Yep.
I don't understand lots of stuff, as it turns out. For example, if you're interested, give
this a listen. I don't get it.
Well, I've had a chance to listen to the story, and read the transcript. You're right . . . it's not something to be "gotten", in my opinion. It's something that is to be recognized and to a degree accepted . . . until it's just unacceptable, and that's something for which there is no bright line until someone in a relationship defines one.
One real benefit of the story, in my view, is the insight that Onnesha gained when she learned about The Hypnotizer. I think that men have generally been hard-wired to react to women's bodies in the same way that those observing The Hypnotizer did . . . and Onnesha's insight into that potential was a powerful element in her personal development and personal power. Sure, men are fully capable of treating women as sex objects, and on one level do so whenever they get the opportunity to do so
particularly when they sense that a woman is vulnerable. On that level, it's how men are made. And on the other hand, when operating on that same level women all too often are OK enough with trading on that vulnerability . . . "sure, fly me out to Big Sur."
The other real benefit to the story is Vivian's ultimate reaction: 99.9 percent sure that they'd get through this, while at the same time being concerned about whether any of their "exclusive" intimacies - music, for example - were shared outside of their relationship. Vivian saw her man the way she wanted to, in a way that was "coherent", that "made sense" . . . but in terms of what
she wanted and who
she wanted them to be, not for who and what he was
as he was. She was, in a perhaps more nuanced way, more than happy to objectify him in her own way. We'll see if she can make the shift . . . .
I've read supposedly serious psychology articles that said women give sex to get intimacy, and that men give intimacy to get sex. I've also read other supposedly serious psychology articles that women trade sex for access to men's assets, and men trade access to their assets for sex. In their own way each sex (and I use that term advisedly, instead of gender) objectifies the other in ways that benefit each of them . . . until it doesn't. I think the This American Life story you linked bears out these insights as accurate but in unsettling ways.
I've also read supposedly serious psychology articles that say if either a man or a woman knew what they were getting into - objectively - when entering into a romantic relationship then they'd each turn and run as fast and as far as they could in the other direction. Romance - the curves and "vulnerabilities" of a woman matched with the muscularity and "strength" of a man - is the way that evolution has constructed human beings to trick them into arrangements that assure the continuity of the species generally and their respective genetic legacies specifically.
One more thought: This past Tuesday we had an initial discussion in our theology reading group on Feminist Theology, and the opening comment came from a 70+ year old divinity school graduate who lived her adult life as a pastor's wife. She said that feminism and feminist theology has a great potential to benefit men because the ultimate result of women being complete human beings is freeing men from being the sole/primary provider for their wives and children in ways that will allow men to become complete human beings as well . . . and she said that this aspect of feminism and feminist theology has yet to be realized in any meaningful way.
So the This American Life story is one that nobody's going to "get" on a rational level, but it's all too familiar, perhaps to many, perhaps even most, folks including those who read this board. People settle for less because, well, it's the easiest thing to do*.
*paraphrasing Stephen Stills here