Objectification, pornographie et l'histoire du vibromasseur. Traiter les choses comme des personnes et les personnes comme des choses

This paper discusses recent feminist arguments that there may be an interesting link between treating things as people (especially in the case of pornography) and treating people (especially women) as things. That is, these arguments assert a connection between objectification (treatment of people as things) and what I call « personification » (treatment of things as people). According to these arguments, the connection is one that gives us reason to worry about the use of pornography. I argue, in part drawing on the recently discovered history of the vibrator, that the connection is more complicated than these arguments have supposed: in my view, one cannot treat things as people unless one already treats people as mere means - and this is often taken to be a central form of objectification. Nonetheless, I argue, this sort of connection is not one that should lead us to worry about the use of pornography, or about the use of things as people more generally.