Sex Object Test

[Kilgore Trout]

If Kilgore doesn't show up I'll have to frubal him.

Too bad, I'm still here. Save your frubals for the frubal-needy.

 

[Revoltingest]

Is that what the video was saying? I didn't really sense a conspiricy theory. Like you I also see no cabal in charge, but sexual ignorance can be as bad or worse.

I'm going by the quoted text.
(Sound issues with computer make it a pain.)

 

[Sunstone]

According to the American Psychological Association, the sexual objectification of girls has several negative consequences, including lower self-esteem, reduced academic performance, and so forth.

 

[oldbadger]

If Kilgore doesn't show up I'll have to frubal him.

Hi Bricks...... If I sod off, will you frubal me?

 

[Brickjectivity]

Hi Bricks...... If I sod off, will you frubal me?

Sorry but Kilgore's frubal ratio is already obscenely high. People with high ratios get more frubals. That's just Science.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

According to the American Psychological Association, the sexual objectification of girls has several negative consequences, including lower self-esteem, reduced academic performance, and so forth.

How does this square with the substantial increase in the academic performance of girls (particularly in relation to boys) over the last few decades?

 

[oldbadger]

Sorry but Kilgore's frubal ratio is already obscenely high. People with high ratios get more frubals. That's just Science.

Fair enough. So do you think this issue is more important than, say, the lifelasting damage caused by bullying? Even if I was (was, Revolting!) to agree with this fanatic, whoever she is,why would i waste a second over it, given the above.....?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Sorry but Kilgore's frubal ratio is already obscenely high. People with high ratios get more frubals. That's just Science.

Frubal gravity is a well-known phenomenon.

 

[Sunstone]

How does this square with the substantial increase in the academic performance of girls (particularly in relation to boys) over the last few decades?

I don't know. But it's not uncommon for facts to seem to contradict each other until some underlying truth is discovered.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I don't know. But it's not uncommon for facts to seem to contradict each other until some underlying truth is discovered.

It's also not uncommon for false conclusions to be drawn through poor interpretation of data and/or bias.

 

[Revoltingest]

Frubal gravity is a well-known phenomenon.

Has anyone ever called you a "black hole"?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Has anyone ever called you a "black hole"?

Only my mom, but I don't think she meant in as a compliment.

 

[Alceste]

This just smacks of conspiracy theory driven misunderstanding. Porn isn't what it is
because some cabal somewhere directs it. Porn is & has always been a decentralized
industry, with each player trying to deliver what the consumer wants. So naturally,
there will be a diversity of approaches, from mere photos of body parts all the way
to Playboy's making their centerfolds seem to be real people (except for the staple
in the stomach).

There are plenty of people recognizing & loudly complaining about objectification.
But there is also a far less prudish control over media, & simply greater acceptance
of sex being prominent in human affairs.

I have a partial solution: Don't buy products whose ads or themes offend one.
And to Heldman, I recommend less navel gazing.

From what I recall, the talk had more to do with advertising than porn. Whereas nobody has to see porn without looking for it, ads that objectify women are ubiquitous and impossible to avoid. It's a form of visual pollution with measurable adverse effects, especially on adolescent girls.

Not buying the stuff is not that useful in terms of harm reduction. The seller needs to know how they lost your business or they won't even notice your "protest". Besides which, who wants to live without cars, clothing or alcohol?

Other, more communicative efforts have been very effective. For example, a campaign by one teenage girl to get a magazine targeted for teenagers to stop photoshopping their models to help combat eating disorders was well received. Also, Dove had a campaign featuring human looking women that went viral because the idea of putting normal looking, entire females in an advert was so innovative. Lol.

 

[Sunstone]

It's also not uncommon for false conclusions to be drawn through poor interpretation of data and/or bias.

Very true. But the chances of that in this case? We're talking about two fairly well established sets of data here. It's not like the APA's conclusions are based on research no more substantial than climate change denial.

The easiest, no-brainer explanation for the apparent contradiction would be that girls today are taking advantage of opportunities that were not generally or as universally available to them earlier, and that they might be taking even greater advantage of those opportunities if there were less sexual objectification. Whether that's true or not would need research and testing.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I don't know. But it's not uncommon for facts to seem to contradict each other until some underlying truth is discovered.

