That is Michael Phelps' body

Another good debate discussion thread was at Pharyngula.

Once again, Feministing ladies, this was a great experience - thanks for the live blog chat!

definitely not phelps... he's got less of an "innie"

Hmm... I'm not sure if this debate will be as big a win among independents for the democrats as the first one was.

If you watched CNN's little "popularity meter" the crowd didn't like when Biden got too serious, or sounded at all patronizing or shifted a question about his own policies back to attacking McCain. Talking about his hometown in PA didn't win him many fans either (not surprising to me, I'm from the midwest and conservatives there don't really identify with the coasts, working class or otherwise). He also has a habit of answering some questions with lots of technicalities, without also including enough plain speech so that people who haven't studied politics or law know exactly what he's talking about.

The crowd really liked when Palin addressed things like education (even though she veered way away from a question asked of her) and Biden didn't respond to all of the issues she brought up in specifics.

Overall, I think among independents this debate will help the Democrats more than Republicans, but by a narrow margin. This based on the reactions of the crowd as shown in the popularity meter.

We'll wait a couple days and see whether I'm right though, I guess...

Ah, I see Joe has the appropriate uniform for going into a debate with Sarah. He got spanked pretty bad. :P

Yeah I completely hate that image. I understand that it was meant to convey a positive message but would have been thrilled if someone had done that to Palin or would be screaming about sexism and sexual objectification? If is not appropriate to do that to a woman it is not appropriate to do that to a man.

my tolerance for the crap on this site is no more. this image is the last straw. i'm removing this site from my RSS. absolutely fucking ridiculous.

W.T.F.? Am I missing some smartypants ironic joke? If someone had done this to a woman what would we be saying?

Is this really how we're trying to level the playing field? I'm disappointed.

Yes, the irony is that Palin keeps calling herself "Joe Sixpack" when her opponent's name is Joe. And is a guy. Who comes from a blue collar background. I'm not sure if she's trying to be "one of the guys" to get the vote from those who supposedly just want a president they could have a beer with, or if she's just confused.

No offense, but ewwww! Joe Biden on some Playgirls bod makes me want to upchuck! There is no good looking male politician that society could sexualize! Maybe Palins head on a demons body?

I actually think this is okay. Ann is not someone I consider careless or thoughtless. I have a few observations.

Nearly all of us are attracted to some people. We shouldn't pretend like we aren't. So, I don't think there's anything wrong with expressing that attraction or admiration.

And another thing is when someone becomes attractive to us for their ideals or intelligence. I (most of us?) am attracted to Rachel Maddow because she is brilliant. I think this is something similar with Joe Biden.

This body is positively mythic. It's like, "The way Joe debated, you'd think he was Apollo (or something)." (And a sharp play on the "Joe Six-Pack" catch-phrase.)

I mean, I see where the criticism is coming from, but am I wrong for not taking it so seriously? It's similar to the "Feminist Guilty Pleasure" feature, or the language like "biatch" our editors were using in the liveblog. We are social creatures, and we are human. Must we suppress that humanity to be good feminists?

Confession:

I originally started reading this blog because I was directed here from another to have a laugh at some of the over-reactions in the comments section.

I'm glad I poked around the site enough to see more. I found that there are a lot of insightful, and thought-provoking posts here. There are, in fact, a lot of posts that made me sit back in my chair and wonder how I could have been so ignorant.

That was 2 years ago, and I've been a fairly regular reader ever since. As a white heterosexual male, I had never considered myself a feminist, but I do now.

One thing I never understood though, was the outrage expressed here about the objectification of the female body. I like female breasts. I prefer them to be attached to an intelligent, funny, caring woman, but I also appreciate them as an evolutionary masterpiece in their own right. I think I understand that objectifying women can be used to further misogyny and is a "slippery slope" if you will. However, I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it's not warranted given the history of women's rights, but I don't think I'd care to live any other way.

Literally yesterday, I found myself wondering if I, perhaps, just don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something major. I see so many posts and comments here expressing disgust with disembodied female figures. It was making me wonder if there was some avenue of thought that I really needed to follow to have a more complete understanding.

Thank you for disabusing me of that notion. The disembodied figure of a sexually appealing male with Joe Biden's head on it makes it seem as though you find this theory bankrupt as well, or you just think a gross double standard is perfectly fine.

I'm really not bothered by the picture at all. I certainly don't believe that you think of men as nothing but a set of abs and a sex organ invented for your pleasure. However, it makes me wonder why you don't give others the same benefit of the doubt.

