A body that reeks of fertile, young woman
I’m on a beach, reading my book. Metres away, two girls (women?) are taking photos of each other, draping themselves over rocks with the water behind them and angling their bodies to achieve optimal desirability. They’re never happy. Each photoshoot is followed by another one, further attempts. They do this (and nothing else) for five hours.
A part of me is in awe of their seemingly nonjudgemental friendship. I could never conduct such an activity with another person without judging or feeling judged. (Perhaps, then, I am the repressed one?) The other part of me is frustrated on behalf of womankind, as I always am whenever women (myself included) do things I deem to be unhelpful to the feminist cause. They are bringing down my gender, I think. What is the point of all this feminism if women are still behaving like this, using all their energy and time on appearing exactly as they think men want them to? (I could get into choice feminism here, but I’m going to save that for a future newsletter.)
Not that I blame them. Influencers are today’s role models and these girls/women are merely doing their best to become the version of success that fills their screens as they scroll. And how is that any different to what I’m doing, hiding behind my feminist book several metres away, trying to become a feminist writer? Even if it is, I can’t exactly claim to be above them. My phone is also full of photos of me trying to look sexy, sucking in my stomach post-workout, holding my shoulders back and pushing my bum out.
Sometimes I feel the urge to share those photos. I know people will like them. Sexy, female bodies are famously well-liked. But I also know people will think I’m not very clever and will reduce me to a body and nothing more, which is exactly what I do when I take the photos—there is no expression on my face, except one very intent on getting the perfect photo of my body, and often, my face isn’t even in the photo. I don’t think I’m very clever for taking these photos, for wanting to share them and for having that urge to objectify myself. Because self-objectification and cleverness are mutually exclusive, or so we’re told.
Some women manage to be both, publicly, and this is one of the many forms of contemporary feminism that both fascinates me and confuses me. Amalie Have is a good example: she posts a stream of sexy photos, together with captions about hip to waist ratios that the patriarchy approve of. She gives us what we want (sexy images of her) and then uses that very same platform to remind us that she’s also a thinking being, and that it’s her choice whether her nudity is sexualised or not. She, and all other people, should be allowed to share their bodies and express their sexuality online and offline, if they want to. But it does sadden me that the majority of that expression (including my own and that of the two girls on the beach) looks exactly like the kind of male gaze sexuality we’re spoon-fed by pornography, advertising, Netflix, etc.
My persuasion can build a nation
Endless power, with our love we can devour
You'll do anything for me— Beyoncé, Run the World (Girls)
Sometimes I wonder if female self-objectification is a power move, in a society that still glorifies the sexy woman above all other kinds of woman. As a sexual object, a woman can exercise power over a man (at least, if he’s into women)—power that she doesn’t usually have if she tries to pull rank or intimidate a man with her physical strength. Many of my own fantasies involve rendering powerful men powerless, which I usually achieve by being sexy and naked.
self-objectification
Self-objectification is when people view themselves as objects for use instead of as human beings. Self-objectification is a result of objectification, and is commonly discussed in the topic of sex and gender. Both men and women struggle with self-objectification, but it is most commonly seen among women. According to Calogero [author], self-objectification explains the psychological process by which women internalise people’s objectification of their bodies, resulting in them constantly criticising their own bodies. (Wikipedia)
Every time I look in a mirror, I look at my stomach (not flat enough), I look at the spots on my skin, my low-hanging boobs and anything else that might destroy the illusion that I am a desirable young woman. I don’t look into my eyes, I don’t look at the whole picture and see a fascinating human being with a brain and a heart and genitals and a lot of opinions, or even any aesthetic beauty. I only see faults and I have only ever seen faults, since I started looking in mirrors.
On the rare occasion I look in a mirror and don’t immediately zoom in to criticise tiny parts of myself, it usually has something to do with a particular peak of male interest in my life at the time. When man loves me, I can love myself, apparently.
A month later, I’m lying on another beach—a nudist beach in Denmark. I swim and then lie in the sun to dry off. I sit up and apply suncream and a man starts talking to me. He has placed his towel a few metres away from mine and is lying on his side looking at me and telling me how lovely the water is. He asks me if I come here often and where do I live and what do I do. I answer, politely, and turn my head away after each answer, not engaging. Then he hits on me. He tells me I’m “unbelievably beautiful” and I panic. Forgetting my Danish, I manage to stutter back in English, “I don’t appreciate that kind of comment on a nudist beach”. He asks why not. And I say that I just want to be able to lie here in peace. He says he respects that. I thank him. He stops trying to talk to me.
I text my boyfriend. I call my boyfriend. My boyfriend asks questions I can say yes or no to. About how pumped the man is, how old, how close he is lying to me, if there are any other people around. I answer, not doing a very good job at hiding what we are talking about. My boyfriend gets angry, at the man, not me, but the man can’t hear him. I wish he was here, here to protect me with his claim on my body so this other man wouldn’t have tried to claim it in the first place.
All he did was start a conversation with me and tell me I was beautiful. But that wasn’t really what he said. What he said was You are a body I want to have sex with, and now I’m trying to get that sex. My being there, being nude, swimming in the sea, applying suncream—my existing—was what he took for permission, perhaps even interest. It makes me wish I wasn’t a body. A body that reeks of fertile, young woman. Even though I work hard to be a body. I exercise, eat not-too-much, take care of myself, more or less. What for? If not for men, then who?
The answer is not for myself. Even if being a fertile, young body makes me happy, most of that happiness is derived from feeling as if my appearance is acceptable in society, and feeling that it might be possible for another person to desire me. Fertile, young body = desirable. That’s what we’re told, everywhere.
And it’s fairly deeply embedded (biological, some would argue). Although I resist self-objectification intellectually, it still turns me on. Sometimes I do want to be that piece of flesh, that basic body, to use and be used. But only when I choose it and when I choose who to be it with (if anyone), which probably explains why it feels so invasive when a stranger objectifies me without my permission.
We’re all dead
We’re all dead, women are emancipated and, after generations of gradual shifts in the direction of some form of equality, the first generation of people grow up who aren’t instantly brainwashed by binary ideas about gender and presumed heterosexuality.
What if we make the same choices? (Choices that haven’t really been choices before, but results of societal pressure.) What if women still want to objectify themselves constantly? To wear make-up and heels and figure-hugging clothes? To get pregnant and give birth and raise children and keep house? Presumably though, in this new age of equality, they are paid very high salaries for such important work. Would men (“people without wombs” as we’ll call them) be protesting in the streets and on the internet, fighting for their rights to bear children? Would sex become an unappealing act for men, knowing they were only feeding the ruling matriarchy?
Optional toppings
🎥 Be a Lady They Said, a short film based on a poem by Camille Rainville, narrated by Cynthia Nixon
🍯 Demi Rose almost spills out of barely-there bikini as she flashes pert derriere and assets, a piece of news
👄 What happened to my head?, a series of things men have written to me, about me, tattooed onto my body
🧶 Dear Joan & Jericha is a fictional satire podcast by two masculinist agony aunts, it’s dark and utterly hilarious
🌊 @celestebarber on Instagram
And what’s my point? Does this newsletter have a point? Maybe not. Just some food (vanilla ice cream, naturally) for thought.
— H. E.