Embracing objectification can itself be a form of agency and power

Evidence

Instead of asserting an illusory “authentic subjectivity” which supposedly lies beneath the costumes and the cosmetics, Siouxsie and Grace Jones revelled in becoming objects of the gaze. Both would no doubt have appreciated the derision Baudrillard poured upon the strategy of unmasking appearances in Seduction: “There is no God behind the images and the very nothingness they conceal must remain a secret.” Siouxsie and Jones’ embracing of their objectality testifies to the fact that there is a scopic drive that cult studs whining about “being reduced to an object” has always ignored: the exhibitionist drive to be seen. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1039

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the earlier article on immodesty panics — dress and self-display as identity assertion rather than victimhood. — connects to: Self-aware rebellion against spectacle is itself absorbed and commodified — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 24; Deliberate self-objectification answers accusations of being reduced to an object — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1039; Only free choice can resolve an indeterminate chain of mutual objectification (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Inverts the standard feminist critique of objectification by foregrounding the exhibitionist drive, a genuinely counterintuitive reframing worth sitting with.

Broader Connections

• Deliberate self-objectification answers accusations of being reduced to an object #corroborates (0.95) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1039
• Only free choice can resolve an indeterminate chain of mutual objectification #qualifies (0.72)
• Feminine presentation is coerced self-objectification in disguise #contradicts (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 900