Right... so I just thought of the first likely objection and figured I'd answer it before it gets made:

Interlocutor:  It's fine that humans are sexual creatures and yes, we do naturally look at each other as sex objects, but what goes on in the media today is too much.  It's unhealthy and over the top.  There's natural, and then there's way off the charts, and we're way off the charts.

Me: Look, this little diatribe wasn't meant to say that every single sexual advertisement is in good taste.  I agree that there are some places where the sexual advertisement is just ridiculous in either volume or intensity.  I, for one, could do with a few less "Girls Gone Wild In Some Tropical Paradise or Another" ads while I'm trying to watch some quality late night TV.

The point I'm trying to make is that there's nothing inherently wrong with sexual advertising, not that sexual advertising left unregulated couldn't take over otherwise wholesome prime time television.  Is some advertising over the top?  By my tastes, yes.  However, they wouldn't be out there if somebody didn't like them.  Advertisers don't just throw their money away.  If taste is all it comes down to, I don't think I have the right to say someone can't advertise.  As humans have proven over and over, if there's enough demand for a product, someone will make it.  This includes sex-less advertising and Family Television Networks and Smut Free bookstores.

You've got to separate your own taste from "inherently bad."  Humans are very good at getting caught up in the notion that they have the best taste of anyone and that their taste somehow correlates to objectivity, and it just isn't so.

No.  The argument is more like this:

Definition:

Dehumanize - to treat someone as less than a peer or equal by ignoring parts of their "humanity."

As a normal part of human interaction, we must necessarily treat some people as "more human" than others.   This is well known in psychology.  The doorguy at the hotel, the passengers on the bus, etc -- these are what psychologists call "non-people."  It's not that we think they have negative value, but rather that we simply don't consciously deal with their value beyond what they represent to us in a societal concept.  Sure, most people recognize that a waiter is a human with feelings, and a girlfriend, and whatnot.  It's just that they are playing a role in society that doesn't involve any of that, and so we don't deal with them on that level.

This is not a matter of "should" or "ought."  It's an intrinsic and necessary part of being human.  You have to get past the idea that "dehumanize" is a bad word.  It's not.

Someone's reading their own bias into the text.  I didn't say treating a waiter like dirt was an example of dehumanizing.  I said not wanting the waiter to talk unnecessarily was an example of dehumanizing.  The waiter is playing a role, and that role (in many restaurants) does not involve making friends.  It involves making the dining experience as good as possible for the customer while being as invisible as possible.

Treating a waiter like dirt isn't dehumanizing them, even though we use that word a lot.  It's being rude.  There's a subtle difference.  You can dehumanize someone while being completely polite, as a matter of fact.  The cashier in the store, for instance.  When they ask you how you're doing as you're digging for your wallet, you usually answer with a polite but perfunctory, "Fine, thanks."   Usually, you don't look up from what you're doing, but continue looking for your loose change or credit card.  When you leave, you might say thanks, or you might not, but in any case, you're not saying any of it to try to make friends.  You're just being polite.  Odds are, ten minutes after you leave, you couldn't answer even simple questions about what the cashier looked like or said, or any of the subtle clues you would notice in a person you were having a more "human" conversation with.

The point is, "dehumanization" isn't a good word because it's very human to treat humans differently depending on their roles.

And you, my friend, are the one making the equivocation.  Do you see the bias?  With the exception of road rage, nothing I talked about in this article necessarily involves "inhumane" treatment of other humans.  (Even road rage is usually just about rudeness.)  You just projected bad treatment because it's what you wanted to read into it.  Read the article again and try to forget your bias.

Thanks.  I think if you take a step back and re-read the piece, you'll see that you've fallen prey to the very same misconceptions I was trying to illuminate.  I'm going to get some distance and re-read it to see if I've inadvertantly made something sound negative when I didn't want to.

 Like I said, I don't like the word "dehumanize."  Everything humans do to other humans is part of the spectrum of human interaction.  It's sort of like "unnatural."  Everything's natural dude!  Still, I think dehumanize has its uses, which I will get to in a minute.

Let me see if I can clarify a little more:

* Humans interact with other humans on several levels.  The least "involved" of these levels is a non-person, where they are simply a function, not a person with whom we interact.  Then we have various levels of social interactions, then various levels of personal interaction.  At each level, we "recognize" more and more social and personal qualities.  In reality, most people realize intellectually that everybody is a human.  Still, they interact on appropriate levels.

