I’m kind of a certified hot girl (if you disagree then eat shit idgaf). I spend a decent portion of my time looking into mirrors, body-checking, slathering on makeup, and wasting money on girly clothes. My preoccupation with my appearance and maintaining arbitrary beauty regimes – It’s ritual. Usually I just think, “haha me cute and pretty,” but occasionally a slither of introspection sneaks into my smooth brain and I go, “Damn, dafuq I do all this shit for?”

I realized, frankly, if I didn’t have to go outside and interact with the world, I would just let myself sink to sub 5 chud status. Redbull and vape would be enough for me <3. But then that begs several questions:

What is it, about needing to participate in the world, that makes me present myself a certain way? Why is that way feminine and conventionally attractive, specifically? Why have I physically and, in some ways mentally, reduced myself to that archetype?

Well in this blog post, my bimbo ass will attempt to dissect my self-objectification with the help of philosophy 😀 – courtesy of Jean-Paul Satre and his concept of “The Look.”

*puts on sexy bayonetta glasses so you know it’s about to get serious and intellectual*

“The Look” is a concept that philosopher Jean-Paul Satre details in his phenomological book Being and Nothingness. In his explanation of The Look, Satre effectively describes the existential panic and shame that plagues us, at the realization that we are being surveilled by others, and subsequently ourselves.

A commonly used analogy to illustrate the phenomenon of “The Look,” is to imagine yourself alone in a park ;

You, the subject, are able to observe several objects: a tree, a bench, some shrubs, a fountain, whatever the fuck else is at this park. Your experience as the observer, in this instance, feels omniscient. The universe is solidified; your perspective acting as the organizing center.

Now imagine you see another person at this park. The person is distinctly different from the aforementioned objects, in that they also have the ability to perceive the contents of this park. Suddenly, there is another center of the universe. This is fundamentally threatening.

Momentarily, you can suspend this discomfort, and still bask in the sureness of your own experience – until this other person turns, and looks at you. Bound by their gaze, you become an object.

Temporally, according to Satre, this is ontologically the most important step of The Look. Whereby this acknowledgement of being observed causes the world to be stolen away from you. Your sense of self collapses. Like the objects surrounding you, you become fixed and measurable. Satre posits that the resultingly self-conscious feeling is “Shame,” – and it influences how you conduct yourself whilst knowing you are being watched.

Moreover, on top of the limitation this external gaze enforces upon you, you are terrifyingly faced with an unmediated perception – because there’s no way of truly knowing what this other person thinks of you. When faced with this unknowable perspective, in attempt to reclaim control, your mind will speculate. You will put yourself in the shoes of the other person and attempt to understand how they see you. You internalize this paranoia, creating “a watcher” for yourself, and are effectively fractured into an observer and the observed – constantly oscillating between the two.

Now extrapolate this park analogy out to our experience of the world and the collective consciousness (aka. culture) we all possess, in which we act as subjects and objects. Being perceived by one person at a park was scary enough for me personally…

…..yea. Fuck that other person at the park, bum ass.

*takes off sexy bayonetta glasses, so you know it’s about to get silly again*

So back to me hehe.

When it comes to my own self-objectification, the elephant in the room is my proclivity towards presenting as traditionally feminine and conventionally attractive. I didn’t always adopt such lengths to appear this way, but as soon as I did, I was treated substantially better. Now, call me the wOkeR (wHy So qUeErious), but I’m pretty sure that’s me responding to misogyny and lookism lol.

I could go into awkwardly intimate detail about the personal experiences which led me to construct my identity …but I’m kind of shy guys >///<. Instead, I’ll draw it back to what Satre had to say, because it’s universally applicable (and much less vulnerable). In regard to The Look, what I believe is occurring is a feedback loop of how I am viewed, how I view others, how I choose to view myself, and therefore act in accordance. For myself, and for a vast portion of people, identity is often strongly intertwined with the concept of gender. Being classified as a “girl”, here are some key observations I have made about being a “girl”:

1. Women are societally viewed as inferior to men. (Anyone who disagrees, please consider all the societies which have been built upon the foundation of Abrahamic religions, which are all misogynistic)
2. Women are predominately valued for superficial and stupidly ephemeral characteristics – youth and beauty. Look no further than the constant objectification of women in media; and how these traits are pedestalled and deviation from them are punished.
3. Under a patriarchal society, the original observers of women are men. Holding most power historically, men acting as the subjects of women (objects) , have had the loudest disseminating voice from which women are expected to heed the instruction of.
4. Women are encouraged to self-surveil by men, by each other and have adopted it as a survival mechanism….To be a woman is to perform ❤ (but also to be anyone is to perform really)

If anyone reading this is butthurt by the feminism then kindly fuck off. This isn’t even radical feminist theory – it’s literally observable to anyone with eyes and ears. I make no claims about the prior statements being remotely profound.

In relation to myself and my soul-crushingly, pathetic desire to be seen as pretty, the observer which exists inside myself is misogynistic lmfao. For as much as I claim to be against the oppression of women, I continue to police my own body and actions through what is inherently a “male” lens. And I gotta say, the cognitive dissonance hurts a little :/.

But maybe you, the reader, are not a woman. Maybe you are a man or something considered “other,” by society (shoutout to my trans homies and enbys). Perhaps there is a more predominant facet of your identity (don’t even get me started on race). Realistically, you are categorized in a number of ways. Regardless on whether or not you relate to my experience, I implore you to consider the ways in which you have become enslaved by how you are perceived by the world, and how you in turn limit yourself.

Or don’t, lol.

There’s one thing I know to be true of myself, independent to how I’m perceived…

And that’s my pure, undying love of yuri.