I grew up with the impression that looking at female bodies in a sexual way was a bad thing to do because it is objectification.

I now think that looking at women's bodies in a sexual way is perfectly innocent. It's a natural human behaviour. Heterosexual and bisexual men are biologically programmed to find looking at attractive women pleasurable. There's nothing wrong with it.

The demonisation of male sexuality is a form of abuse perpetuated on men and boys to make them feel ashamed of completely natural and healthy sexual behaviour.

You can see why this is the case if you flip the genders. There is nothing wrong with women finding men pleasurable to look at, it's natural, healthy, and innocent.

I believe the shaming of males for their sexuality is partly rooted in cultural conceptions of traditional sexual relations and identities. Whereby the female must be courted and shown not to be "loose" with her love, and so she must condemn any man who looks at her sexually. This is the woman acting out the archetype of the virgin.

Also, it is a clever construction to shame certain low status men from approaching women. As it can be deployed as a defence without the woman saying that the problem is the man not being good enough for her, instead the problem is a defect in the man, and if the man only wasn't a pervert he might be rewarded with affection. This serves to retain the moral purity of the woman as being primarily concerned with the moral character of the man and not other characteristics of a potential partner which would deter her from accepting him (appearance, status, wealth, connections).

Edit: In this post, I didn't say all women and it shouldn't have to be said, but I'm not refering to all women. I'm talking specifically about women who talk as though male objectification of women is always bad, or who use this as a way to reject men they dislike.

It isn't always disingenuous. Displays of male sexuality aren't always innocent, but that is different to what I was talking about in my post. In my post I was talking about the instinct of heterosexual men to look at women and find them attractive.

Also, I am not specifically pointing the finger at women and saying "there lies the problem". The problem is partly an inheritance of culture which dictates relations between the sexes and that both sexes subscribe to, to a certain extent.

I believe that this part of culture has been predominantly mobilised by a portion of women (some feminists, I have no specific percentage) to attack men. However, it wouldn't work without there being something already there to build upon in our history.

And, again, the last two paragraphs of the original post are not an all explanatory theory, they are just contributions that I believe exist.

Edit 2: Wanted to share a link to another user's comments which highlight the common goal of both women and men for emancipation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/ro9i42/comment/hpzbvf3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/ro9i42/comment/hpzcev5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3