To input my two cents, I suspect that the key to the answer lies in the exageration of assumed societal effects from incorrectly applied extrapolation from individual effects. In other words, there is no doubt that direct sexual objectification of an individual would tend to have deleterious psychological effects on that person, and this can probably be quite clearly observed and shown. However, like many areas and subjects, people then have a tendency to expand this effect from this individual level to the societal level, particularly when such a conclusion coincides with prevailing social views.

As I've said before, I think repeated social exposure to sexual objectification is probably psychologically unhealthy. However, I think it's overall effect on the population is over-rated, and that people often have a hard time separating the effects of concentrated, individual instances from the effects on a population.

 

[Revoltingest]

Other, more communicative efforts have been very effective. For example, a campaign by one teenage girl to get a magazine targeted for teenagers to stop photoshopping their models to help combat eating disorders was well received. Also, Dove had a campaign featuring human looking women that went viral because the idea of putting normal looking, entire females in an advert was so innovative.

This is getting a far afield.
1) Porn & commercial speech are so different that they're subject to greatly different regulation here.
2) Commercial speech (IMO) has a much greater effect because of ubiquity.
3) Projecting an idealized body type is different from (if related to) objectification.

Heaven help society if I ever get to dictate the standard for the ideal woman's build.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Very true. But the chances of that in this case? We're talking about two fairly well established sets of data here. It's not like the APA's conclusions are based on research no more substantial than climate change denial.

With all due respect to the APA, their conclusions tend to shift at the slightest breeze, and they often seem to rely on specific interpreation to a degree that people in most other scientific areas would be uncomfortable with. Then again, psychology is about as borderline of a science as you can get, so hard and fast empirical conclusions are hard to come by.

The easiest, no-brainer explanation for the apparent contradiction would be that girls today are taking advantage of opportunities that were not generally or as universally available to them earlier, and that they might be taking even greater advantage of those opportunities if there were less sexual objectification. Whether that's true or not would need research and testing.

I suspect such a study with the appropriate controls isn't forthcoming anytime soon.

 

[Sunstone]

With all due respect to the APA, their conclusions tend to shift at the slightest breeze, and they often seem to rely on specific interpreation to a degree that people in most other scientific areas would be uncomfortable with. Then again, psychology is about as borderline of a science as you can get, so hard and fast empirical conclusions are hard to come by.

Perhaps, but the research itself was not conducted by the APA. It's peer reviewed material. The APA merely reviewed and referenced it.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Perhaps, but the research itself was not conducted by the APA. It's peer reviewed material. The APA merely reviewed and referenced it.

If you don't mind, please point me in the direction of the specific study you're referencing.

 

[Sunstone]

If you don't mind, please point me in the direction of the specific study you're referencing.

Unfortunately, I don't have links, just references. These are the major studies the APA reviewed before releasing its report on the sexualization of girls:

