Pornography: Men Possessing Women, by: Andrea ... - Feminish

seen to embody opposite qualities or characteristics. Objectification,in fact and in consequence, is never trivial.Men, perpetually searching to justify their perpetual search forobjects that move them to experience their own desire transmutedto power, claim especially to love beauty as such; and under theformidable guise of aesthetic devotion, objectification is defended orpresented as the recognition of the beautiful. Women ideallyembody beauty: so the theory goes, even though men in practiceseem to hate the female body per se. The notion that female beautyinspires male love is pervasive. One can hardly argue (so it seems)with the aesthetic values of the sublime artists of male culture whofreeze the female form in time and render it exquisite, as in, forinstance, the Venus de Milo, ancient Aphrodite, the women ofRubens, and so forth. It is nearly unconscionable to challenge, forinstance, the aesthetic sensibility in Keats’s exquisite “Ode on aGrecian Urn, ” where the object is first the urn itself, then thefigures on it:Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss;Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 30The meaning of the male idealization of beauty is hidden by thevery beauty of the art that proclaims woman, at her highest, abeautiful object. Keats has found the ideal crystallization ofobjectifying love: the bold lover perpetually desires the unchangingbeauty of the unchanging female frozen in time; he will always loveand she will always be fair; he will always love because she willalways be fair. This same model of love is found in every soap andcosmetic commercial. In Keats, objectification is raised to itshighest aesthetic level. With pinups too the bold lover will foreverlove and she be fair.The love that the male feels for the ideal beauty is evoked (orprovoked) by beauty itself. Scarcely any woman dares to ignoremale ideas of ideal female beauty altogether because these ideas will