Shaun Miller's Ideas

In my last post, I looked at Lintott’s and Irvin’s article about changing the way we perceive people as being sexy. They argue that we ought to see people as sexy subjects, meaning that we can respect people and also “see their body as infused with an expression of self and animated by their own sexual identity.” But now I have some concerns with this project.

My Five Concerns:

1. The first is definitional. It seems that they’re redefining sexiness based on someone being confident and assured of their sexuality. What’s troublesome is that, at least in our society, many men are confident and assured of their sexuality, even in heteronormative ways. Many women are not simply because social norms and oppressions consider that inappropriate. After all, in our society, most women are not confident about their sexuality; they may like sex but because of systemic pressures and cultural expectations, her confidence of her sexuality may not be as high as men’s. Thus, it seems that through the author’s reevaluation, many men are considered sexy, but many women are not. After all, it’s rare to find an Amy Schumer or a Lena Dunham compared to the millions of women who don’t like to express their sexuality. Moreover, it’s much easier to find men who are confident about their sexuality than it is to find women.

2. The authors state that being genuine in their sexiness is what makes them sexy. Being genuine could mean “originality, comfort, confidence, playfulness, and a sense of improvisation, whereas conformity, discomfort, insecurity, and strict adherence to norms will be evidence of a lack of genuineness in sexual expression” (306). Many people may not be confident of their sexuality until they’ve reached an age of figuring out who they are in terms of their sexuality and especially their sexual identity. Take for example many adolescents. Most of them are not sexually confident. Sure, the majority of American have had sex by the age of 17, but they may not be confident of who their sexual identity is. In high school, most of them are concerned with fitting in and not standing out. If being sexually confident is to stand out, then they are very likely going to avoid that. And if being sexy is to be sexually confident, then many high school students wouldn’t be considered sexy based on the author’s criteria. If it’s true that most people don’t have a strong sense of who they are when expressing their sexuality, then most people wouldn’t be considered sexy. It seems odd that we shouldn’t consider someone sexy because they aren’t sure of their sexual identity.

3. There are many people who aren’t sure what sort of sexual identity to have, which may make them lose confidence as to how to express their sexuality. Many trans* folks may still be confused as to how to express themselves, for example. People who are LGBTQIA+ may try to figure that out. If sexuality is fluid as most sexual researchers say, but we live in a society that sees sexuality as more or less stable, then those who are sensitive to being flexible may be misinterpreted as not being confident. Indeed, those people may not be confident because they aren’t sure how to express themselves sexually. We still see this in our culture where bisexuals are not considered a serious orientation because they “haven’t made up their minds” or are “faking” their sexuality. These messages could undermine one’s confidence and thereby not willing to express their sexuality. So then people in the LGBTQIA+ community may not be considered sexy, according to the author’s criteria since many of them may not be sexually confident.

4. Could sexiness be taken away? Suppose you’re in a large city that embraces sexual diversity and they have no problem with your sexual expression. But now suppose you move to another city that is smaller and conservative. They follow heteronormative standards rigidly. Being new to this town could affect how you are treated if you were able to express your sexuality fully. Because of these rigid constructs, you feel uneasy to express yourself. It seems that this new town has affected your confidence and thus your sexuality. This new town, therefore, has taken away your ability to express yourself and thereby your ability to be sexy.

5. Finally, is it possible to go overboard with the sexiness to the point of ridiculousness? This may not be a good example, but imagine various people on the Jerry Springer or Maury Povich show who flaunt their sexuality, but over dramatically so. The flaunting isn’t done in a sexy way, but it almost parodies the flaunting nature. Of course, this could be because the producers and editors make the clips in such a way where the presentation is overly dramatic, and to be honest, I’ve never encountered this overly dramatic flaunting nature in real life, but we can still imagine it and even witness it on a tv show.

There are many people like this where they flaunt their sexuality and they don’t care what others think of them. They are definitely confident and they are “see[ing] their body as infused with an expression of self and animated by their own sexual identity.” But are they sexy? The authors would have to say yes, but I’m not so sure. Yes, seeing someone expressing their sexual identity is sexy, but the way they flaunt this isn’t sexy, at least not to me. I wouldn’t even say it’s flaunting. Rather, it’s just being narcissistic. Now, I’m sure the producers overplay this just to get ratings, but suppose these are real representations. Granted, maybe something is wrong with me and I have to go through an internal ethical project where I have to change my perspective to see them as sexy. Nevertheless, should we consider them sexy? I can’t empathize with them. Again, is that my problem? The authors state that we should consider someone as desirable, not necessarily someone you experience desire for. Thus, a lesbian could consider a man sexy, according to the authors. Maybe that’s my problem: I can’t even consider the people above as desirable. But perhaps if I shifted and expanded my concept of sexiness or desirability, maybe I could?

