Oneaboveall writes:
I was just having this discussion a few days back.I belong to a few different political discussion boards and we were recently having a discussion on criminal penalties for men vis-a-vis women, especially where sex is concerned. I basically made a point that if I’m dealing with a 15 yr with enormous tits and/or a bubble ass, WHICH I WOULD NOT BE, that it’s really stretching things to say that I’m a sexual predator who’s attracted to children.
No kidding.
Answer to the question? You would not be a sexual predator who is attracted to children. In fact, in terms of philosophy, it is an open question whether that 15 year old female human is even a “girl” at all.
Check out Heidigger.
The names we call objects are completely arbitrary. There is an object over there, so I am going to give it a name. But the object is not the name. The name is just some “tag” that I put on the object that doesn’t necessarily have much meaning at all. It is the surface meaning of the object.
All objects have surface meanings and deep meanings. The deep meaning is the true meaning of what the object is. The surface meaning is the word that we stick on it to signify to us what that object is – but it could just as well be a number, series of numbers, color, shape or just about anything. The important thing is that the surface meaning of the object doesn’t necessarily have any real true meaning at all, and it doesn’t even tell us much about the true meaning of what that object is.
For instance, we look at a fully developed 15 year old female, and we put a “tag” on that object and call it “girl.” But that doesn’t necessarily define that object or even tell us much about it. In the above case, it is almost a case of giving a false meaning to something!
Now there are quite a few other societies where any 15 year old female human object would be labeled “woman,” because that is what 15 year old females are called in that society. Now, there is no way to prove which definition is correct. We cannot say for sure that our tag “girl” describes that object any better than their tag “woman.” Perhaps a 15 year old female is better defined labeled “woman” than “girl!” There is no way to prove that one tag describes the object any better than the other tag, and anyway, neither one really tries to describe the deep meaning of the object.
Now in the case of a fully developed 15 year old female with the full body of a woman, I would say that the tag “woman” is actually much more accurate than the tag “girl.”
What is the point of tagging that object “girl”?
Because she completed 15 years of life on Earth? What in God’s name does that have to do with anything and how does her 15 years on Earth tell us much of anything about her? The American would argue that she has spent 15 years on Earth, and therefore she is labeled “girl” because that is the label we give to females who have lived for 15 seasons. But what do you see when you look at that object? Do you look at her and think, “She looks like she spent 15 years on Earth, therefore I label her as ‘girl’?” Probably not.
Why not? Because we call female humans “girls” if they have a body that looks more like a girl’s body than a woman’s body. In other words, females either look like women or they look like girls. If a female looks like a woman, we tend to label her “woman,” whereas if she looks like a girl, we tend to label her as “girl.” This is actually a good way to describe female human objects – based on what they looks like. And it also starts to come close to the deep meaning of what that object actually is.
I would argue that looking at a 15 year old girl with the body of a woman and labeling that object “girl” is a very poor way to define that object. Yes, she has spent 15 years on Earth, but so what? What does that have to do with much anything? What does that tell us about this object? Not a whole lot. So tagging this 15 year old female “girl” is a label that gives a very poor surface meaning to her because it is not what she resembles. In fact, it is such a bad label that it is almost an anti-label. Not only is that 15 year old female not a girl, but she is the opposite of a girl – a woman. Or so she appears to be.
Now we could go completely against society and simply label that object “woman.” In doing so, we would say that we do not care how many years she has lived on this Earth because it appears she has lived long enough to be labeled “woman.” If she’s lived long enough to look like a woman, then there’s a good case that that is exactly what she is.
More importantly, we could look at her body and tag her “woman” based on her appearance because that is exactly what she looks like. She looks like a woman, not a girl. If you have the body of a woman, then we are going to tag you “woman” because that is a very good definition of what you are, a surface meaning that describes your deep meaning very well.
Now, any man who sees this female will instantly think “woman” because that is what she looks like. The fact that she is only 15 years old is irrelevant. It’s not only irrelevant, it’s actually misleading because that fact tries to tell us that that object is a “girl” and not a “woman.” But that’s not what she appears to be. So labeling her as “girl” is almost a false definition, sort of like false advertising.
I would call a fully developed 15 year old female “woman” because that label describes her much better than the label “girl,” which simply feels like a false label.
If it looks like a woman, label it “woman.” If it looks like a girl, label it “girl.” That is an excellent way to categorize female humans, and it goes a long way towards describing what they are.
