Can Clothing Objectify?

I wanted to upload a small follow-up to my article on why the evangelical and secular concept of modesty as a certain amount of clothing someone (usually a woman in examples) must wear to not offend morality or make someone lust is bullshit that doesn't survive an objective intellectual inspection [1].  In this post, I wanted to more precisely elaborate on what true objectification is and why clothing doesn't lead to it in any way.  One of the largest and most ridiculous objections to simple exposure of the human body--particularly to women wearing bikinis--is that such clothing or lack of clothing objectifies them.  This is complete nonsense because no clothing or absence of it can make anyone objectify another person.

Finding someone attractive is not necessarily sexual in nature and is not objectification whatsoever, but viewing someone as ONLY their sexuality (or their athleticism or their money or their intelligence) is objectifying and very dehumanizing, as it ignores the other dimensions to the person's humanity.  Focusing on or deeply admiring one aspect of someone's humanity--whether their intelligence, physical beauty, emotions, athletic capability, humor, sexuality, or anything else--is not at all identical to reducing them to just one of their many attributes and parts.  Clothing and the human body can't cause anyone to objectify someone else.  Claiming so is as insanely pathetic as believing that playing a difficult video game can cause someone to murder another person in a volatile fury.  People possess volitional control of their actions and motivations, no matter the situation or context.  Actually, I discovered an entire fallacy devoted to the belief that a person is responsible for the actions and attitudes of other people: the internal control fallacy.  It's factually and rationally incorrect to blame someone's sins or behavior on another person, not to mention morally flawed.

Christians should be the first people to acknowledge and praise every aspect of being human, but throughout history they have systematically oppressed various facets of that.  They have demonized sexuality and sexual desire and confused so many people with their distortions of it and their false categorizations and doctrines.  They have shunned reason and rationality for fear that they might threaten their Christian positions and have tried to transform Christianity into some mystical experience that it is not.  They have told people to suppress emotions because emotional expression allegedly results in instability and may "cause" someone to go astray (I am definitely not innocent of this one).  Now, none of these represents the entire church at all times or locations in history, but it can be very difficult to find a person or group that correctly understands all of these components of humanity at one simultaneous time.  The church does not hold a wonderful record when it comes to genuinely appreciating and supporting every dimension of human nature.  Objectification comes when someone reduces a person to only one part of their humanity, but true respect for others comes when someone does not try to ignore any of these parts but instead properly views all of them.

Someone's clothing or body can't make another person objectify them.  This proposition needs to be eradicated from the Christian and secular intellect for its non-conformity to reality and its severe rational and moral flaws, yet I still find Christians who insist otherwise.  The absurdities voiced on the issue must end.


When you discover the freedom God grants to people to wear what
they please and that one can admire the beauty of male and female bodies
without objectifying people, you may want to leap in the air like this woman.
Women especially need to be liberated from the consequences of cultural
ideas of modesty and suffocating church legalism.



[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-folly-of-modesty-part-1.html