Undergoing the Ethical Project

Next, the authors state that we ought to cultivate the habit of recognizing sexiness. But how do we do this? This is a psychological question more than anything. How do we learn to experience this person now as sexy when we didn’t originally before? Is the sher will doing the work here?

First Example: Queer Pornography

The authors suggest Sins Invalid—a site dedicated to people with disabilities who perform—as a way to expand our view of sexiness to disabled performers where we can expand our sexiness without objectification. Another project would be the queer pornographic site Pink and White Productions or the Crash Pad Series. It’s controversial whether there can be ethical porn. I’ll leave that an open question. However, with these sites displaying queer pornography, it breaks down the stereotypical pornographic standards of both men and women. Rather, the site shows many different sexual encounters and breaks the rules of beauty and sexual norms, yet portrays it in a sexy way. Examples include trans* folks being sexual, people who identity as queer, disabled porn performers, and bodies of all types. Indeed, assuming it is ethical, the authors may contend that we have an ethical obligation to desire feminist and queerporn, that is assuming that such porn can be ethical, but also to expand our concept of what is sexy so as to undermine the conventional standards of what is sexy. After all, mainstream porn hyperfocuses on social standards of beauty.

Second Example: Artificial Intelligence

If sexiness isn’t about external bodily beauty standards, but more about how such beings carry themselves in a sexualized way, could this be true for nonhumans? Take, for example, Samantha from the movie Her. Could Samantha be considered sexy in the way the authors have suggested? Samantha is an artificial intelligence operating program and who eventually gets involved in a relationship with a user. I hope I’m not giving any spoiler alerts, but she seems to carry herself in a sexual way, perhaps to the point of what the authors consider sexy. What makes this interesting is that Samantha doesn’t have a body. Well, not really. I mean, she’s in the computer and she’s in the user’s phone. But since she can leap from the computer to the phone, then she’s in the cloud in order to do the leaping. But the cloud isn’t really a place (forget about how it’s all storage in some unit in Silicone Valley). If the leaping can be done wirelessly, then Samantha’s body is diffused throughout space and as long as you have a strong Wi-Fi (presumably), then you can access her. So Her actually makes a stronger case for the author’s claim: it’s not the outward appearances, but the way you carry yourself in a sexual way. However, the author’s do say that “[t]o find a person sexy…is to see their body as infused with an expression of self and animated by their own sexual identity” (305, my emphasis). And yet, Samantha has no body, but we could still say that she carries herself, her persona, and is animated by her own sexual identity. I do think she has a sexual identity, but she has no body that performs that, unless you count the various bodies she has (e.g. computer, cell phone, human surrogate). But again, her body becomes exceptionally fluid and she can leap from body to body. Is she still sexy? According to the author’s criteria, I’m not sure.

Conclusion

And so we reach the end of this post. I’ve looked at Lintott’s and Irvin’s article about changing the way we perceive people as being sexy and I’ve given five concerns about this project. Moreover, there are a couple implications we can gather from this project too. Overall, I think this has a fine contribution in bodily aesthetics and the importance of what it means to be sexy. Their new criteria could use some improvement, but it certainly has improved the old standard model of sexiness = mere sex object.

Not my image

Suppose someone said to you, “you are sexy.” How would you respond? It obviously depends on the context, but let me offer two possibilities.  On the one hand, you might experience something negative simply because you are seen as an object. The negative emotion could be anger, revulsion, shame, embarrassment, or disgust. Notice that you could say, “thanks” but still feel a negative emotion because the thought that someone would think of you as sexy is revealing: the other person considers you within some sexual realm (whatever that may mean). It isn’t that you are simply attractive or beautiful; you are someone that is sexually arousing, causing sexual desire. And, depending on the context, can make you very uncomfortable, embarrassed, or feel awkward.

On the other hand, another response is that you may experience something positive. You may be excited, thankful, happy, filled with self-confidence or self-esteem, empowered, and you may consider yourself more attractive. You may see yourself as an object, but not essentially. You may still see this sexy object and feel something positive that you are this object, and that you recognize yourself as this object.

