30 Days of De-Objectification: Dear David

Dear David,

You did so much more than you ever expected you would. You truly did change the world. You gave me and other freaks like me the gift of knowing that being different was, actually, a good thing.

I loved your wild costumes when you channeled Ziggy Stardust. But I think I loved it even more when you started to feel secure enough to let David begin to emerge. I liked who I saw. He was a sweet and humble man, although in many ways he was far above and beyond everyone else.

Ziggy Stardust was a beautiful, otherworldly man-boy.

David Bowie was a wonderful, admirable man.

I do think you were something out of this world, something such as an angel, perhaps.

I am not saying you had no flaws. I know you saw your own flaws and tried to correct them. That is something that already makes you above and beyond many others.

So many of the songs you wrote brought comfort to me when I was an unpopular kid who just wanted to fit in somewhere. Why would I want to fit in with the jerks who rejected and ridiculed me, when I could fit in with Ziggy Stardust instead? I’d rather die than be like them. I truly mean that.

Then there was the song which you could have written just for me.

See these eyes so green

I can stare for a thousand years

Colder than the moon

 It's been so long

Feel my blood enraged

It's just the fear, of losing you

Don't you know my name

Well, you've been so long

And I've been putting out fire

With gasoline

See these eyes so red

Red like jungle burning bright

Those who feel me near

Pull the blinds and change their minds

It's been so long

Still this pulsing night

A plague I call a heartbeat

Just be still with me

But you wouldn't believe what I've been through

You've been so long, well, it's been so long

 And I've been putting out the fire with gasoline

Putting out the fire with gasoline

See these tears so blue

An ageless heart that can never mend

Tears can never dry

A judgement made can never bend

See these eyes so green

I can stare for a thousand years

Just be still with me

You wouldn't believe what I've been through

Well you've been so long, it's been so long

And I've been putting out fire with gasoline

Putting out fire with gasoline

Putting out fire I've been putting out fire

Well it's been so long, so long, so long

Yes it's been so long, so long, so long

I've been putting out fire

Been so long, so long, so long

Been so long, so long, so long

Been so long, so long, so long

I listened to this song so often that I think I wore out the grooves on the record.

I went through hell in my late teens. The hell continued into my early twenties. I had type 2 bipolar disorder, which would remain improperly diagnosed until I was in my late thirties. Nobody understood. Their advice was to “just stop acting/thinking/being like that.”

This song was about me.

No, I never thought that you wrote the song “about me” in a literal sense. But it was about me nonetheless.

You were my friend, David, even though I never got to meet you in the flesh in this lifetime.

I think maybe now you know what you mean to me. Maybe we are friends, even if I can’t see you. I do think you care, because you are a compassionate soul.

I love you, dear David, my friend and fellow freak.

Fondly,

Cie

Note:

Rather than writing an explanatory piece about why David Bowie deserves better than to be objectified by fawning fools who give not one single fuck for anything other than his sex appeal, I thought I would write about what he meant to me personally.

David Bowie is one of those rare souls who managed to convey a message of hope to the entire world. He was truly unique and very special. To see him as a mere “sex object” is an unconscionable insult. He deserves better by far.

The Cheese Grates It: I Just Can't Even With This Shit

Yep, this isn’t gross, disrespectful, or fetishizing at all.
Not like it totally ignores a person’s illness and suffering. Forget that. They looked sexy when they posed for a picture 50 years ago.
Yes, this shit actually is a problem. It isn’t cute or funny. It’s entitlement.
Let me break it down a little.

Here’s David Bowie. He was so very talented. He was kind and gentle. Yes, he was attractive. Shockingly, it is possible to find people attractive while still respecting them and not fetishizing them. This kind of becomes even more important when the person is no longer of this world.
David Bowie died of cancer early in 2016. But by all means, let’s fetishize and objectify him. Because that’s hawt.

Here’s a picture of a young David Cassidy with his brother, Shaun.
David Cassidy was very attractive.
He was also much more troubled than most people realized.
He developed dementia in his later years. This isn’t what killed him directly, although it eventually would have. He died from multiple organ failure. His last words to his daughter were “so much wasted time.”
That’s really fucking sad.
But, by all means, do continue to objectify him. Because your masturbation fantasy is far more important than showing respect for the dead, and it surely is not possible to find someone attractive without fetishizing them.

Malcolm Young wasn’t conventionally attractive, but there are certainly plenty of entitled individuals who see fit to fetishize him, even though his illness and decline were beyond tragic. For the past ten years, his brain was literally deteriorating, and, at the end, he didn’t even recognize the people who meant the most to him, such as his children and his siblings.
But, by all means, objectify the fuck out of him, because one time, nearly forty years ago, there was a picture of him that looked like this.

Don’t forget to fetishize his grieving brother too, even though he’s still alive. It isn’t like he’s a human being or anything. He’s there as fodder for your fantasy.

Since the grossness wouldn’t be complete if you weren’t fetishizing the entire family, here’s a picture of a youthful George Young back in the 1960′s. George died back in October. He was a really talented musician and producer. But who cares about that? He was sexy in his youth!

As an added bonus, you can fetishize Alex Young too. He died in 1998 from lung cancer. Suffering and death, that’s so hot. Particularly since it’s completely impossible to find people attractive without objectifying them.
The reason I find this sort of thinking atrocious is because it is rife with entitlement (my desires above everything else) while completely lacking empathy. It isn’t cute. It isn’t funny. It isn’t edgy. It’s perverse.
When I say “perverse,” I don’t mean sexually kinky. I mean it deviates from right thinking. By right thinking, I mean having an attitude of compassion towards others. Seeing others as objects to be ogled and utterly ignoring their struggles is sociopathic. It takes only your own desires into account. People become things. A world in which people are seen as things is an ugly world.
The Cheese Hath Grated It