THANK YOU for this post. I'm in the UK right now and I don't have a TV, so watching the debates would have meant finding someone else who'd let me be in their living room at 4:00 in the morning, or something silly like that. Now I feel like I was there.

Oh, and about the Biden photo above? I'm with SodiumSkies on this one.

Here's an interesting thought that just occurred to me:

Isn't all appreciation of the human form necessarily objectification?

How is this not sexist? You've just given feminism a double standard... "Society, don't label women with sexual labels.... but us women, we'll only do it when it's funny and convenient." Hypocrites.

... Okay... It's sorta stupid. It kinda went over my head, but I can appreciate the "WTF" quality.

(Seriously though, I do have a whole theory on sexiness vs. oversexualisation and obligatory sexualization. It's specifically in reference to comics and video games, but if anyone wants a mouthful of food analogies, just ask).

I really can't stand this idea that every single small town in America is exactly the same. I mean, on the one hand, we're all Americans and we're all humans. On the other hand, New York is not Philadelphia is not Los Angeles is not Atlanta. Sure, a polician can come from one to the other and say "I see you have crowded schools. I dealt with them in this other city and I think it could work here." It's another thing to claim a solidarity with me based on the population of my city or the level of Catholics vs. Protestants. I'd be like, "F•¶ck you! You don't know me!"

Small town people! Have some pride and identity! You're not exactly the same as the small down across the country, a few states away, or even in the same state.

patrick,

I will say, as a female, I have often been made to feel like the /only/ thing that matters is my appearance, whether it was boys always calling me "ugly" in grade school because I didn't fit their ideal vision of femininity, or whether it's men on the street frequently commenting on my appearance (usually positively, not always -often inappropriately sexually).

I'm also an art model, and there is some lovely statistic about how in our modern museums the displays are skewed so that the vast majority of displayed nudes are portrayals of females, whereas the vast majority of represented artists (even in the modern art category) are male.

Between lad mags and porn I think there's a lot more portrayal of females sans personality in our culture than there are males. (heck, look at the VP nomination, she's pretty and friendly and McCain hoped that would be enough for voters)

All that being said, I'm not crazy 'bout this picture anyway. It's not like Biden was trying to be sexy. Not to mention, with all the crushes on Obama already, doesn't it look kind of bad for women to indicate that if as a woman you appreciate a male politician it translates into a desire to sleep with them or something?

This, I suppose, could be used to make an argument Joe is /not/ being sexually objectified here, since he's primarily being appreciated for the way he individually did in the debate:

http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/faq-what-is-sexual-objectification/

Come to think of it, those of you calling total double standard here, do you think the people putting Palin's head on a "sexy" body were doing it as a reaction to her policy stances or speaking ability? Hmm?

Ninapendamaishi: I completely disagree. Under that logic, all the women sport athletes who are appreciated primarily for their athleticism... it is therefore okay to place them is sexy poses and clothes in magazines?

I don't think so.

Just because there's a greater appreciation than their sexiness doesn't justify presenting them in a primarily sexual manner. Period.

Call me crazy, I thought that th picture was simply a play on words - Joe Six-pack, he's Joe, has a six-pack (and it's funny because it's not the type of six-pack Palin's referring to). I guess I could see where it could be offensive, but I honestly think it's meant to be a play on words, not a sexual thing.

Ann?

I don't think anyone was lost on the play-on words bit. I think they were bothered by the extra meaning indicated by the prefacing comment (about how the image expressed her feelings about the debate)

Suppose SNL decided to satirically portray Palin as an obviously sexed-up icon (keeping in mind, the satire has emphasis on how people are suggesting McCaine picked a /pretty/ VP candidate). Do you see how that is still on the line of unacceptable? Even though it would be in the name of satire? Or even worse, making the satire on the candidate you like... if SNL decided to sex-up Biden on national TV?

I just think there are better things to devote satire on.

this post is WONDERFUL!

My all time favorite?

9:28 Jessica: The Tao of Palin
Jessica: It's like to Tao of Pooh, except she kills tigger

I think the image you used for this post is beyond sexist. Since it wouldn't be appropriate to objectify in woman in this way, do you think it's appropriate for a man?

"And when I prefaced it with a note that this explained my feelings on the debate, I meant the absurdity of her "folksy" turns of phrase. And really the absurdity of this entire election. Not that I came away from the evenings festivities thinking I wanted to see Joe Biden shirtless."

Oh. Well while some of these people I'm sure are just trolls, I think it was easy to assume what I did about what you menat.

