DISCLAIMER 1: This is not a man-bashing posting. I love men and having sex with them.
DISCLAIMER 2: I am writing as a heterosexual female. I cannot speak to other people's experiences, only my own.
Sometimes I feel sexually objectified during sex with men who aren't my husband, and other times I feel empowered by the same experience. Occasionally, I waffle between the two emotions both during and afterwards. Why does that happen?
First off, it's important to know what I mean by "sexual objectification." There are certain circumstances when it's absolutely NOT okay, ever.
On the other hand, in the bedroom, things are a lot more subtle, or at least ambiguous. This is one of the reasons that I, personally, cannot have sex on a regular basis with someone whom I'm not even friends with. Meet up with someone I hardly know so that he can have sex with me? Yeah, not exactly the most beneficial thing I can do for my self-worth. But the social power dynamic is a lot different when I reframe that scenario: What if I meet up with someone I hardly know so that I can have sex with him? Now that makes me feel a whole lot better about myself. It shouldn't, though, because then objectification is still occurring, just with a different power dynamic.
That's the whole issue here. In society, men often have the upper hand -- in physical strength, in influence, in earnings, and in gendered relationship assumptions (for example, whenever a woman does household chores, that's normal, but whenever a man does chores, he should be praised for "helping" her), etc. Even in everyday speech, the power differential is evident; I constantly find myself having to delete hedging phrases like "I think that," "maybe," "what might be the issue is..." and reframe my thoughts more assertively.
This societal power is upheld and reinforced when a man decides to have sex with a woman, and the woman consents, even more so if he has somehow wooed her with his sexual charisma and overall "manliness." However, as the script goes, if a woman "overpowers" a man's reason with her attractiveness, she has -- to put it in very vulgar terms -- used the "power of the pussy" to get what she wants. As appealing as it is for women to get what they want, when they want it, do we really want our only power to come from our genitals?
Maybe it's time It's time to stop viewing sex in terms of power and more in terms of pleasure. Unless it's BDSM. But that's a discussion for another day...
SOME RELEVANT LINKS:
"The Effects of Sexual Objectification on Women's Mental Health" - A brief academic perspective
"What's The Problem With Objectifying Women?" - YouTube video examining the issue from a Biblical perspective -- it's not what you think! I'm not super-religious, but I highly recommend you at least check it out.
"How to Spot Sexual Objectification: The Chips Test" - Text by Caroline Heldman. The photo comes from her page, but it's obviously an American Apparel ad.