I was very distressed to see an extremely problematic new tumblr highlighted in the Daily Mail. It's called Hot Dudes Reading (gross). Here's the Daily Mail:
The only thing better than spotting a gorgeous guy on your long journey home is one engrossed in a novel.
But if there are no crush-worthy cuties on your line, now there's a place where you can swoon over all the gorgeous bookworms seen riding the subway: @hotdudesreading on Instagram.
Wow. Just wow. This is so problematic. So, so problematic. I thought we had decided that creep shots were a bad thing! Where are our crusaders for justice? The Huffington Post once celebrated efforts to "out" those who post creepshots to Reddit. Now, however, it's down with objectification. I'm old enough to remember when Jezebel thought "creepy dudes photographing women on the beach is [the] worst trend ever." The site's silence on this new disturbing trend is troubling.
The objectification of men—the reduction of living, breathing people to no more than their looks and their literary tastes—hurts us all. Think of the young boys who will see these posts and go into shame-spirals, concerned that their physical appearance does not meet society's exacting standards. These poor souls may give up reading altogether. "Why even bother with this David Foster Wallace novel, no one will think I'm hot enough to secretly put on Instagram," I can just imagine these poor kids with low self-esteem thinking. "I guess I'll just join a gang and do some drugs."
Look, I'm no prude. But by succumbing to society's norms—by hewing to a traditional, western, heteronormative definition of "attractiveness"—we are buying into outdated patriarchal abstractions. It's time to rise up against this oppression and reject Hot Dudes Reading. For the good of us all.