I see how and why some people are pissed about this image. I think some of the reactions were a bit over-the-top, but I think if this site wants to make a clear point about objectification, then it should be a consistent one.

(But the Joe Six-Pack thing wasn't lost on me, so you know.)

I think Patrick expressed the problem with the Biden picture pretty well. It isn't, as others have said, that the wordplay got missed. It's that either our editors understand that there can be a time and place for the admiration of the human form, or they think it's cool to objectify men, but either way it's a "gross double standard," to quote Patrick. Even as the editors are defending the image as "wordplay wordplay wordplay!", and expecting us to give some consideration to that, they (and many of the people who read this blog) would never give any sort of consideration to someone doing the same with a female body. Protests of wordplay or even aesthetic appreciation would be met with sharp criticisms of taste and accusations of objectification--unequivocal derision.

So here's a question: can we use this example, that is, Ann's representation of Biden, as an indication that there can be a place for the admiration of the human body--male or female? And, if the answer to that is yes, can we take that into consideration when we encounter images of the female? Maybe we could afford to be a little more willing to give the benefit of the doubt, or at least discuss an image, its context, and its purpose before we decide it's "not okay."

Also, to be clear, this is less an objectification of Biden than it is of the headless body he's borrowing. Wordplay or not, the image has reduced some poor dude, who may be an athlete or a model or a NASA engineer for all we know, to a thing. It would be less problematic (I think) if Ann had just taken a picture of Biden's face and drawn a body with a six-pack and Trogdor-style beefy arms.

Yes, there is a place for the admiration of the body, but... Oooh, Oooh, I'm just flailing around here! I want to share my aforementioned food-analogy-ridden thesis on sexual imagery! It'd technically be off-topic to this post, though. Is there any place I can put this ramble?

Flippy - put it up as a community post. I want to read! :)

That picture is disturbing . . .

Disturbingly sexy!

Maggie- You probably made the best point in the whole lot. We always talk about disembodied parts and how disturbingly sexist it is. Yet whoever this shirtless guy was, his identity isn't even a factor here. He didn't choose to be part of a joke, as if anyone would have asked him anyway.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am becoming with this image. It's pretty hypocritical and is not the message that we should be portraying as feminists. If it were any female politician's head on some nameless woman's exposed torso, we'd be up in arms. We need to be consistent with the idea of what is sexist behavior if we expect to be taken seriously across the board.

I've come to the conclusion: not cool.

The use of a disembodied male torso is absolutely wrong since it plays into and perpetuates the persistent and pernicious over-sexualization of males in this culture.

Seriously, no matter how many pictures of naked man get displayed on this blog or anywhere else, it will not change the status of women as sex class and in no way levels the playing field. Good Grief.

"If it were any female politician's head on some nameless woman's exposed torso, we'd be up in arms. "

Actually, only speaking for myself here, but I'd kind of like it if someone created a sexy picture of Hillary Clinton.

Because, I think she's a sexy woman for her age.

Beautiful, smart, powerful.

And she always gets called a "man" primarily for exposing these last two characteristics, and maybe also because she's a little older than Palin and supports progressive policies and women's equality. I think plenty of people don't mind being found "sexy" so long as it's done with respect... (now, we can of course argue over exactly where that line lies)

*bangs gavel a la Cenk of the Young Turks, who is also hot*

I have a verdict: Joe Biden is totally hot. Barack is hotter, but both of those things are beside the point. I believe the point made in posting the offending and offensive image (rofl) was to point out that Palin kept talking about "Joe Six Pack" completely ignoring that Joe Biden is 1)named Joe, and 2) is a regular middle class American, regardless of his 30-odd years in the senate. And, so wah wah wah, kwicherbichin.

Even though it's a play on words, I think it's inappropriate and sends the wrong message to people outside of the feminist blogosphere. If we can't not objectify people's bodies, how can we expect others not to? I'm more than a little disappointed, I must say.

If you really wanted to go for the wordplay, you could have used a picture of of a six pack of beer. I think that's more folksy than having defined abs.

What if Biden's legs were a keyboard stand? And he was wearing old man socks that had those straps that connect above the knee?

A different body - or an identifiable one - could have easily solved the problems with this image.

Rachel_Setzer, I totally agree. The thing that makes it the most ironic/funny to me is that Palin is calling HERSELF "Joe Sixpack" without, apparently, realizing the two points you made about her opponent.

This image was not made to objectify either Biden or the guy with the abs, but to make a point about Palin's crazy ignorance of reality.

