Pornosophy: In Praise of Objectification

Marilyn Monroe (NewYork Sunday News)

Objectification is a much maligned intention. Everybody resists the idea of being objectified. Certainly feminism rails against the objectification of women, though few feminists express equal concern about the objectification of fetching looking studs. One of the objections is that by singling out a women on the basis of her looks you’re turning her into a piece of meat, something that's not better than a hamburger. Even models complain about being enslaved to their good looks. They want to be loved for their minds as well as their bodies. But isn’t this the point? Isn’t everything an object? Let’s say we ignore the allure of beauty, what then do you do about a beautiful sensibility? How do you handle the person with a horrible external appearance, but a beautiful core? If you love the Hunchback of Notre Dame for his mind, are you not still objectifying his inner self? Get out. Once a person fails to meet up to the highest standards of physical beauty, you go down a list which includes brainpower and sensibility. However what makes these other qualities less examples of objectification say tits and ass or in the case of a male, well developed pectorals and a bulging package downstairs? You’re locked into your mind as well as your body and what the two have in common is that there’s no way out.

Pornosophy: Pitch and Putt

Our current sexual zeitgeist is predicated on the notion that there can be purity of sexual intention. The advent of the “affirmative consent” law in California is only one example of the notion that there’s a sensibility governing an individual's sex drive. If this were really true however, then neither the sex nor any of the other physical traits governing attraction would be relevant when choosing a love object. However, empirical evidence points to the opposite being the case. Human beings are gonadally driven. They aren’t attracted necessarily to what someone is saying or thinking or feeling. These are just the icing on the secondary sex characteristics cake. Sure a nimbus of idealization allows desire to negotiate the shoals of consciousness--though it's fundamentally the palette of organs that makes the prospect of coitus, fellatio or any other sexual activity enticing. Some women like penises, others prefer to be penetrated by a dildo and still others prefer the pleasure of both giving and receiving cunnilingus. Some men love to thrust their penises into a warm vagina while others like having a penis in their ass or mouth. In one sense the human body is like one of those pitch and putt golf courses to the extent that it offers only three holes with little room for bogeys. Asses, penises and breasts are what makes Sammy or Samantha run. Civilization has created the notion of love as a rationalization for its own animal nature. Denis de Rougement wrote a book called Love in the Western World. But at the end of the day, humans are nothing more than animals who happen to be capable of thought.

Pornosophy: Don’t Behave Like an Ass

Would it be bigamy to marry the ass of a woman who is already married to someone else? This question is raised by the recent picture of Kim Kardashian’s fundament that appeared on the cover of Paper. The fallout from the whole K.K. episode has yet to be felt. You might not want all of her, but there's no doubt that at least a part of Ms. Kardashian, who happens to be married to Kanye West, could provide happiness to the appropriate suitor. Naturally the question of Ms. Kardashian’s ass brings up the whole issue of whether it's possible to love or even be married to a part of a person. Back in the 70’s there would have been many women and men who might have married John Holmes for his endowment. Medical science is constantly making advances. It’s rumored that Chicken parts like wings, breasts and thighs will soon be cloned and human body parts aren’t far behind. Puppy mills will give way to the mass production breasts, lips (both of the mouth and the vulva), thighs and of course rumps by celebrities like Kardashian who will lend her name to them, in the same way she has to her line of perfumes. But what would it be like to be married to Kim Kardashian’s ass? What would it be like to have just Kim Kardashian’s ass lying next to you in bed? And is there a justice of the peace, rabbi or priest who would be willing to perform such a  synecdochic ceremony? One thing is certain, those who fall in love with Kim Kardashian’s ass need no longer fear making asses of themselves.

Bonus question: If Mephistopheles proposed that you could sleep with K.K.’s ass at the price of your soul, what would you do?