Notice with both accounts, you are still an object. It just happens that you consider yourself in relation to this object as something positive or negative.

But what if someone goes deeper and says that they don’t see you as a sexy object, but as a sexy subject? How would you respond? I think most would consider that confusing, but maybe thankful (in that you are not considered as a mere object) or maybe deflated (in that you are not considered as an object at all). Sheila Lintott and Sherri Irvin are investigating what it means to be sexy and argue for a positive reclamation of sexiness from a feminist lens. The article tackles many meanings of what it means to be a sex object. I’ll be referencing the article in the book, Body Aesthetics.

Sexy Subjects

Here is what the authors contend: In one way, being sexy is objectifying, but on the other hand, denying sexiness is also denying her subjectivity. What I’m interested in is what the authors set out to do in part III: a normative conception of sexiness that also accommodates respect for persons. What this means is to respect people, in that we see people as legitimate autonomous beings. But seeing someone as sexy is also recognizing that, as sexy subjects, people are free to desire and pursue the sorts of pleasures they find worthwhile. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with seeing someone as sexy as long as you are respecting that person’s subjectivity and not trivializing (reducing?) that person into an object. Let me bring some context and background from the authors in order to move the argument forward.

First, sexiness is not an attribute anyone has, but a way of being. It is how one engages with the world with certain mental states and attitudes, and not something anyone has.

Second, sexiness is not to be tied to bodily attractiveness, but to see their subjectivity for what it is, to appreciate it, and regard it as sexy without necessarily being sexually attracted to that person. In short, the author’s revisionist project is to change our conception of sexiness in such a way where we can say that someone is sexy without being sexually attracted to that person.

Third, expressing one’s sexuality gives a positive, and perhaps even an empowered sense of that person’s identity. To deny that is to deny an aspect of that person’s identity.

With that background, the authors thesis is striking: there is an ethical obligation to recognize people as sexy subjects. “The respectful notion of sexiness merges a concern for the subjective and embodied life of a person with an assessment of their body as a sexualized one. To find a person in this sense is to see their body as infused with an expression of self and animated by their own sexual identity.” (305). So we can see someone sexually appealing, but not sexually arousing. We ought to reevaluate how we appreciate people’s sexiness without it being connected to being sexually attracted to them. To respectfully see people as sexy is to consider their subjective life and how they are in charge of their sexual agency. They are intrinsically appealing based on their own terms instead of finding them sexy based on external standards. But what’s the ethical push here? Why do we ought to regard people as sexy?

The way I understand it is that by viewing people as sexy subjects, we not only undermine cultural norms of what ought to be sexy, which is usually objectifying, but it gives people a sense of empowerment and it recognizes people’s subjectivity. It’s not just subjectivity in a Kantian universal-rational sense, but it’s to see their particular individuality. You see the person qua person, not person qua rational being, which is to say that people are sexy not because they follow certain social standards of what is sexy (e.g. beauty standards, dressing a certain way, external fashions), but more about how people carry themselves in that the way they express themselves are sexy.  It’s the way people infuse their sexuality to their body. They don’t provide any examples, so I’ll try to provide one and I hope it’s a good representation of what the authors are suggesting.

Many people in the media have had a complicated relationship with Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham’s expression of their sexuality.Both of them talk about sex and sexuality in honest ways and they are not ashamed of it. On the contrary, they seem to speak about it with such confidence and a genuine expression of what they want. On the other hand, both of them don’t follow conventional social norms of what is sexy: they are both slightly overweight, they talk about sex in detailed ways which isn’t socially acceptable for many women, they don’t follow the social standards of what is sexy, and they discuss controversial issues regarding feminine or sexuality. Yet, they are in charge of their sexuality whereby they are sexually appealing, and not necessarily sexually arousing. This isn’t to say that they could be sexually arousing, but that’s not the essential thing. More than that, maybe they can be sexually arousing because they are sexually appealing. Overall, it’s to recognize sexiness on their own terms and not societal expectations. To see their genuineness in sexuality also involves empathy. Therefore, Schumer and Dunham could be considered sexy according to the authors of this article.

(As an interesting question, would the authors suggest that part of their ethical project is to reevaluate sexiness such that seeing someone sexually arousing is an effect of seeing their sexual subjectivity?)

So far, I have only given the argument from Lintott and Irvin. But are there some concerns? What are the implications of their theory? While I find their project fascinating and positive, I have some concerns. I’ll reserve those thoughts in the next post.