The common societal view is that if a man buys a flesh light, he is perverted and gross. A women owning a dildo or vibrator however? Perfectly normal, and not at all weird! Right? Personally I cannot think of a better example of real objectification than owning an oversized, unrealistic, literal object depicting someone’s genitalia, and yet these are bought and sold at an alarming rate.

Pornography is one of the worst ways people get objectified. Almost every man at some point has struggled with it, yet it’s not just men like they’d want you to believe. 76% of women between the ages of 18-30 view pornography, and nearly half of porn consumption is by women, and that’s just online consumption. What most reports forget to include in their surveys is that erotic literature (smut) is by far the most common form of pornography consumption for women. It feels as if almost every book nowadays geared towards women is erotic in nature. And yes, despite what they tell you this is still pornography. It has the same nasty side effects on its consumer as watching it can have, it both sets unrealistic standards of the opposite gender and encourages objectification. Two things that “regular” porn infamously promotes.

Additionally, conversations on fetishization are commonly unequal and one sided. Black men are arguably the most objectified and oversexualized demographic today, as much if not more so than even Asian women.

While men may be the primary consumers of pornography, at least they’re held accountable for it. But there remains a serious double standard around the topic of its consumption as well as the objectification/sexualization of men.