Lindsay: That's the point, that Palin is referring to a six pack of beer, which she sees as giving herself a corner on the "folksiness" vote.

Ann-

I doubt anyone missed the pun. Some obviously liked it better than others, which is fine. I don't read this blog for the belly laughs (sorry, had to). Also, anyone who watched/read about the debate understands that it is apropos of Palin's comments. I also thought is was a satirical take on the many images with Palin's disembodied head. Swiftian, indeed.

Regardless, I think we all understand that it was light-hearted, not meant to sexualize Joe Biden, and not intended to disrespect the decapitated guy in the image.

It seems like when, in your comment, you compared your image to those of Palin, you basically said "context matters". I won't go so far as to say you feel like it's ok for you to do it because "we all know I'm not a misandrist". I think, rather, that you feel your motivations were other than to de-humanize anyone.

I agree. I think that context does matter. However, I can't think of any posts on this sight regarding a female form used in any similar way that brought up that point. While it's often brought up in the comments section, it seems as though the point in the main posts is always "NOT OK".

I wonder if the creator of some little tchotchke of a female body who had, as you did, good intentions, and thought his/her creation to be the the height of artistic expression, found him/herself the unhappy recipient of dozens of angry emails from Feministing readers.

I realize that a blog post is not ideally suited to plumb the depths of nuance, but I think this is an important point for feminism.

In order for feminism to impact people's thoughts and behaviors (which I assume is the point), feminist ideas need to be taken seriously. That is, they need to be seen as well thought out, and rational.

For instance: when I'm having a conversation with someone, and they suddenly inform me that the US gov't was responsible for 9/11 in order to further the Illuminati's goal of a North American Union, the conversation has ended. They may still be talking, but I'm not listening. My brain is feverishly trying to figure out how to extract myself from the situation without making a scene.

Obviously that's an absurd example, and not meant to correlate exactly to feminist concerns about sexual objectification. My point though, is that without discussing context, or nuance, feminists run the risk of SEEMING hysterical. And often at that point, the conversation has ended.

My broader point is that either context does matter (in which case contributors here may want to be careful about exactly what you label as misogyny without know the context), or it really is never ok to depict a sexualized human form.

P.S. I imagine that most of the instances pointed out here are intended to objectify women, but then again, I'm not a mind reader.

sorry for the super-long post

A couple of points:

First, this isn't dismemberment. You could get technical and say that you had to take 2 images apart to put it together, but putting someone's head on someone else's body does not imply dismemberment; it created a complete whole, as opposed to say, the keyboard/legs image in the next post.

Second, I'd like to reiterate Ann's point that the reaction to the picture is never going to be "yeah, Joe Biden is so HAWT!" like it would be if this were Sarah Palin. He's not hot (sorry joe!). He's an old man. No one's pretending that's his actual body. The terrible, terrible 'shopping job (sorry Ann!) plays into that (and makes it funnier). There aren't throngs of people in the media constantly objectifying him for his looks. That matters.

No, the model didn't consent to have Joe Biden's head put on his body, but that's just the nature of image appropriation for the sake of... yes, I will call this art. I have no problem with that. If the model somehow recognized himself and complained about it, I would care, but it's a googled image, and right now, it's anonymous.

It is true that there is a fine line between appreciation and objectification, although I don't really think that this picture is either. SodiumSkies brings up the fine point that in the strictest sense, all visual appreciation is objectification, unless maybe you know the person who you are drooling over very well and are thinking about their fabulous personality at the same time? I make a lot of art that involves the nude female form, sometimes in a sexualized context, and I grapple frequently with whether I am crossing the objectification line or not. It get's tricky because I am trying to redefine how we think about female sexuality and find ways to give the subject agency, and the attractiveness of the model often plays into part of the point I am trying to make - that androgyny and "butch" women are hot (as opposed to the stereotypes), but that they are subjects, not objects. In the end, I usually conclude that because the sexual attractiveness of the image is a side-note to the deeper point of the image, then it's OK... even though I personally think my art is *totally* hot. Gah, I still feel conflicted about it... Anyway, this picture passes that test.

Wow, that was helpful. I've got to write an artist's statement this weekend. :)

I'm surprised people are taking the Joe Six-Pack image so seriously. To me it is obviously a parody of the woman's-face-on-hot-body images. The absurdity of pasting an old man's face on a hunky young man's body shows the equal absurdity of doing it with women-- an absurdity that often goes unnoticed. I assumed that the incompetent Photoshopping was intentional, to emphasize the artificiality of it. No one could possibly imagine that's really Joe Biden, whereas some of the Palin versions I've seen look quite realistic.

