Is Sex an Activity That Cannot Involve Objectification

Is sex an activity that cannot but involve the objectification of another person and thus, dehumanization? Take a position on this question being sure to engage the arguments of Kant and Freud and Martha Nussbaum

    Women have become intensely sexualized everywhere in the world. Sexual objectification is when someone is treated like a sex object, or treating one for sexual pleasure. An image may invite the objectifying gaze and may lead into degrading that person’s humanity. According to Kant “sexual love makes of the loved person an object of appetite; as soon as the other person is possessed, and the appetite sated, they thrown away as one throws away a lemon that is sucked dry” (Blackburn, 2004, p.93).On the other hand, Kant suggests that men should find desire in women who resemble their mothers and sisters. Unlike, Nussbaum says objectification is not treating the other person as a means to an end.

    When it comes to Nussbaum, using one’s body for sexual pleasure can be morally disabling. One should not just think of satisfying themselves but think about other people’s feelings. As for Kant, if faced with the urge to satisfy a pleasure then is to find another body to cure the desire. He goes on and concludes that there is nothing wrong with that. Nussbaum suggests that there are seven notions that accompany the ideal of objectification (Blackburn, 2004, p.97).

1. Instrumentality-means interacting with others for comfort or sexual pleasures.
2. Denial of autonomy-restricts the object from freedom.
3. Inertness-treating the other as a matter not human.
4. Fungibility-says that the object can find an alternative.
5. Violability-given power to damage the object.
6. Ownership-when a person is treated like someone’s property.
7. Denial of subjectivity-no need to show concern for the other (object). (Martha Nussbaum).

    Nussbaum makes it clear that the way Kant and Freud are on the views of objectification is immoral way of doing things. People will inevitably set about finding ways to use women as a means to an end is what Nussbaum thinks. According to Kant, there are two faculties of the mind: theoretical reason and practical reason. He says practical reason issues a duty to respect its law. Morality is not firmly established in what follows, but rather in mere duty. Kant notes that when people engage in sexual activities outside marriage set themselves of being reduced to “objects of appetite” mere tools for sexual pleasures (Blackburn, 2004. p.93).