TheCabal -> RE: Is it unethical to sexually objectify someone without them knowing it? (5/18/2011 2:09:51 PM)
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I write erotica knowing it is erotica so the result is not offensive to me. I am talking more about situations where a person may be "using" another person sexually without their knowledge at all. For example, a foot fetishist gets a job at a shoe store and spends all day touching the feet of women, and may at times be sexually aroused by it, but the woman has no knowledge. Is that unethical? If she NOTICES the erection, is it then unethical? A woman purposely leaves a box in a place where she knows that she will be able to ask her handsome neighbor to pick it up and take it up into the rafters and he will comply, but she does so simply because she has a fetish for his body or his ass in the jeans (I picked something random, but you get the idea). He just thinks he is helping out, but she's doing it all with the strict intent to sexually objectify him in her head. If a person is purposely doing something with the intent to obtain sexual gratification from the other person without the other person ever knowing they are being somewhat manipulated, is that unethical? I suppose that's the more specific question. It's been an interesting read, this thread. Akasha I think 'unethical' might be the wrong word... it's too absolute for the scenarios you're talking about. Take your shoe clerk. You're sitting in a chair, he comes by with a pair of shoes, and you notice he's aroused. Now, is he aroused because he's a foot fetishist, or is he aroused because his co-worker just made him an offer that you're not aware of? There's not really any way for you to know, sitting there in that chair. In short, in order to answer the ethics question for someone else, you've got to get inside their head and fully understand what is motivating them. So let's change the question around a bit. If you were to come in here and state: "I'm a foot fetishist, and I want to get a job in a shoe store so I can play with people's feet all day, do you think that's wrong?" To be honest, I'd probably tell you that everyone deserves to enjoy their job. Just be careful not to creep out your customers. To me that's where the line is: not what goes on inside your own head, but what you actually do to someone else. If they're completely unaware that something's up, then you've done no harm, and not crossed any sort of line, ethical or otherwise.
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