How do I stop sexualising and objectifying random women

I can completely understand this. This inner desire to check out every woman in sight. This insatiable craving to lust. Having a constant rubber neck. And always wanting more.

The only solution that worked for me was to not give myself permission to look in the first place. Perhaps others can look without it going to lust. But for me, it was simply easier for me not to look, then it was to look without lusting. If a random woman enters my view, bounce the eyes. Otherwise, I keep them in my peripheral vision.

I can see women better when I don't look at them; a whole lot better.

 

How to stop sexualising and objectifying random women ... Good question. My advice is check what you actually do, watch your thinking and where your eyes go, what you look at and what thoughts arise.
If you look at breast or follow the legs up where they meet ... then look her into the eyes or face, stay there if you feel the need to look. Doing so, see the human being, the fragility of her existence. She is just as fearful at times as we are, vulnerable, joyful, made bad experiences maybe, has a past, wishes, hopes, tears, dreams. - See her soul. Or look away.
Change what you do now and find out what happens. Experiment.

 

I have started to use a 3 second rule. This can be reduced to less if necessary. Ultimately it's a start towards not needing to gaze at all, but I've come to realise that it's after this amount of time that my mind starts to delve info fantasy or to really start fixating. Less than this can just be a cursory and less harmful glance.

But like you, I do need to work and wind in the rubber neck. At least to start, you can change the processing of the information and the sexually compulsive or lusting thoughts.

 

Yea, just don't look at them at all. And if a sexual thought comes into your mind, try to think of something else. If we don't think about sexual stuff, we won't have any lust. The problem is though, that deep down we know it will feel good to think about sexual stuff. But if we think about sexual stuff and are not having sex, this will end up in some suffering and feeling bad within ourselves. But if we don't think about sexual stuff and think about something else, we won't experience the suffering feeling like if we had ran with the sexual thoughts.

It kinda sucks because we can't think about sexual stuff and lust over women continuously, but its kinda good too because we don't have bad suffering feelings from the after-effect of thinking about sex and not actually having it in the present moment

 

I think it is normal to look and appreciate a beautiful and sexy woman. You just can't be compulsive and fantasize about her. To be honest, I think a woman's body is God's most perfect creation.

 

Protect your eyes. Not from women, from pornography.

 

This is not an excuse - we have to take responsibility and be better - but I just wanted to mention, that it's unfortunately and sadly deep in our history and society to objectify women. In the past women were literally seen as objects and even today we objectify women especially in advertisment even thought the product has nothing to do with sexuality nor the body - like an Electronic Catalog, TV Magazines, some Motorcycle Ads, ... also in Film and Games the design of e.g. Armor is often drastically different between men and women (full-plate armor vs. metal-bikini).
So, I think it's not entirely your fault that you have these thoughts and not even entirely the fault of porn because porn is often consumed only for a short time but as society still objectify women all the time and everywhere. Like I said, it's important that we work on ourselves and control our thoughts - and at the same time, we should also try to build a better world where women are not objectified and where it's not normal that women always need to be young, sexy, slim and are to find even on totally unrelated product because some marketing guy argumented "well, sex sells".

 

Realize theyre just...random women, that alone is enough to solve this issue: they could be horrible people, or terribly sick, or what else! why glorify a stranger? what admirable qualities may she have?
this seems a bit childish or at least, optimistic about humans in general. I tend to assume the worst so I rarely idolize someone I dont know

 

If you praise someone's beauty thats a form of idolization. if you absolutely despised them, you wouldnt grant upon them the boon of being beautiful.

 

I think it is possible to just recognize that a woman is beautiful or sexy, without knowing or caring that she is like as a person.

 

Practising the noting technique. When you see a woman you find attractive say to yourself, 'I've just seen an attractive woman' and then gently bring your focus back to what you were doing before you saw her.

Here's a video about noting in the context of mindful meditation.

 

That's sexualisation right there!

 

Really? I do not agree. Because, I can recognize a good-looking man without a hint of sexuality in my thoughts. People have perceptions and thoughts - it is how you act on them that is important.

 

I am dealing with this issue as well. I think that our society kind of trains us to look at women this way. Sexual images are everywhere. And of course it is used by the advertising industry because it works to sell other stuff.

I certainly have objectified women much of (or most of) my life. I also want to change this within myself, for my own benefit on my nofap journey and, for the improvement of my relationship with my spouse. I realize that objectifying women is actually disrespectful to my wife, to other women in general, and especially to the specific woman that I objectify at the moment. I have been trying to be mindful of it and to use mindful approaches to dealing with it:
When I see a beautiful woman that I am attracted to, and I notice my thoughts are of a sexual nature, I try to think to myself "yes, she is beautiful and I am attracted to her. And, that is natural. But, that is not who SHE is. She is much more than that."

Often, I can then just let the thought go, trying not to condemn myself for having the initial reaction. If I have a hard time letting go of my initial reaction then, I either try to distract myself with something else or, I go deeper in trying to think about what she may be like as a real person. What might she care about? What might her real life be like? Realizing, that she does not even know that I exist. If we lock eyes, then I just try to smile as an individual person, not as a male looking at a female with intent to seduce but, simply trying to acknowledge her as a person.

This approach may not be perfect and it might not work for you. It has worked for me to a degree. But, I am trying to improve my control of my thoughts using this consistently in my daily life and my interactions.

I had a friend who referred to beautiful, seductively-dressed women as "eye candy" (including, maybe especially, cheerleaders.) At first (before I was on my nofap journey) didn't even know the extent of what he meant. It has become more clear to me, It is like food with no nutritional value. It is just consumed for our own personal gratification and offers us no lasting value. And actually demeans us as objectifiers as well as those we are objectifying (since it negates/ignores their humanity.)

In all honesty, it is still very challenging for me. This past week we were on vacation at a resort in Arizona. There were lots of ogling opportunities when lounging by the pool. So, it was a real effort to use this approach but it mostly worked for me.

 

I find a way to regain your consciousness when the urge come: Usually when the 18+ thought crop up in your mind, your shoulder gets tightened and tension. Relax your shoulder, and let it down naturally. You will find yourself more connected to the reality.