Male Attraction in the eyes of Fearful Women/Radfems and Double Standards (Ramble post)
Note: I use "Misandry" to name a phenomenon. I don't want a "pancakes/waffles" response to when I say misandry like I'm saying it's exactly the same as Misogyny.
So i have an interesting topic about male heterosexuality and double standards. You know how in the context of a "progressive space" any time a man displays their sexual love for women, people on the spectrum on feminist and misandrist/androphobes/radfems express how they are objectifying women in a morally harmful manner. However what counts as "harmful objectification" seems to be very loose. Technically you can objectify anything but in a patriarchal society some objectification leads to consistent real world harm. If a man draws a woman in a sexual pose, many women will feel uncomfortable and distrustful that they are contributing to real world harm even if the original artist doesn't believe women are objects. They fear many men who see their art will be encouraged to harm women. Those who don't understand this perspective just see someone getting bullied for expressing their sexuality and "purity culture".
The further extreme someone who is radfem/misandry, the further they believe that because of the patriarchy, men can't ethically express attraction for women. (Its like no ethical consumption under capitalism but for patriarchy). This partially leads to situations like Jocat who make posts about liking women and leading to an internet frenzy. (IMPORTANT NOTE: Most of the backlash and bullying against Jocat were by misogynist men not by radfem women but i can't discount them and they did exist). The portion of the hatred from women claimed he was objectifying women in his posts. Most people who defended him claim that it wasnt objectify nor misogynistic because he was finding beauty in all types of women where the patriarchy rewards certain types of women (white fat skinny). To radical feminist, they usually are aware of intersectionality but due to their beliefs that women are extremely oppressed at all time, intersectionality doesn't seem to matter to them as much. All Women are objectified to a significant degree that avoiding one patriarchal concept doesnt matter if you play apart in a different way.
Another example that sticks out in my mind is the stick out in my mind is the Twitter post about Men who are feminist allies shouldn't be attracted to women. Now this post got a lot other feminists who weren't as extreme to push back against this post as it implies women can't consent. I find this interesting as it demonstrates the central point of discourse around men finding women sexy and displaying it on the internet. It's viewed as either predatory or enables predatory behavior. When progressives agree that women have the right to be afraid of men and hate men due to femcide, rape statistics, sexual harassment, patriarchy, "misandry isn't real nor a big deal", "misandry only hurts men", you get this kind of response.
As I mentioned double standards, you can "objectify" men but since men as a class aren't objectified by the patriarchy, putting men in sexual poses, that would be considered harmful if it were a women, leads to no real world harm to men. To radfems and progressives, someone drawing men in a sexy and degrading way isn't going to lead to more men getting harmed in real life. How many women are going to see art of a sexy man and decide to sexually harass a man in real life? Not significant enough to worry. Now how many men are going to consume porn art of women and decide to further their oppression of women. A whole lot. This is the perspective they see. I've watched some YouTube videos talking about this. When people talk about about male objectification, or female gaze where men are the recipient of attention in fiction, they bring up that men are still well rounded characters usually in those stories compared to male gaze and female objectification where their sexualization makes the women poorly written or not much depth. In some cases, its a hilarious revenge to objectify men in ways women are typical subject to. See the anime "Dungeon Meshi". Senshi (a male character) is subjected to panty shots and getting groped but since its happening towards a male character and not a female character, it's funny. In fact, the reaction to fanservice of Senshi fanservice is more of a joke than the sexual nature one can derive from the fanservice. When women are tired of seeing their bodies getting commonly oversexualized in fanservice, they tend to dislike towards fanservice in general and even express it. Manservice or Fanservice centering sexualization of men is not very common in non-BL media so it's inclusion outside of that has meaning beyond sexualizationm
So essence. In a patriarchal society where women are viewed like sexual objects by men and women want to combat it, it creates a moral line of male sexualization that if crossed, they are no longer an ally but an threat to all women and feminism. The moral line is pretty loose as any man can abuse even the mild sexualization to further oppression and cause real world harmful. The more extreme you fear and hatred of men, you may think there's no line at all and heterosexuality is inherently predafory. This doesn't apply to Men since they aren't harmed by sexualization to a significant degree (according to radical feminist). When you take these beliefs to the extreme, the more hostility is created for any heterosexual desire by men. Even non-radfem/misandrist progressives share the thought process that encourages radfem and misandrists (unless they become terfs which i can make a sequel post about). In progressive spaces, those with privilege have to be mindful of oppressed and marginalized groups. To a leftist, they need to dismantle all hierarchies and not further fuel them that already exist. You can't punch down but punching up is fine. Punching up can seen as funny revenge against oppressors. When a radfem or misandry gets called out for pocket statements by other progressives, i find it interesting as they usually are operating on framework leftists subscribe to as mentioned above. Terfism isn't tolerated because then it becomes punching down but when radfems "mean things" about men, its punching up.
It may sound like I'm agreeing with the perspective but I'm looking trying to look at it from the leftist, progressive, radfems.
So what is the point of this tumblr post? I just wanted to Ramble about these observations. The dynamics of patriarchy and how it affects the way we respond to media that deals with female sexuality by men. I've seem arguments that relate to this topic where women express their dislike to sexualization of women by men whether it be fanservice, porn/hentai, and they get called puritans. I understand why this happens and not pretend like these fears and reactions come from nowhere. Sorry if it feels a bit disjointed. There is a lot more i can talk about but i can end it here for now.