I’m glad Spitzer resigned.

just wondering - assuming you’re a woman I would find sexually attractive and I’m a guy you’d find attractive, we’d be sitting opposite of each other on the subway and would be intrigued by each other’s bodies. Everything is happening in our brains, there’s no drewling, no inappropriate staring, for all we know, the other one has not even realized we’re there. What would be the right way to appreciate the others beauty without having any attempt to go further? And what would be the wrong way?

By respecting the one you desire as a conscious being and an equal. Sexual fantasy and objectification aren’t equivalent. One can lust after another and still recognize that person as a complete, complex human, with her own agency, her own set of thoughts and desires. (If you’re not doing this while lusting, I think you’re Doing It Wrong.)

Yeah, sure. I’m not saying that’s not possible (well, as we’re all closed systems it is impossible in a technical sense, but we’re talking about what’s the appropriate amount of empathy for allowing oneself to have sexual thoughts involving someone else, right?). To the contrary, I’m arguing that “objectification” (ie, the reduction of complexity to the information relevant to the immediate activity) is in no way opposed to any of that (except, of course, a woman in my or anyone’s *dreams* by definition has no agency, as she’s not real) And yes, when I’m masturbating I’m usually not thinking about the amazing discussions I could be having with that woman. What about people with a specific fetish? Say somenone really likes feet. He/she will probably concentrate on that particular “object of desire”…

Beyond that, while I can’t speak to the imperatives of your, or any other, particular religious conviction, all of which have to be kept in their proper perspective in a multicultural and church-state separated society, I do wonder whether the Spitzer case and the other cases of publicized sexual scandals that you highlighted don’t speak to the need for a reevaluation of the public expectations of mens’ relationship and sexual behavior. While we shouldn’t excuse infidelity, as a violation of an existing familial, social and legal commitment, perhaps we ought to question the hegemony of monogamy and marriage as the norm. We may have, in effect, already been questioning it for a number of years on a “grass-roots” level in the culture, but that obviously hasn’t translated into the realm of politics, where an unmarried and non-monogamous politician (of either gender, and almost certainly the worse for a woman) would be all but unthinkable.

I raise the issue because it seems clear to me, as highlighted by this and the other cases that you raised, that Spitzer and these other public figures clearly were forced into public and relationship commitments under social expectations out of alignment with their own personal desires and sexualities. Rather than this talk of “transforming one’s sexuality” to fit the hegemonic narrative, which seems eerily similar to nothing so much as the talk of “ex-gay movement” proponents and perhaps just as dubious, perhaps we ought to consider, much as feminism did for women a generation ago, the gender expectations of men and the occasional disconnect with their own individual desires and aspirations.

When you’re fantasizing about sex (as you’re not using porn, I suppose), how do you not objectify?

By respecting the one you desire as a conscious being and an equal. Sexual fantasy and objectification aren’t equivalent. One can lust after another and still recognize that person as a complete, complex human, with her own agency, her own set of thoughts and desires. (If you’re not doing this while lusting, I think you’re Doing It Wrong.)

Erotic justice means refusing to reduce another human being to the status of an object which exists for one’s own pleasure.

I find really interesting how you can write about all this in such an eloquent way, and then occasionally say something as problematic as this. When you’re fantasizing about sex (as you’re not using porn, I suppose), how do you not objectify? Why is it you seem to think you cannot treat a woman as an equal if you fantasize (graphically) about her breasts? When a woman sees my butt and feels sexually aroused, why on earth should she care about my life history or whether I had a bad day?

But if he walks through this with determination and brutal honesty and a real desire for redemption, amazing things will happen for him.

Wow. This is probably the most condescending thing I’ve read in a while. I wonder if something like that was also told to red-haired women during the Spanish inquisition . “Love the punishment… believe me I KNOW it’s for your own good.” Ahh - life must be good with that kind of moral clarity. Oh wait, didn’t you say something about “mixed motivations” and how “logic” doesn’t always work in the complex world of gender? Well… I guess this may cut both ways -

I’ve been tiresome, frankly, in my insistence that men are called to match their language to their lives.