I think another perspective is that men find appeal regardless in being sexualized because it's commonly seen as aspirational.
The ladies man was a stereotype for a reason.
You know the phrase "women want to fuck him, men want to be him". Yeah that's kinda the thing about JoJo.
I don't want to fuck any of the JoJo protags, but hell I'd love to be as musclebound as Jonathan, as cool headed as Jotaro, as suave as Joseph, and as determined as Giorno.
If your not attracted to them, they are presented as very aspirational. Most men who are presented as appealing are.
Is it a ridiculous standard, still yes, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a thing.
It's just glossed over because Men stand from the opposite end because men are told they ought to be like this. They will have their dreams come true if they can meet this standard.
Its not because it's safe, it's because it's what all kinds of media tells us we are expected to be. He-man, Conan, Bond, JoJo, comics, etc.
I think avoiding that both versions of this are kinda bad for their respective gender, not just sexualizing women, is why toxic masculinity has dug as deep as it has.
And I love JoJo but I know that dudes genuinely do model themselves after these kinds of characters, and we don't have a million faces coming out of the wood work to tell us that it's wrong, that we shouldn't be destroying ourselves to meet an impossible standard.
You can't put the shoe on the other foot without checking the size first. And frankly I don't think most men can fill em' despite desperately wanting to.
No one is saying that men aren't also victims of the patriarchy in exactly the way your outlined, just that they don't get sexualized in the way women do.
To be honest, I don't even know what it would look like for men to be sexualized in this way. Why don't women sexualize men in this way, and what would it look like if they did? There are plenty of heterosexual female artists and writers, so why aren't they interested in sexualizing men this way?
They do, it is just in writing or yaoi or something. Judging from my female friends it tends to be smut, some sort of gay manga, or creating characters that they mod to have sex with each other in a mmo or something like that.
I think you likely haven't looked super hard then. For one example, Fifty Shades of Grey broke into the mainstream and got a trilogy of movies. With a little more searching, you start running into the erotica subgenre of novels, which includes such gems as seen below.
it's not considered aspirational because it's sexual though, it's considered aspirational because it's powerful. The power to physically engage something, the power to get the women they want, the power to not be held down by rules. The same could not happen with women because in the eye's of society women's power isn't valued, women aren't people, they're trophies- that's why women can be freely sexualized in media as a treat for the viewer but a woman being sexual in real life is called a slut and is looked down on when the same generally doesn't happen with men.
I agree to an extent that this isn't good for men either, the issue is it's harmful for different reasons, and when they're treated as the same it's often in service of minimizing the harm to women rather than highlighting the harm to men.
You have a point that the difference is power. Though I will argue that many sexualized characters are still shown as powerful.
That being said, I think those elements are kind of hand in hand and irregardless of how they spin:
they both still hurt people by presenting an impossible image that causes a ton of damage when one inevitably can't match it.
With the problem being we don't have anyone calling this out to the same extent. Its wrong for women to be presented that way, but like this comic, people are more than willing to go to bat for it, where men facing this issue get much more scrutiny if not vitriol.
I don't think either are ok, nor do i believe womens struggles with it should be minimized to prop up the other side of the issue,
i just think men ought to get more help in this corner of the issue, without minimizing what women go through with being sexualized as well.
There are some, yeah, but it's usually in spite of them being sexual not because of it- always exceptions to the rule obviously.
I do get what you're saying, the issue is most men don't identify the issue on their end, unfortunately. They just see the men as powerful and cool and that's it, that's a part of the patriarchy we have to contend with- even though men are also hurt by the patriarchy, the framing of it makes men out to be on top even though those who are are actually on top are a smaller group of wealthy and powerful people, men just disproportionately have a more power than women in comparison and that makes it harder to see the problems.
im not presenting it as a good thing, im presenting it as something that we are infact dealing with and have been.
look across media from the past 50 years. really earlier with stuff like dick tracy.
An emotionless strong shell of a man with chiseled features and boundless strength that solves the case gets the girl and can't form attachements with anybody, as he beats and shoots the bad guys.
Its the same stuff and its what we give to kids to be their heroes, who they want to become.
Thats entirely dependent on the content you choose to consume and the culture you happen to be born in but im not interested in your hypothesis. I have a son and the generalizations youre promulgating contribute to headlines about teachers raping young boys and adult men who cannot report assaults against them by men or women.
If you can't make your point without falsely speaking on behalf of all men, then its probably not a good point.
thats part of the problem, and I agree its a problem.
your assuming im in support of this generalization, and not that im pointing out its present and does infact affect people and cause the exact issues your describing.
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u/jbyrdab 13h ago
I think another perspective is that men find appeal regardless in being sexualized because it's commonly seen as aspirational.
The ladies man was a stereotype for a reason.
You know the phrase "women want to fuck him, men want to be him". Yeah that's kinda the thing about JoJo.
I don't want to fuck any of the JoJo protags, but hell I'd love to be as musclebound as Jonathan, as cool headed as Jotaro, as suave as Joseph, and as determined as Giorno.
If your not attracted to them, they are presented as very aspirational. Most men who are presented as appealing are.
Is it a ridiculous standard, still yes, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a thing.
It's just glossed over because Men stand from the opposite end because men are told they ought to be like this. They will have their dreams come true if they can meet this standard.
Its not because it's safe, it's because it's what all kinds of media tells us we are expected to be. He-man, Conan, Bond, JoJo, comics, etc.
I think avoiding that both versions of this are kinda bad for their respective gender, not just sexualizing women, is why toxic masculinity has dug as deep as it has.
And I love JoJo but I know that dudes genuinely do model themselves after these kinds of characters, and we don't have a million faces coming out of the wood work to tell us that it's wrong, that we shouldn't be destroying ourselves to meet an impossible standard.
You can't put the shoe on the other foot without checking the size first. And frankly I don't think most men can fill em' despite desperately wanting to.