Recovery Nation

One of the key concepts that I am struggling to comprehend is scanning. I've heard and seen posts on here about scanning rituals. I've read them and tried to understand what they are and how they work. Some posts have mentioned something about objectifying women or others as part of scanning behavior, but I couldn't understand it. Is it objectification itself or is it just looking at women as an emotional response to a situation or trigger?

Also, I'm putting this out there because recently, I found myself looking at girls sometimes. Even at times, I'll look at them with a flurry of emotions like at church what I did when I saw this girl standing a seat ahead. I felt like I wanted to ask her out. I stopped myself thinking about getting to know a girl first before ever approaching them like that, but I was left unsure whether or not that was scanning next to looking at a girl's legs or behind. And also, whether or not I committed a slip because I truly couldn't tell when looking at women around me while walking if a slip ever occured.

Could someone please clarify for me what this scanning ritual thing is all about.

Objectification is looking at a person and thinking of them in a sexual way, imagining what they look like nude, checking out parts of their body, etc. They are not a "person" as a mother, sister, likes, dislikes, favorite song, etc. They are an object for you to lust over same as you might lust over a nice car, checking out the engine, etc. A woman/girl is not an object be a living, breathing person full of history/future/emotions/joys/pains/etc.

Scanning is looking at women, normally without their knowledge, with the goal of objectifying them. Normally it is quick glances in public. A ritual of scanning might be between college classes of English and Math, you walk down a certain path with sunglasses on that passes the field house every day to get a look a girls working out without them noticing you looking at them. Scanning and voyeurism are close cousins but voyeurism normally is when the person being objectified has a reasonable expectation of privacy and you have violated that privacy without them knowing it.

The example with the girls might not be scanning in that you are contemplating a possible interaction with her and you would not mind if she noticed you. But you could be objectifying her just as you could your own wife. Its all in your intentions.

Hope that helps.

This is one of the more difficult things to understand about scanning, because everyone does it to some extent. We all notice attractive people. We all look at others and certainly physical attraction begins somewhere and it is what often leads to interest and relationships.

Honeycat is correct. It's all in your intentions. What you have to ask yourself is why you are looking. Are you looking because you see an attractive woman or are you looking at an attractive woman because you want to use her as part of a fantasy and/or addictive ritual? If you simply notice an attractive person, then there really is no danger in looking because you identify her as a woman, and most likely you do not think of her as merely a means to complete a link in your addictive chain.

Some people here at RN have a real struggle with this issue, while others really don't, meaning their issues rest somewhere else. Not all sex/love addicts scan as part of their ritual, but it is often a source for dangerous fantasy because it is so easy to rationalize, seeing that we all look on at least one level.