I Object!

Main Entry: ob·jec·ti·fy
Function: transitive verb
Pronunciation: ob-'jek-tuh-fī
Inflected Form(s): -fied ; -fy·ing
1 : to treat as an object or cause to have objective reality

Recently, I was told by another writer who saw some of the cover images on my Writer's Gone Wild group that my writing (and my genre) sexually objectify men.

Excuse me?

I have a problem with the presumption that romance writers--and the cover models employed by their publishers--manage to objectify anyone. Even within our genre, publishers have certain taboos, and work that condones sexual victimization of any kind is one of the universal ones.

"Objectify" is a verb. To objectify another person requires an action, performed by a perpetrator. Objectification also requires a victim. In order to be sexually objectified, a victim must have been denied their right to say "no".

A minor who is forced to perform in a peep show in exchange for food and shelter is a *victim* of objectification. The young men who were coerced into sexual acts under the mantle of presumed power within the Catholic Church were both victimized, and objectified. A young boy I know, autistic and at the time nonverbal, was molested at the age of ten by a documented, same sex, sexual predator.

Nobody cared much when it happened, save the people who loved him.

This child was victimized. He was also traumatized. He was, indeed, objectified, both by his perpetrator, and by the caregivers who chose to diminish his plight in order to remove themselves from the finger of accusation. They knew this child couldn't effectively testify. Their actions told him that it's ok to suffer molestation if you're not intellectually perfect. They turned him into an object.

None of these scenarios allowed their victims the luxury of choice.

Romance writers and the amazing cover models who depict romantic heroes are not victims. Nor have they been objectified. They have trained for, auditioned for, and prepared for their careers empowered by personal choice. In return, they have been well compensated for the delightful work that they do.

To presume that they are victims of objectification demeans the very real horrors faced by real victims of sexual objectification.

End of rant.

Fire away! :D