Women’s Sexual Health and Embodiment
Jane M. Ussher, Joan C. Chrisler, Janette Perz in Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2019
Inhabiting the body as a deficient object of gaze can affect sexual embodiment adversely by lowering body esteem and hence introducing distress during sexual contact. Studies among mainly heterosexual and White women suggest that self-objectification relates to self-consciousness during sexual contact and to decreased sexual functioning (e.g., Claudat & Warren, 2014; Steer & Tiggemann, 2008), though a similar relationship has been reported among lesbian women in fewer studies (e.g., Peplau et al., 2009). Research also indicates that negative body image and body shame are associated with lower sexual arousability and ability to reach orgasm (Quinn-Nilas, Benson, Milhausen, Buchholz, & Goncalves, 2016; Sanchez & Kiefer, 2007), reduced sexual assertiveness, greater engagement in risky sexual practices (Schooler, Ward, Merriwether, & Caruthers, 2005), and avoidance of bodily exposure during sex (Cash, Maikkula, & Yamamiya, 2004).
A Perspective on the Work of Wolf Wolfensberger
William C. Gaventa, David L. Coulter in The Theological Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger, 2013
Wolfensberger describes the third approach to marginalization as the creation of social distance by objectification. According to Wolfensberger, this third approach occurs when physical removal is not possible and when sanctions and morals prevent physical annihilation. Objectification occurs when devalued persons are treated as though they were not really human beings but merely an object. Often times, able-bodied people will go to great lengths to avoid any interaction or contact with a disabled person. When such interaction or contact is unavoidable, the able-bodied individual will not speak directly to the disabled person but to those around her or him. I have personally noticed this type of objectification while dining out with my spouse. On such occasions the server will frequently direct questions about me or my needs to my spouse. This type of behavior is perhaps the most common approach to marginalization.
Conclusions
Monica Greco in Illness as a Work of Thought, 2002
An authoritative counterweight to Figlio’s optimism in relation to psychosomatics can be found in a number of articles written by Karl Jaspers between 1950 and 1955 on the subject ofmedicine in the age of technology (Jaspers 1986a [1950], 1986b [1953], 1986c [1955]). These articles can be read as a direct response to the position advocated by Von Weizsäcker around the same years. Jasperswas in fact called to arbitrate between Von Weizsäcker and psychiatrist Kurt Schneider on the question of whether an institute for psychotherapy should be established within the medical faculty of the University of Heidelberg, and he voted against this proposal. Like Von Weizsäcker, Jaspers supposed that the goal of an anthropological psychosomatics could be summarized as the ‘introduction of the subject’ within medicine. But, unlike Von Weizsäcker, he maintained that this slogan promoted a dangerous representation of human perfectibility identified with health, a representation based on the wilful or unwilful denial of the antithesis between liberty and know ability. Objectification, Jaspers argued, is a precondition of any finalized intervention based on knowledge. It is certainly true that human beings in their Gestalt are not amenable to objectification; but for exactly this reason it is wrong to seek to include this variable as an object for a new science. Precisely where it fulfils the programme of an anthropological medicine, psychosomatics treats human freedom as a ‘fact’, as something which exists and may be known through research, and on which we may count as ‘factor’. Psychosomatics appears to forget that wherever research and therefore objectification extend, there can be no liberty.
Blood and Guts: Menstrual Suppression in the Context of Objectification, Gender, and Choice
Published in Women's Reproductive Health, 2023
Alexandra S. Weis, Alyssa N. Zucker
As is evident from the LaFata (2014) quotation above, some of the critique of menstruation in popular discourse is based on sexualized conceptions of how women’s bodies should look and act. Objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) guided our understanding of internalized sociocultural pressures as they relate to menstrual suppression. Objectification theory broadly contextualizes women’s lived experiences through the sociocultural meanings attached to their bodies. Specifically, objectification involves valuing women as bodies at the expense of their personhood, agency, and individuality. Self-objectification, then, is the process by which an outsider’s objectifying perspective on one’s body is turned inward, and it is associated with body surveillance and feelings of shame.
Peeping Wang: A Bird’s Eye View on Video Voyeurism among Chinese Men Attracted to Men
Published in The Journal of Sex Research, 2023
Power was not only gained through creating an illusion of domination and control for these perpetrators; rather, they frequently put victims through intense objectification. The victims were reduced into body parts and judged based on their physical attractiveness, as aforementioned (Table 1). The seemingly positive descriptions of the subjects in images only appealed to the perpetrators’ sexual interests, rather than dignifying and humanizing the victims. If anything, these compliments only denied the victims’ agency and dehumanized them. Of course, the descriptions included nonphysical characteristics (that could not be directly observed), such as the victims’ personality traits and job information. But they were merely labels that served the same purpose as bodily characteristics. Power was thus obtained through this act of objectification. There was no victim because they were not human–only a large penis, six-pack abs, a handsome face, smooth skin, a smile, or a symbol of manliness, to name a few–to the perpetrators.
Is the Anthropomorphization of Sex Dolls Associated with Objectification and Hostility Toward Women? A Mixed Method Study among Doll Users
Published in The Journal of Sex Research, 2023
Jeanne C. Desbuleux, Johannes Fuss
Objectification can be seen as the “instrumental consideration of the other” (Vaes et al., 2013, p. 1). While the seven aspects of objectification proposed by Nussbaum (1999) – instrumentality, ownership, fungibility, violability, denial of autonomy and subjectivity, and inertness – seem appropriate when looking at dolls, they clearly show a highly problematic attitude when it comes to real women. The objectification of women is widespread among men and women, and dolls could be seen as a symbolic representation of this kind of objectification (Ferguson, 2010). Objectification and dehumanization are two closely related constructs (Bartky, 1990, as cited in Gervais et al., 2013). However, objectification can occur without dehumanization and vice versa, both manifesting in everyday actions (such as sexual innuendo as an example for sexual objectification) as well as in more blatant forms (such as trafficking; Gervais et al., 2013; Moradi, 2013).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Body Image
- Dehumanization
- Eating Disorder
- Personality
- Sexual Dysfunction
- Depression
- Subject & Object
- Dignity
- Gender Inequality
- Self-Image