i don't agree with this. "men" are not a monolithic entity with agency and choice and the ability to benefit from women's objectification. men are caught in the same insatiability trap as women.
female bodies are constructed as one of the objects men are taught to desire. and their abuse is indeed wrong. but (and not to diminish the hurt) it is just one of an ocean of insults individuals of every gender endure.
i'd like to believe "men" (as a monolithic entity) really only want a quick fuck. but we do not. we want more than that. we want friendship and connection and intimacy and mutual aid and mothers of our children (or to become fathers to their children). we want to be real, whole, healthy people.
repressive desublimation has, however, taken those honest and faultless desires and needs and twisted them into disgusting wants. we are drunkards stumbling through walmart looking for a tombstone at 3 am.
as a quasi-reversal, i would say that it isn't just that "men want what they want." it's actually a case of "consumers want what they want." we see the world as constructs to be acquired, not entities to be encountered and enriched. women, too, "want what they want." women, too, grope, manipulate, and (sexually) damage men. the difference is, when women do it it's a reversal or a reclaiming of agency.
women also "want what they want" in other realms, not so simply defined and confined as sexual objects.
it's fucking bullshit to tell someone to "lighten up" when their gender is under attack. it's even more of a shame to examine the issue with such the restrictive myopia of a feminist lens.
Men want what they want.
So much of our culture caters to giving men what they want. A high school student invites model Kate Upton to attend his prom, and heâs congratulated for his audacity. A male fan at a BeyoncĂ© concert reaches up to the stage to slap her ass because her ass is there, her ass is magnificent, and he wants to feel it. The science fiction fandom community is once again having a heated discussion, across the Internet, about the ongoing problem of sexual harassment at conventions â countless women are telling all manner of stories about how, without their consent, they are groped, ogled, lured into hotel rooms under false pretenses, physically lifted off the ground, and more.
But men want what they want. We should all lighten up.
Itâs hard not to feel humorless as a woman and a feminist, to recognize misogyny in so many forms, some great and some small, and know youâre not imagining things. Itâs hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, youâre going to float the fuck away. The problem is not that one of these things is happening, itâs that they are all happening, concurrently and constantly.
These are just songs. They are just jokes. They are just movies. Itâs just a hug. Theyâre just breasts. Smile, youâre beautiful. Canât a man pay you a compliment? In truth, this is all a symptom of a much more virulent cultural sickness â one where women exist to satisfy the whims of men, one where a womanâs worth is consistently diminished or entirely ignored.
