart the guys’ bodies for some perceived, rationalized, or made-up flaw or passing personal judgement on their looks (e.g.,”Meh, they’re not that hot…I’ve seen guys 10x hotter in sport Y…I wouldn’t fuck them with someone else’s snatch!” “They have terrible physiques…I know guys at my gym who could kick their asses!”)
b) comments referring to the worst of male stereotypes/cultural scripts (e.g., I bet they’re typical dumb jocks who wouldn’t know how to start a lawnmower…what use is a dumb pool jockey who can’t come over to my house and do my yardwork without talking and then go away like a good boy?”)
c) comments running down the sport of water polo and putting down anyone who plays it (e.g., “Water polo? Nobody knows what that is and nobody cares! These guys are idiots who are wasting their time. I’d rather watch the neighbour’s dog take a crap than watch 30 seconds of water polo.” “Maybe when they’re done with this stupid water polo crap they might be able to leverage their 15 seconds of fame into doing some porn…cause that’s the only thing guys like that are good for.”
d) comments expressing fake concern over the athletes’ “health” (e.g., I don’t think that these guys have thought for one minute about the harmful effects of extended chlorine exposure and the unhealthy training schemes that they are subjecting their bodies to. If they were smart, they’d quit a dead-end sport, gain some weight, and focus on being a good office worker and contribute something to society.”)
I’d go on, but its making me feel ill to type just that much.
I’ll just be over here in the corner, with my HATS.
Their looks are also part of their athleticism. Admiring the muscularity of an athlete is to admire their achievement. Admiring an athlete because she shakes her her hips in what you consider to be a provocative way is different.
And the gold medal in the 100 Meter Dash to Be Willfully Obtuse goes to….
In the OP, you did use men’s bodies simply as objects to appeal to female sexual desire, and I would certainly define that as sexual objectification in much the same way as a beefcake calendar. This semantic definition can be debated, but I am hardly alone in this definition. I will throw in a wiki link as a response to your lmgtfy.
If you are saying that the OP is “not in and of itself a bad thing” I agree with you, but I would do so even if it was about a female team. I do not think most posters here would agree with that position.
I am not saying that the situation is symmetrical. Women are far more often the target of sexual objectification, but I do not see the phenomena as qualitatively different.
Is anyone really surprised by Jill posting this? She is the queen of having her cake and eating it too.
How many threads have we had now about how just simply “stating a preference” does not mean that what you’re saying is okay? How often do we talk about the harmfulness of presenting a very narrow body type as a beauty ideal? How often do we talk about how Patriarchy Hurts Men Too ™ because it valorizes hypermasculine presentation and shames men who don’t live up to those body standards? How often do we insist that people’s personal sexual preferences do not exist in a vacuum and are accountable to cultural critique?
Oh but this time there’s nothing objectifying about it! Because these people are male-bodied, so instead it’s just appreciation. Simple innocent appreciation that’s just based on clean pure sexual attraction.
Give me a fucking break.
Doesn’t it suck when those angry humorless feminists harsh your mellow? They’re totally taking things in the wrong context! And you KNEW they were gonna say that when you posted it, so there!
Do you hear yourself Jill?
Isn’t it significant that the title of the article is “33 Things To Love About Men’s Water Polo”, and not “33 Reasons To Love Men’s Water Polo”?
I feel a little rueful over joining in on the harshing of the mellow, but it really makes me uncomfortable.
… oh and I am an ugly fat girl who is bitter that I could never in a million years have a shot with a man who looked like that. And don’t give me any inspirational bullshit, either. We’re all grownups here and all know how the real world works.
It’s only objectification when men do it, duh.
Not necessarily. That’s how they title a lot of their lists.
But what about their hats?
Eh. I think you got this twisted…as long as they’re not harmful, I don’t think people sexual preferences are accountable to any critique at all…I’m all for Jill posting this but I’m all for lists of the Hottest 35 Lady Olympains as well.
I think to oppose both is to be an unrealistic puritan.
Eh. I think you got this twisted…as long as they’re not harmful, I don’t think people sexual preferences are accountable to any critique at all…I’m all for Jill posting this but I’m all for lists of the Hottest 35 Lady Olympains as well.
I think to oppose both is to be an unrealistic puritan.