I haven't yet read all the comments, but I can't be the only one here who saw this as satire.

Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith WSG: Nothing is so conductive to toleration as the knowledge that one’s bread depends upon it.

I frankly don't see how this is sexist, either,and usually I read into things.

It's a play on words not meant to provoke feelings of sexism or body image. it's just parody and satire. I realize that people get the pun and still think it's sexist, but I don't see that connection, personally. Nobody is calling Joe Biden a DILF here or basing his abilities to lead on his appearance... nobody is dismissing him as just another hunk of meat, nobody is objectifying. Intent matters much in this case and really, people ought to back off. I'm sure all of us have said something that could be construed as sexist at one time or another, or a joke was misunderstood. let he who is without sin...

anyway, I don't know if someone has brought this to Ann or anyone here at Feministing's attention, but this post is now on Womanist-Musings being picked apart... just a heads up.

I'm actually disappointed - the image is an issue which I think should be discussed..

BUT I came to this post hoping to read others' views on the VP debate. You know, a look at how it'll affect the political landscape, who did a better job, etc. etc. Did anybody actually want to make a point about the VP debate? Because personally I'm a lot more worried about the outcome of this election than I am about the photo.

Come on people. This is a play on words; it is not intended to reduce Biden to a sex object. There is also not a large and historic culture in the US where men are constantly being objectified so that they can be dismissed, deprived of respect and have their other traits ignored. I think both those who would call this sexist and those who make the claim that there is nothing wrong with advertising that focuses on women as sexual fantasy beings for men and which makes breasts, legs, etc. the main focus are missing the big picture. I don't care if a man likes looking at breasts. I do have a problem when looks are used to demean or to dismiss the qualifications of a woman (and by the way, as most of us know, this can be done by calling a politician "hot" as well as not.) I do have a problem when the majority of images of women portray only the physical attributes of them and consistently and overwhelmingly represent them as fantasy objects for men. If this narrow portrayal of women was not the majority of how women are represented and if men were represented just as often in the same way and we were not living in a culture that does and has put a disproportionate stress on the appearance of women while devaluing them in other areas I would not have a problem with some of the images I have a problem with. You can't say "tit for tat" because you have to take into account the cultural context. Not to pick on men, but some of them, in particular, seem to have trouble understanding this and think that feminists have a problem with sexy women or appreciating the female form. We don't, we have a problem with a culture where this is one of the few and most pervasive ways that we are represented. I am beginning to open my eyes to some of my blind spots concerning racism because for me they are probably equivalent to the blind spots that some males have about sexism. When you haven't lived it it sometimes takes a little more work to see and understand it.

I think it's total crap that some people are saying "Oh, this picture is ok because WE'RE joking & being ironic." You would never accept that answer if a dude had used a similar image to joke about a female candidate. You would say "Yeah, right." or say it's a cop-out.

I admit that the mindset here was a light-hearted one, and I don't think anyone would argue that we all respect Joe Biden.

I just think that we, as feminists, are already so misunderstood by those on the outside, why add anymore ambiguity? Why do something else that'd we'd have to defend? But mostly, why hasn't Ann had anything else to say on the her image that caused such controversy?

Those are my thoughts exactly Danyell.

No one on feministing would let a male blogger get away with this if he did it to Hillary Clinton especially if he was a supporter.

"He's not hot (sorry joe!). He's an old man."

Artdyke - you're kidding me, right? Old=unsexy? Old =desexualized? Hows about this, "I don't find him hot" because guess what? You don't get to decide who's hot and who isn't for the whole world - only for your small portion thereof. Yeesh.

Maybe I'm just being incredibly dense, but I fail to see how this picture is sexist to any degree whatsoever. Ab muscles are not in and of themselves sexual anymore than say, a leg muscle. Would it have been sexist if they had instead photo-shopped a six pack of beer into his hand, or perhaps photo-shopped Sarah Palin's head onto a muscled female body with a muscle "six pack?" This is a clear play on Palin's extremely offensive characterization of every day people as beer-swilling idiots. I could see the sexist implications if the picture were created to make fun of his actual appearance or imply anything about his appearance at all, but it seems such a clear jab at Palin's silly vocabulary that I just don't see the sexism. I would also not see it as sexist if someone had, as I suggested above, posted a photo-shopped picture of Palin with six-pack abs.