With his bedimpled smile and gym-toned physique, Catholic priest Ferdi Santos has been the talk of the internet for days, inspiring some to read the Bible while leaving others thirsty for a man of the cloth and violating one of the Ten Commandments against adultery.
Santos addressed his accidental fame, calling on his fans to focus on the person's character instead of their looks. However, the sexual comments keep coming, some asking for a whipping from the priest. Even the apologetic ones can't help but fawn over him -- "Forgive me daddy, for I have sinned".
While men are more often accused of sexual offenses than women, Santos' case shows that men too can be victims, gender and society professor Janice Zamora-Morales told reportr.
"There is always harm in objectifying other people. Objectification and sexual harassment will always be unacceptable regardless who the victims or the perpetrators are," she said.
"Objectifying men because they were the perpetrators before does not address this gender issue but even aggravates it. It is wrong to interpret such behavior as a form of equity. We cannot achieve equality by depriving men of the same dignity that all genders should have; that is not how we can eradicate gender inequality," she said.
The bottomline is, harassment is wrong, regardless of gender, Morales said.
Father got the internet thirsty by accident
It was a fellow priest, Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, who introduced Santos to the internet by posting one of their old photos. Netizens asked: how could a man of the cloth be that good looking, have a PhD and be a licensed fitness instructor at the same time?
Santos said the viral photo was taken 17 years ago: "I may not look like I'm 50 but does it really matter?" It didn't stop the internet from desiring the priest, succumbing to temptation.
"Sexual innuendos are form of harassment. When you reduce a person to a thing, when you do name calling, probably it is no longer an admiration," said Morales.
Jokes aside, Morales said a line must be drawn between admiration and harassment. When the subject of the remark was offended or violated, and when the remarks elicit disgust from the public, it qualifies as harassment, Morales said.
Men who feel harassed normally don't talk about it in public to maintain the macho image that society expects of them. Morales said this doesn't help.
"Though there is a long history to account for women’s oppression, the objectification and harassment of men can be a threat for them as well," she said.
Both men and women can be victims
One meme placed Santos' viral photo with a collage of slogans against sexualizing women. One comment read, "Gender superiority ang gusto nila, hindi equality,".
Some netizens said women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community think they can get away with inappropriate comments on men, while demanding the opposite from men. This pits the so-called male and female gaze against each other.
A male gaze happens when heterosexual men attempt to control how women see and express themselves. Usually, it connotes hypersexualization of women in terms of clothes (skimpy) or figure (usually sexy or curvy).
Case in point: Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman. Male gaze was when Zack Snyder's Justice League put multiple cleavage and butt shots of Wonder Woman that are completely irrelevant to the scene. "What’s cleavage got do with fighting an ancient creature?" this review reads.
Compare it to Patty Jenkins' take on the superheroine from Themyscira. While Gadot was wearing the same outfit, Jenkins' live-action film of Wonder Woman did not focus on buns and boobs. It simply wasn't relevant to the plot. That's "female gaze", an attempt to humanize, not objectify, women's roles.
"Yes, she is sort of naked a lot of the time, but this isn’t objectification so much as a cultural reset: having thighs, actual thighs you can kick things with, not thighs that look like arms, is a feminist act," The Guardian columnist Zoe Williams said.
Are the two perspectives exact opposites? Not exactly. "Female gaze" doesn't mean women get to objectify men in reverse. Some argue that there is no direct female equivalent of the "male gaze"; it only attempts to challenge the dominance of traditional masculine worldviews.
"It is still a question if the ‘female gaze’ ’framed’ all aspects of men’s live the same as the effect of the male gaze to women," Morales said.
With a growing flock online, Santos is preaching the word of God to a new audience.
"We forget that while appearances are important, they're not the most important. What lies inside a person in fact is far more valuable. What's inside a person's heart is far more important that what a person's face looks like," Santos said.
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