Photo by Flickr user synaethesia. Used under a Creative Commons license.

The sentence “I want your body.”

Compare it to either “my body wants your body” or “I want you.”

The first is a expression of desire from an autonomous entity — an “I” — for so many kilos or cubic feet of skin, muscle, and bone — a body. The second two are personal in the sense that they communicate level to level.

This popped into my head while I was waiting in line for coffee and thinking about ways to more briefly state concerns I raised about “bodying” people in Prostitution and Shared Objectification and institutional (but pretty clearly not actual) resistance to the idea that men can also be objects of desire for women in Uncovering Covers.

Anyway, I’m not necessarily saying objectification by itself is wrong or bad. Though it could explain why it’s not always well received.