I agree there is a problem with holding up certain body type as the ideal to which everyone should either strive or be attracted too. However, I have seen other posts on this site that held up a variety of bodies as attractive (but they were holding cats). There is also something to be said for looking a number of articles, even personal ones, that list people found attractive and knowing almost certainly that no one with your body type is likely to be on there.
But what I don’t agree with is the notion that finding people attractive is objectification. Women are often looked at as being sexy or human and a woman that is dressed revealingly or posed a certain way is said to “lack self-respect” because obviously no one can respect her if she is dressed in a way that can be perceived as sexy by someone.
Objectification, to me, is when people are reduced as sex objects to the exclusion of their humanity, when they are seen as and described as implements for personal use with no agency and no other purpose but to be used or criticized for not fitting an ideal. I don’t get upset if a male finds a woman attractive, I get upset when women are criticized, mocked, slut-shamed, shoehorned into Madonnas or Whores, dehumanized, and put into a dichotomy where attractiveness and respect can not coexist (and unattractive women or women who do not fit the male gaze’s ideal are disrespected).
Women’s appearance is not only judged to the exclusion of just about everything else, but their humanity is often stripped away. It is possible to say or think that someone is attractive or gorgeous while not disrespecting them or thinking it is okay to catcall or stare them down, or that is justification for ignoring they have a brain. There really is a big difference between a supposedly journalistic article focusing on a female athlete’s physical appearance and an opinion blog about how attractive someone is.
And no matter how many women find the men displayed attractive, they are not in danger of having people forget they are athletes, having news articles spend more time focusing on how conventionally attractive they are or not, having most of the comments on that article criticize them for their supposed physical flaws, and be completely dismissed because of how they look (whether too hot to be considered for anything other than sex, or too ugly to even be paid attention too).
To sum up: their physical appearance does not have an effect on the amount of respect they are given, the appreciation of their hard work and talents, or the weight of their opinion.
yeah you really dropped the ball on this one Jill… reinforcing all those harmful cultural narratives about how men’s job is just to look pretty for us girls
I don’t have a problem with Jill’s post, but it isn’t cool to minimize the objectification of men. While women have been more objectified historically, it’s important to look at trends in the present when we think about these issues. Men’s issues with objectification are getting worse, not staying the same:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200910/the-beefcaking-america
This is the kind of man that’s displayed to men as a “healthy”:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/175179
But it’s a relatively recent problem. So now we have a chance to not only nip the growing objectification of men in the bud, but to also use the growing objectification of men to teach men about the historical/current objectification of women.
And you are the queen of posting knee-jerk, hostile, intellectually shallow, eye-roll-inducing comments on nearly everything I post. I would suggest getting another hobby. Perhaps read a book, or go outside and talk to other human beings. But I’m extremely tired of your contributions here, so goodbye!
Which, to my mind, just shows how prevalent that attitude is. People are not things. It’s not hard to modify your syntax to reflect this – I do it every day. For myself, I don’t even say sentences like “You’re my favourite thing about this place”, because I think that words shape attitudes. That’s all I’m saying.
And you are the queen
I might have avoided that word in referring to DLL, if I were you.
Damn! Boo Yow! Shocka Locka Bang Bang!
She outta here like days gone by! No just for a retort. Just gone…
I’m sorry. I just love it when Jill does this stuff. She’s so good at.
Yeah, I’m a monogamous married girl – couldn’t get with a hot water polo-playing dude either, lest the husband divorce my ass and get full custody.
Woe is me. I guess?
But seriously – hot Olympic athlete-dudes are unattainable to most of us. But that alone doesn’t make their appearance any less beautiful. Beautiful people are nice to look at. They make me smile.
Youth is fleeting. Life is short. Our bodies will all be dust before long – including those belonging to the hot water polo-playing dudes. Personally, I’m going to enjoy looking at them while they last.
Hope that’s not too inspirational-bullshit-y.
The hottest athlete for me has been Hope Solo. Her knowing how to make a save is not bad either.
Water polo? Too much anatomy showing for my tastes, although others are free to differ, of course.
Actually, I’ve only had time to watch the tennis. Colours at Wimbledon somehow seem to give the world hope. I’m not sure why, as the colours themselves have been fairly bland, being all national, though I do like Mr Murray looking nine parts Scot to one part Brit.
At least Sr Nadal had the consolation of not having to wear that Spanish uniform. It reminds me of Patience and seems to back up Lady Jane’s censure of the Dragoon Guards for wearing red and yellow – “Primary colours!”