The idea of taking away "humanity" is often equivocated in the public mind.  I wish there was a common colloquial way of saying "interacting with someone on a distant social level" that didn't involve their humanity.  IMHO, talk of taking away humanity ought to be reserved for drastic, intentionally harmful actions designed specifically to psychologically or physically damage someone.  Putting a human in isolation for a year is dehumanizing because social interaction is intrinsic to humanity -- at ALL levels.   Recognizing someone's value as a friend is not intrinsic to all levels of humanity.  It's reserved for people that have made it to a rather high level of interaction.  Do you see the difference?

Ok, bact to advertising:

When someone puts their photo on an ad, they are performing a distant social function.  They are trying to help someone sell a good or service to someone else.  Selling and buying are distant social functions.  We need only the most basic of human interaction to accomplish the act.  This is why we don't bother to even learn the names of most people from whom we buy things.  (You can also see how a higher social level of interaction can develop if we repeatedly buy something from the same person -- a bartender, for instance.)

So, the broad point is that not only is it not wrong for us to see models as objects, it's part of how the whole thing works.  We don't want to know about Giselle Bunchen's collection of exotic skin cremes.  We want to see how that teddy looks on a hot body.  The function of selling is to get people stoked about a product... not the model.

Here's a paraphrase of something I tell my servers all the time:  "Listen, the service industry is about service.  You are here to make someone else as happy as possible.  Your own feelings about that person are irrelevant because they're not here for your benefit.  They're here for a great dinner.  If you have personal problems with serving other people no matter how you're feeling at the time, the service industry is not for you."

If you've never worked in the service industry, you have no idea how true that is.  People who don't understand that simple truth always wash out.  You have to be comfortable enough in your own skin to realize that the world won't collapse if someone else doesn't pay any attention to you and isn't interested in you as a human being.  You're performing a distant social service for them, and they are under no social obligation to do anything other than be polite and fulfil their social obligation by leaving a tip.

Ads are distant social services, too.  We are under no obligation to look at models as anything other than objects.  This doesn't mean we objectify all women.  It means we are looking at this particular woman within the social framework she occupies.

As a final example, I've known lots of girls who were or are strippers.  I go to strip clubs occasionally, and when you're there, you're not there to get a girlfriend.  You're there to see nameless tits.  You just want to get your jollies by looking at women, and the women don't want to get to know you either.  They just want you to pay them for the service they're rendering.  Is it dehumanizing?  No.  Is it putting women out there in a very distant social setting that crosses boundaries with a very close personal setting?  Yes.  Can this cause problems?  Yes.  Here's the most important part... if you see a stripper outside of the strip club and talk to her, does she suddenly become more of a person?  Yes, she does.  

Is some of this making sense?

Okay, yes; I see precisely where you're drawing the line now.

Thank-you for the clarification.

Well, speaking strictly from personal experience, I've worked in retail (and, of course, am a retail shopper) and have found that:

A) I've had better sales volume building relationships with customers rather than keeping them at a distance; handing them my cellphone number, getting to know them at a deeper-than-superficial level, etc. Of course, yes, these aren't what I would call 'real' friendships, but certainly I've usually felt I was dealing with John, Mary, Kathleen, etc, rather than just a face.

B) I only go shopping/eating anymore (when I have the luxury of choice) places where I've gotten to know, on some level, the people that are serving me. I consider it assurance that I'll get decent service (and if not, I can feel more comfortable broaching the subject without risk of confrontation). I don't buy the contemporary Wal-Mart servicing philosophy, if you will (yes, Wal-Mart is obviously successful; however, the way current Wal-Mart stores are run is not the way Sam Walton originally built his business. Well, according to his book, anyway).

I realize that projecting my own experience onto the subject matter is unhelpful in creating a realistic model for what people will do - I'm just explaining where I'm coming from. And, of course, I can hardly argue that I treat *everybody* like they're more than a face; I've just found it more fulfilling, personally, from a variety of standpoints in the situations where I've treated them as a bit more than that.

...This is why I (personally, again) don't like going to strip-clubs. I don't find it enjoyable because, generally, I don't feel like I gain anything from it; whenever I go out for the evening, I have some level of expectation that I'll be able to chit-chat with the servicer and perhaps meet someone new at the business I've gone to (I understand that you can always talk to the stripper after the show - well, sometimes - but I honestly prefer a conversation to be enmeshed into the entertainment of the evening).

Of course, I try not to make the mistake of then projecting my own preferences onto the legislative process or, worse, onto absolute moral systems.

But anyway, yes, what you're saying makes sense. The hang-up was in the matter you clarified at the beginning of this post.