Abstraction!

Yes, exactly. The whole complaint about objectification is, "I'm not being treated as a person, but as an abstraction, a source of sex, or arm candy to show off to friends, maybe even a Madonna on a pedestal, but not me as a real person."

Here's the irony that kills me: the theory of objectification does the exact same thing. Instead of individual realities -- "my boyfriend doesn't listen to me and just wants to do it" -- it makes a general rule about all of society, all men. Then you link it to oppression of women and rape, and of course men tune out. When a discussion starts from the claim that something all men do -- look at women lustfully, without necessarily cherishing them as individuals -- leads to rape, guys are going to conclude that the whole discussion is pointless BS, and they're pretty much right.

Here are some realities: some men stare at women in a creepy way, and pretty much every woman I know has been grossed out by this on more than one occasion. Sometimes, if you challenge a guy who is staring, he gets angry and aggressive. (There's something to the fact that predators stare at prey, but it can be overblown.) A lot of women have been raped and/or attacked, many more than is commonly acknowledged or discussed. And it's a fair guess that actual rapists can act creepy like this, and don't treat women as individuals.

It's not hard to see how that could get abstracted into a general theory of rape culture. But that's when it all goes wrong, because it's not everybody. From a general theory, you can develop all sorts of logical conclusions that are false, because they ignore other important realities. The reality there are very few rapists, and some of them don't act creepy at all. That rape is as much about violence as sex. That most men look at women (and at porn) without committing any sexual offenses or even being creepy. That women also look at men lustfully, without treating them as individuals, all the time. ("Oh my God, don't look now but that guy who just walked in is SO hot.")

I'm sure rapists objectify, but pretty much everyone objectifies, especially when they're school age. We date people for status (because they're cool, or popular), because they're hot, because we share their taste in bands or drugs or politics. Or because they're like our parents -- or different than our parents. It's only with maturity that anyone, man or woman, gets past that and treats their partners as individuals.