A few days ago, @sean-king tagged me in his article
Sexual Click Bait? thanking me again for responding to his previous article offering my opinions on the subject.
His entry, along with mine, sparked a debate among the community.
With both of us combined, we had over 500 users engaged in a discussion.
My article: Is This Empowerment or Objectification?
Sean-king’s:More Thoughts On Women, Oppression and Porn
Something sparked inside of me, as well. I realized that this is exactly what I wanted out of Steemit.
To get involved in an ecosystem larger than myself,
sharing and creating with many other minnows, dolphins and whales, with different backgrounds and stories.
So let's get started.
Sexual Clickbait
It’s taken me a little while to respond. When I saw he mentioned me, I assumed it meant he was going to post something controversial.
But I’ll be honest.
There’s really not much wrong with what he’s saying.
To start off, he’s mainly talking about the negative comments he’s gotten. I can agree, I have received my fair share of snarky comments too-- and I actually get what he’s saying.
He defends both his wife and women in general, and he’s totally right to do so.
My questions for @cogliostro and @rainman, or any readers who agree with them, are simply these: Ignoring religious sensibilities for a moment (I'm not interested in debating anyone on the basis of religious teachings), what makes a picture of a sexually powerful woman "low" or "cheap"? Why do you resent it more than say, an equally appealing "click bait" image of...anything else. Is it not the fact that the effect of these images is so predictable? Isn't that what you truly resent--the power of the image and its undeniable influence over the masses and, if you are honest, even over you? Isn't that really why you derogatorily call it "click bait", because even you couldn't resist? Isn't it your own shame that's the real problem?
I think that’s pretty agreeable, right? Well, for the most part.
Here's where he loses me.
With a response to his own question:
Of course it is. It's the feminine power, and your inability to defend against it, that's so threatening. It's that which you seek to contain and diminish and mold to suit and serve you. After all, it's almost like women have an unfair advantage over you, right? Your scorn and attempted shaming are thinly-veiled attempts to deflect attention from this obvious truth, and to discourage women from exploiting this power in the future.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Women often don’t hold the power.
@sean-king’s definition of power is skewed. I’m guessing he’s referring to a woman’s sexual “power,” which doesn’t make much sense when we consider the astounding amount of women who have had their power taken from them. Or, they never had it in the first place, sexually or otherwise.
He then asks, if it’s, “almost like women have an unfair advantage over you, right?” Well, we really don’t.
As @stellabelle perfectly said in my previous blog:
Men control most of the world's money. Money gets the final say actually... Money is power.
I strongly agree with her on this. If women truly had some kind of unseen power, surely, there would be more women leaders of the world, and gender-inequality wouldn’t be as much of a problem… right?
That’s what I think. It is not in my opinion that “feminine power” is one of the true underlying causes of sexism, or why we receive negative feedback about explicit content.
So what's the problem?
The users under scrutiny in @sean-king's article Sexual Clickbait commented on pictures of @steemed-open in the article titled “Women Oppression and Porn,” saying it was clickbait (the title starting to make sense now?). They’re not necessarily wrong-- He never really talked about porn. That’s about it. Other than that, I personally think the photo was perfectly relevant to the article.
I ask myself, "I don’t have a problem with the photo, why would anyone else?"
It's simple:
Not everyone is comfortable with it.
I get that. The internet is the wild west, and sometimes we see things we don’t want to. That's understandable.
Maybe once the NSFW tag isn’t so buried, we won’t have as many issues like this in the future.
Until then, we just have to ride it out. Sometimes seeing content we love, and sometimes seeing content we hate.
Remember that Steemit is in beta and there are lots of features to look forward to in the future, so we can all have a better experience.