Nudity and Competition

I am not done talking about this yet.

I want to write a little bit more about what it's like to be a woman in a culture where female nudity is ubiquitous. It isn't quite to the point in the United States were there is full frontal nudity on highway billboards like I have literally seen in Europe, but I think that's probably just a matter of time.

Honestly, some of the Victoria's Secret posters are far, faaaar more disturbing: body positioning, age of the model (some cannot be more than 10 years old!), and somehow wearing a little bit of clothing and taking it off is a far different message than just baring it all out in the breeze. But loads has been written and discussed about what does or does not qualify as porn. I'm more interested in explaining in a little more detail one of the ideas from my previous post about where nudity does and does not belong: the issue of personalization of media. 

When I watch a film, read a book, look at a piece of art or an advertisement, or whatever, I insert myself into the image. This process tends to be very subtle; there's the "fourth wall" that remains securely in place, except as an occasional joke for a moment in experimental pieces. But I'm still there. I am not an innocent bystander. The art doesn't "happen" to me, I consume it. I am a piece of it. I am involved.

When the message of the media is not in line with my deeply held beliefs, I feel annoyed, insulted, frustrated, and disgusted. I don't like it. It's not pleasant. These are all easy to understand. When the message of the media is "women are for sex" then I consider that the piece is a blatantly sexist objectification of women. But it's not just some anonymous idea of "women."

It's objectifying me.

Because I am involved in the piece, and not just a bystander, it's deeply, cruelly personally about me.

One might wonder if there's a space for nude art that is created by and viewed by only the same gender, but there are obvious issues here (cough cough not everyone's straight), not the least of which is that we live in a social world. I am as straight as you can get, and yet when I think of "sexy" I always think of women instead of men. Is this cultural conditioning, or something else? The fact is, I can't check either my sexuality or my societal biases at the door of the art gallery/movie theater/library/etc. and since I am a participant in the media I choose, even if ever so passive, the art is always going to have some kind of message about me.

You chose me because x.
Your reaction to me is x because of y personal experience.
Look at me, look at me, look at me! You'll remember me, and that imprinted memory will give me power over you!

No, the fact is that I believe that nudity for recreation, even if it could magically become asexual (which it can't), is wrong outside of marriage. I wish that I could say that I do a perfect job at following this simple and straightforward guideline, but I definitely don't. There's also all kinds of fuzzy degrees: is an allusion to sex in a book okay ever, for example? Anyway, I think that sometimes the line between "recreation" and "academic purposes" is the fuzziest spot for me; I can spend all this time happily living in meta-land (like now, writing this post), or studying things vaguely (or directly) connected to the sex lives of my ancestors (one of the most interesting things to me bar none), but I would probably do better to just move on. Dangit, but it's interesting.

And I'm not finished yet because this is important. I really want my male friends to get this, since apparently some of you haven't spent much time considering what female nudity all around is like from a female perspective.

There is a strange interplay between modesty and your feelings about your own body. The clothing one wears can give you a sense of power and control, especially over men, but also over women in a weird way. This interplay extends vicariously through the aforementioned personalization of media. Let me explain.

My guess is that when a straight man sees a beautiful woman who is wearing very little clothing in real life, his reaction would be something like this:

[feelings of arousal]
Wow, she's hot! 
Therefore either: look away!
                      or: look closer!

When I see a really beautiful woman who is wearing very little clothing in real life, this is the kind of thing that goes through my head:

[feelings of alert attention]
Wow, she's hot! Why?
Why is she wearing that? What is she trying to do? Who is she trying to impress? What is she saying?
Therefore: Is my _____ as _____ as hers? How do I look compared to her? What will [x person] think of her? Will [x] like her _____ more than my _____? How can I redirect the attention to me? I wish my ____ looked more like that. How can I get to look more like that? 

Men don't go through the emotional roller coaster of comparison and competition that women do when we are confronted with sexually provocative women. I am sure this is not just a US-culture phenomenon, either; it would actually make a lot of sense if it were a biological trait we evolved to have. At any rate, this kind of comparison is the lifeblood of negative body image, a rampant plague of western culture here and abroad that afflicts the vast majority of women in developed countries at some point in their lives. I am confident that women from many cultures experience this, though I'm not confident that most women would be able to articulate it or honestly and openly confront it. It's difficult to think about, so a lot of women pretend they don't notice. And, sigh, perhaps some really are that oblivious or blind to reality. #thinkiestthinkers #lonelytower

As I illustrated above, media is participatory and necessarily always includes some kind of message about me to me, even if it's subtle (and in advertising, it never is subtle!). It doesn't really matter if the sexually provocative woman is a real, live person or an image of one - the comparison and competition are still there. Only this time, I am literally comparing myself to an object and sometimes feeling inferior. That's nasty!

It is a lie to say "we show "asexual" nudity because it's sophisticated." If such a thing existed, and if it were true that "sophistication" were the ultimate goal, then there should not be such a drastically unequal female : male nudity ratio in media. The truth is that men buy hypersexualized female imagery because it turns them on, and women buy the same stuff because they have become a perverted kind of idol/role model/idealization of what we can/should/might be. You know, to turn on the men. Sick.

Of course this kind of blatant cultural dishonesty annoys me. But it's much more than just being annoyed. It's a deep, personal kind of offense which fills me with disgust and anger.

Now do you understand?