Abramson, E., & Valene, P. (1991). Media use, dietary restraint, bulimia, and attitudes toward obesity: A preliminary study. British Review of Bulimia and Anorexia Nervosa, 5, 73-76.
Brotto, L., Heiman, J., & Tolman, D. (in press). Towards conceptualizing women’s desires: A mixed methods study. Journal of Sex Research.
Brown, L. M., & Gilligan, C. (1992). Meeting at the crossroads: Women’s psychology and girls’ development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Durkin, S. J., & Paxton, S. J. (2002). Predictors of vulnerability to reduced body image satisfaction and psychological well-being in response to exposure to idealized female media images in adolescent girls. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 53, 995-1005.
Eder, D. (with Evans, C. C., & Parker, S). (1995). School talk: Gender and adolescent culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Fredrickson, B. L., & Roberts,T-A. (1997). Objectification theory: Toward understanding women’s lived experience and mental health risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 173-206.
Fredrickson, B. L., Roberts,T., Noll, S. M., Quinn, D. M., & Twenge, J.M. (1998). That swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 269-284.
Gapinski, K. D., Brownell, K. D., & LaFrance,M. (2003). Body objectification and “fat talk”: Effects on emotion, motivation, and cognitive performance. Sex Roles, 48, 377-388.
Gow, J. (1996). Reconsidering gender roles on MTV: Depictions in the most popular music videos of the early 1990s. Communication Reports, 9, 151-161.
Grauerholz, E., & King, A. (1997). Primetime sexual harassment. Violence Against Women, 3, 129-148.
Harrison, K. (2000). The body electric: Thin-ideal media and eating disorders in adolescents. Journal of Communication, 50, 119-143.
Hebl, M. R., King, E. G., & Lin, J. (2004). The swimsuit becomes us all: Ethnicity, gender, and vulnerability to selfobjectification. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1322-1331.
Hofschire, L. J., & Greenberg, B. S. (2001). Media’s impact on adolescents’ body dissatisfaction. In J. D. Brown & J. R. Steele (Eds.), Sexual teens, sexual media (pp. 125-149). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Impett, E. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2006). To be seen and not heard: Femininity ideology and adolescent girls’ sexual health. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 21, 628-646.
Krassas, N., Blauwkamp, J. M., & Wesselink, P. (2001). Boxing Helena and corseting Eunice: Sexual rhetoric in Cosmopolitan and Playboy magazines. Sex Roles, 44, 751-771.
Krassas, N. R., Blauwkamp, J. M., & Wesselink, P. (2003). “Master your Johnson”: Sexual rhetoric in Maxim and Stuff magazines. Sexuality & Culture, 7, 98-119.
Lin, C. (1997). Beefcake versus cheesecake in the 1990s: Sexist portrayals of both genders in television commercials. Howard Journal of Communications, 8, 237-249.
Martin, K. A. (1998). Becoming a gendered body: Practices in preschools. American Sociological Review, 63, 494-511.
McConnell, C. (2001). An object to herself: The relationship between girls and their bodies. Dissertation Abstracts International, 61(8B), p. 4416.
McKinley, N. M., & Hyde, J. S. (1996). The Objectified Body Consciousness Scale. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 20, 181-215.
Mills, J., Polivy, J., Herman, C. P., & Tiggemann, M. (2002). Effects of exposure to thin media images: Evidence of selfenhancement among restrained eaters. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1687-1699.
Nichter, M. (2000). Fat talk: What girls and their parents say about dieting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
O’Donohue, W., Gold, S. R., & McKay, J. S. (1997). Children as sexual objects: Historical and gender trends in magazines. Sexual Abuse: Journal of Research & Treatment, 9, 291-301.
Plous, S., & Neptune, D. (1997). Racial and gender biases in magazine advertising: A content analytic study. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 627-644.
Rolón-Dow, R. (2004). Seduced by images: Identity and schooling in the lives of Puerto Rican girls. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 35, 8-29.
Schooler, D., & Ward, L.M. (2006).Average joes: Men’s relationships with media, real bodies, and sexuality. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 7, 27-41.
Slater, A., & Tiggemann, M. (2002). A test of objectification theory in adolescent girls. Sex Roles, 46, 343-349.
Stice, E., Schupak-Neuberg, E., Shaw, H., & Stein, R. (1994). Relation of media exposure to eating disorder symptomatology: An examination of mediating mechanisms. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 836-840.
Thomsen, S. R.,Weber,M.M., & Brown, L. B. (2002).The relationship between reading beauty and fashion magazines and the use of pathogenic dieting methods among adolescent females. Adolescence, 37, 1-18.
Vincent, R. C. (1989). Clio’s consciousness raised? Portrayal of women in rock videos, re-examined. Journalism Quarterly, 66, 155-160.
Ward, L. M. (1995). Talking about sex: Common themes about sexuality in the prime-time television programs children and adolescents view most. Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 24, 595-615.
Ward, L. M. (2002). Does television exposure affect emerging adults’ attitudes and assumptions about sexual relationships? Correlational and experimental confirmation. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 31, 1–15.
Ward, L. M. (2004). Wading through the stereotypes: Positive and negative associations between media use and Black adolescents’ conceptions of self. Developmental Psychology, 40, 284-294.
Ward, L. M., & Rivadeneyra, R. (1999). Contributions of entertainment television to adolescents’ sexual attitudes and expectations:The role of viewing amount versus viewer involvement. Journal of Sex Research, 36, 237–249.
Zurbriggen, E. L., & Morgan, E. M. (2006). Who wants to marry a millionaire? Reality dating television programs, attitudes toward sex, and sexual behaviors. Sex Roles, 54, 1-17