Men, Please Stop Doing This, Everywhere

Why policing female sexuality needs to stop

“Let’s make something crystal clear: what you’re doing isn’t “modeling.” Victoria Secret models pose on a professional photo set to sell lingerie and associated products for a company. In short, they get paid for modeling. They don’t bare their pink parts dancing to Usher under a fluorescent bathroom light, sporting a pouty duckface with a Toy Story shower curtain as a backdrop. Models work. What the hell are you doing?” — Charles J. Orlando, Ladies, Please Stop Doing This On Instagram

To those slut-shaming men on the internet

(Trigger warning: victim-blaming, slut shaming, suicide) You might be kind. You might be well-meaning. You might love your sister or wife or daughter and want the best for them, and that’s great. Seriously, I get that. Your words may be genuinely motivated by caring for someone who identifies as female. But let’s get real for a minute or two, shall we?

Let’s not kid ourselves. You can police female sexuality and feel good about doing so. You can maintain a belief that you have the right to determine how women express themselves. Of course you can. You’re an heir to the patriarchy, man.

So call it whatever you want. Defend it however you want. That won’t change the fact that what you’re doing is real, and it’s harmful. It’s called slut shaming, and it needs to stop.

“Slut-shaming, as it’s called, is coarse, retrograde, the opposite of feminist. Calling a girl a slut warns her that there’s a line: she can be sexual, but not too sexual.” — Emily Bazelon, Sticks and Stones

Yes, you are part of the problem. It’s pretty simple. As Kat wrote on Choices Campus Blog, slut-shaming is: “publicly or privately insulting a woman because she expressed her sexuality in a way that does not conform with patriarchal expectations for women.”

If you’re disrespecting a woman for how she chooses to express her sexuality, you’re participating in slut-shaming. Sound like it’s pretty much everywhere? That’s because it is. Society has strict expectations for female sexuality, and they’re engrained in mass media like advertising, pop music, news coverage, and, yes, viral blog posts.

To quote Danica Johnson from Everyday Feminist Magazine: Is any of this fair? No. Is it valid? Hell no. Does it hurt women of all races, ages, and sexual orientations? Yes.

Yes, this is a problem. Yes, it is dangerous. Look around. Celebrities starve themselves. Young girls kill themselves. And men keep parading around thinking they’re somehow helping.

“To those who are accusing me of ‘slut-shaming’, I would humbly request that you re-read the article. It’s not slut-shaming to discuss the source of some womens’ self-esteem and self-worth, and ask women to think about why they are posting half-naked pictures of themselves before they post them.” — Charles J. Orlando’s original post

Re-read your own article, man. Take a moment to think of the patriarchal power you’re wielding, and reflect on whether it is constructive or denigrating.

And anyway, self-posted pictures on Instagram aren’t necessarily for the male gaze, and thus aren’t there for men’s commentary. You wrote that girls “can walk down the street and receive looks and compliments on [their] beauty” like it’s a good thing to get catcalled on the street. Are you so entitled that however a woman dresses or expresses herself is meant for you?

Fucking step back, man. This isn’t your space.

“This is why, when someone tells me that my clothes are ‘too tight’ and that ‘you don’t have to wear tight clothes to be sexy,’ I feel rage. I wonder if they know how hard I had to work just to feel like I was even allowed to wear those clothes, much less feel confident and beautiful in them. […] Tight clothes on fat bodies are inherently political, and I would even say more so when those tight clothes look damn good and are worn with pride.

“I don’t need everyone to like the clothes that I wear, but I am also attuned to the undercurrent of slut shaming that is so often levied against people who wear revealing clothes. I would ask those people who feel discomfort and/or disgust to think about what it is that’s behind those feelings.” — Tara Shuai, Slut shaming and the politics of tight clothes

Your opinion is even more dangerous because it’s cloaked in feigned respect, it’s convincingly made to sound like you’re being protective. You’re a true gentleman, yeah, as long as those girls cover their bodies in a way that suits you.

I get that you might be sharing your perspective out of love for the women in your life. I don’t mean to criticize that. But what you’re doing is perpetuating double-standard gender discrimination constructed by a patriarchal power system.

It needs to stop.

“Boys will treat girls with respect when we have one standard for both sexes — that is, when we have sexual equality.” — Leora Tanenbaum, Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation

To those young women on Instagram

You might be beautiful. You might be built. You might not be. But in today’s photoshopped, size 0, white-washed beauty requirements, maintaining an ounce of self-esteem is challenging, so you get full marks for having the audacity to love yourself.

Keep it up.