I just started watching the new season of Big Mouth, which is a great animated series that confronts issues of sexuality in the context of a group of kids entering puberty. Because (although it's not really a kids' show) the best way to promote healthy sexuality is to teach it right the first time. It's a funny show, but I especially enjoy it as modern social commentary on topics of a sexual nature. Anyway, the first episode of the third season (not counting the Valentine's Day special) addressed the issue of boys being distracted by girls' clothing, resulting in the girls performing a slutwalk-style protest. But therein the issue got confused, and while the episode failed to resolve it (in realistic fashion), I've had a bit of insight into where things tend to go wrong, when it comes to the struggle between women fighting for the freedom to dress themselves as they see fit and the way men have a tendency to view them in certain clothes (or any clothes, if we're being honest).
Consider the following scenario:
(a) A woman wears something tight or revealing.
(b) A man is distracted by it.
(c) The man complains, and the woman is compelled to change.
(d) The woman protests.
Now, here's where the protest sometimes misses the point. The problem lies in step (c), and not step (b). It's not wrong (and certainly not unhealthy or unnatural) for a man to be distracted by a woman, or to have sexual thoughts about her. The issue is the idea that a woman ought to change her behavior for the sake of the man. The solution is not some sterilized "utopia" where men are never distracted by women's bodies, regardless of how they dress. Yes, men should be able to control themselves, but that doesn't mean preventing any sexual thoughts from crossing their minds. If men are distracted by women, then let them be distracted. Let them struggle with their coursework because they can't take their minds (or their eyes) off the girls' shoulders sitting in front of them, while the girls blissfully plow forward, their minds focused on their coursework. Isn't that Darwinism in action?
So don't protest men's sexual thoughts about women (often couched in the political language of "sexualization" and "objectification") - that just confuses the issue, and prevents us from making any progress. Focus your protest on the idea that it's unfair that women should have to dress to prevent men from being distracted (instead of men taking responsibility for their own lack of focus). Let women wear what they want. And let the men be distracted. That's the natural order. Forcing women to change the way they dress, or expecting men not to be distracted by them, are both perversions of this order. You can't protest one and then demand the other, because then you've just locked yourself into an equally untenable position, with the men demanding that women change, and the women expecting men to stop being distracted, which are both unreasonable.
P.S. I was thinking about this some more after I posted this entry, and (not to belabor the point, but) I want to approach it from a slightly different angle. It occurs to me that men could be making an argument that sounds similar to mine - that it's natural for men to be distracted by women's bodies. But the difference is in the conclusion. My conclusion is that it's the man's responsibility to deal with being distracted, whereas their conclusion is that it's the woman's responsibility to change her clothes (or behavior) in order to stop distracting men. And it's that conclusion that's heinous.
But I think that the angle a lot of women come at it from, is the idea that the men are at fault for being distracted, whether it's because they're obsessed with sex, or they supposedly see women as "sexual objects". But the reality is that nature and evolution compels men to view women in a sexual light. That's not a problem, or something that needs to be changed. Both sides seem to see the elimination of distraction as the solution - whether it's by unfairly forcing women to change, or unrealistically expecting men's minds to transform. But as I said above, it's not the distraction that's the problem, it's what's expected to be done about it (in the first case by men, but then also later by women).
Is there not a perspective from which we could see the distraction as permissible? As I said, let men be distracted, and hold them responsible for how they respond to that distraction. Personally, I think being distracted by attractive women, especially in revealing clothes, is one of the great delights of living, and one of the many things I so enjoy about nudism - which I wouldn't be permitted the privilege of enjoying, if I weren't capable of taking responsibility for my actions while distracted, and behaving civilly. Which is the standard to which we should all be held.
