Sexualisation in Society

Sexualisation and Sexual Objectification.

First of all, sexualisation is something that can be used towards both male and females.

Sexualisation is a term used to describe making something sexual in either character or quality. This can occur even in the most irrelivant and inappropriate times, which is what is very frequent in most cases today. Sexualisation is a method commonly used in mainstream media to promote and attract a targeted audience, most of the time being a certain sex and age group.

Sexualization of younger children is also becoming increasingly more common in advertisements, causing long term negative consequences for the younger generations and society as a whole. Even early on they are presented with objectified images of people, to study and emulate and familiarise to it's normality. This ultimately creates mindsets early on in children that will grow with them into adulthood, helping them become conditioned to the mainstream ideas and conceptions of beauty, love, happiness and partnership.

In the cases we see today is sexual abuse and normal sexual behaiviour is becoming singular. People are only being evaluated in terms of their physical characteristics and sexiness (e.g., bodily postures that imply sexual readiness, merely body parts rather than a whole person) so due to most media emphasising an unrealistic portrayal of physical beauty, many viewers have adopted this unrealistic standard, fundamentally, creating a societal tolerance of sexist attitudes and even sexual violence.

Objectification is the more extreme side of sexualisation, as it means treating someone as an object without regard to their dignity or personality. An example of someone being objectified is if they are only valued for their physical performance, or are submitted to being a tool of some sort. The ways they do this in mainstream media is by presenting a theme that reinforces the idea that the person, like objects, are fungible; just like objects. Saying “more is better,” a market sentiment that erases the worth of individual people. So sexual objectification is treating a person merely as an instrument of sexual pleasure.

• Yes. There is a fine distinction between external objectification, and people who intentionally objectify themselves out of pride for their pulchritudinous appeal (which is their choice alone.) The key to differentiate between intentional objectification and external, is to:

• Evaluate the picture and see if in any way it is demeaning to the person in it.
• Check if they are portrayed in their own essence, personality etc.
• See if the picture empowers the individual and whether they are expressing their whole beauty. (Inside and out!)
• If they look happy and they look as though they are enjoying their personal experience then it means that they themselves consent to the photo and scenario of where they are.

Of course it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between sexual empowerment and sexual objectification, but most of the time you would be able to tell whether someone is being valued only for their parts rather than their whole self.
Feeling beautiful in your complete essence is not objectification, but empowerment, and should be encouraged in everyone. No matter what gender, social status or belief we all have the right to feel satisfied with our own body and self without compromise. We must learn to not feel as though we need to change ourselves, and fall lower to a standard to feel accepted by anyone. If you are reduced to doing that, you must reconsider who you spend time with. If it is not for your self interest and only theirs, it is not a healthy friendship/relationship.
If you are experiencing something like this, there are many self confidence videos on YouTube, and advice is everywhere; you are not alone and a lot of people have been through or are going through the same thing.

So before you decide whether someone is being objectified or empowered, just ask this simple question: Who has the power?

Down below is one light example of an empowering picture. It is empowering because they are not models, it contrasts greatly to a picture with objectification ;they are living in a natural environment by choice and without prejudice towards any sexualisation. This is often witnessed in many naturalist communities.

Poem:

OVER SEXUALISATION polluting the NATION provoking SEGREGATION through unnoticed PERSUASION like an INVASION of the mind- in ABBREVIASION: We are so used to scrutinizing the wrong aspects of the human body that we forget that the most important thing in a human body is a healthy MIND.

I hope I have written clearly and you now are more aware of what sexualisation and sexual objectification is, as well as the difference between sexual empowerment and sexual objectification.

I thought this was an important subject as I have been noticing it more and more. The future of people's mindset is at steak, and if we allow this toxic way of seeing connections between people, it will be our final demise. The way the media paints lust over what should be love, is a self degenerating decision that will affect everyone eventually.