Chilobae: Flattering attention or gross objectification?

I met a distractingly, ridiculously handsome man a few years back. He had a beautiful face. I’m curious about people so I talked to him about his apparent beauty. In retrospect, it was an honest, eye-opening conversation. But at the time, I just thought he was being a narcissist.

Here’s what he said:

“Women don’t see me. They’re are always falling over themselves to have a taste of me. To them, I’m just something to sample, something to try, a piece of meat… how good is he in bed? How does it feel to have him on my arm? Seen with him? Put his name down on my naughty girl book? Sadly, that’s the curse of many good-looking men.”

I replayed the conversation in my head when the Chilobae craze heated up last week.

At some point, he was the most searched person online. Is he married? Where does he live? Does he have children? Those were some of the questions that women had for Google.

In a matter of days, it did not matter that Chilobae was the IEBC chief executive. We reduced him to a sexual object with a meme to boot.

‘FISILETS’

The sexual objectification of men is a real problem among us women. Groups like Kilimani Mums thrive because of this. Men like Will Smith, David Beckham and Brad Pitt make billions out of this through ‘hunkvertising’. Unlike the objectification of women, the objectification of men is cute and profitable, not fearful and ugly. This makes it acceptable for most of us and we are endearingly nicknamed ‘fisilets’ unlike the dreaded ‘Team Mafisi’.

As you fantasise about this tall, dark and handsome man and make flirty posts about his sexual appeal, have you asked yourself whether you’re part of the problem? How would you feel if the same was done to you?

MACHO AFRICAN MAN

Most likely, as a macho African man, he wouldn’t comment on it, and his friends will likely thump him on the shoulders for being the man. But the sexual objectification of men is real and women are at the heart of it. What does this say about us as empowered women, feminists if we hold such double standards in how we treat men?

So as you Ooh! Aah! over Chiloba you have turned a brilliant professional into nothing but a poster boy for the IEBC, and sadly if the same had been done to a woman, you would be surprised how fast the tables would be turned.

In an interview with Marie Claire magazine, Kit Harrington, from Game of Thrones complained about it .It’s not a given that men are okay with being objectified to just a hot piece of ass. Luckily for men, there exists no real power imbalance to affect how society looks at them once they are objectified, unlike women whose worth can be defined exclusively by their appearance. Nobody is blind to beauty but don’t objectify men. It’s not cool and such double standards don’t do much in our fight for equality.

This objectification leads to our not being seen as living, breathing human beings but as things, as pieces of property, as something that someone else can take ownership of, claim as theirs and define. After all, there are women out there who “use” men for sex with little regard to their feelings, personalities, or desires, just as men do to women.

As long as this is acceptable, women will continue expressing their lust and deny this objectification by veiling it in cutesy memes and deny plausibility when called out or shamed as just good old fun or humour.

The reality in reducing anyone to the sum total of his or her physical attributes for our sexual gratification, just as it has been done to women historically, is undignified.

This is pure sexism.

That doesn’t make us any better than men who objectify women.

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