So I believe I’ve talked about how useless and inherently misleading the concept of objectification is before but today at Informal Debate Society¹ it was on full display. The problem is that people call things objectifying using one criteria but justify the fact that objectification is wrong using a different criteria. It should always be possible to eliminate any (non-primitive) term from an argument by replacing it with a definition or description without reducing the strength of the argument and arguments that involve the word objectification almost always fail this test.

Now I happen to think that the notion of objectification is hopelessly confused but most people seem to find this difficult to swallow since they think they know objectification when they see it. In particular most people would take the example of stereotypical pornography where some big breasted woman gets down on all fours so the guy can fuck her brains out while she moans in ecstasy only to get up on her knees before the guy finishes so she can worship his phallus and talk about how much she wants his cum on her face². This seems to be very near the prototype most people have of objectification but I challenge anyone to give a good argument that it actually is objectification without wrenching the meaning of objectification out of contact with the idea of treating like an object.

In the situation I described the woman was portrayed as a submissive worshiper who appeared to derive most of her enjoyment pleasing the man. One might even be able to make the case that this is a degrading depiction of the woman³ or that it is somehow bad in some other way (though I’m skeptical). However, none of this is evidence that the woman is being treated like an object. The things which tend to make people say it is degrading, like the woman begging the guy to cum on her or moaning while having sex are all about the woman having certain desires and wants, e.g., to please the guy. The exact opposite of treating someone like an object. In fact it would appear that hardcore pornography is treating the woman less as an object than everyone does without thinking when you ask the person next to you to hold something or hand you something.

Now obviously I don’t deny that one can assign some definition to objectification that renders this example objectifying. After all people reliably term certain acts/depictions as objectifying so you could just define the word to refer to whatever triggers that ascription. However, this is totally useless in an argument. It is only because we believe the notion of objectification has a particular relation to the idea of treating someone as an object that we can make the leap from some act being objectifying to it being bad or problematic. I mean if the closesest natural kind we can find that tracks objectification was merely feels physical sexual attraction it would be obvious that calling something objectifying didn’t mean it was bad.

In short I challenge anyone to come up with a notion of objectification that meets the following three criteria.

• Those things we traditionally regard as objectifying fall under the definition but those things we don’t. For instance males drooling over Pam Anderson should qualify as objectifying while women reading pride and prejudice and dreaming about Darcy doesn’t. Getting excited by the thought of getting to sleep with the girl in your class with the long legs and short skirt should count but not being excited about a date with a doctor or otherwise mooning after macho/high status guys shouldn’t.
• There should be a relatively simple (and compelling) argument that objectification is bad and other things being equal we would be better off without it.
• Most people would recognize it as being reasonably close to the idea of treating like an object or otherwise recognizable as a refinement of what they are groping at when they try to define the term.

If you can’t meet these criteria you shouldn’t use the word in earnest (without qualification) as the potential to confuse or under gird false inferences will outweigh any benefit.