I'd rather the pendulum be in equilibrium, personally. It'd be nice to live in a world where the pendulum didn't swing in one direction or the other. Where both sexes are viewed and accepted as equally sexual beings.
"where we draw the line between respecting women's sexuality and objectifying them?"
--Tough question. I personally love looking at naked people on TV or in ads. I think the difference in objectification vs. sexuality lies solely in the perception of the viewer.
I look at an image of a sexy woman on TV or on a billboard I think "She's hot! That company is doing a good job with marketing/casting." I think this is a fairly healthy view. I can appreciate a woman's beauty while understanding that her physique is not the norm. She is paid to be beautiful, and it is totally unrealistic to feel like I need to look like her to feel good about my own body.
I straddle the fence when it comes to looking at sexy images of women and thinking "she's hot. I want to fuck her because she's beautiful & I don't care if her personality sucks." I think this is a somewhat unhealthy attitude towards women, but everyone is guilty of a little lust. Tom Ford models make me drool. I think it's ok to view these models as objects of desire (that's what they're paid for), as long as you don't set your standards in real life by them.
I think the objectification part comes into play when a person sees a beautiful woman and thinks "My body doesn't look like that, therefore my body must be ugly" or "All women need to look like that." I don't think any explanation of why this is an unhealthy view is necessary.
My only issue comes along with my experience with anorexia as a teenager. I blame this partly on the fact that I developed earlier than a lot of the other girls. I love my curves now, but as a teen I was bombarded by images of perfectly airbrushed models and actresses. I felt inadequate. Many of my classmates hadn't bloomed yet, and I mistook my widening hips and growing breasts as fat, so I quit eating.
It took a long time for me to change my perception of beauty to include a broad spectrum of traits which encompasses not only external, but internal characteristics as well. I think this mentality needs to be taught at an early age, and other views should be staunchly discouraged. When it comes to naked women in ads or on TV the bottom line is money. They don't give a rat's ass about what kind of effect their marketing strategies have on your impressionable little son or daughter as long as they're making money. This is a difficult concept to explain to children, but the easiest way to do this is by example. We need to give them more examples of internal beauty, and less place less emphasis on external beauty. It is our responsibility as parents, teachers, family, friends, etc. to instill healthy views about sexuality & body concept within the children in our lives.
God, I could talk forever on this subject...
