Female nudity and sexual exploitation

In this article I'm aiming to vent out some recent frustrations and address, head on, an issue I've touched upon in past posts concerning women's rights, gender roles and body politics. The subject seems to have either surfaced or resurfaced in the media recently in regards to the phenomena of cyber blackmail. The discussion has seemed to focus on the risks of sexual exploitation via the internet, but there is a much deeper and scarily socially integrated belief system that needs to be addressed in order to tackle occurrences and 'trends' such as this one.

The nature of this form of blackmail is itself based upon preconceived and accepted ideas of female sexuality and the female body. Perhaps stemming from, or at the very least intensified by religious ideologies and practices, female sexuality has, both in the past and the present, been either denied or demonised. Indeed, sex itself, one of the most biologically necessary and most natural activities has long been a subject morally scrutinised and, often, a condemned or vilified act. Desire and sexual pleasure have often been classed as sins not only against god but also against our social codes of conduct. This judgement intensifies dramatically when focussed upon the female proportion of our population.

The sexualization of the female body has a lot to answer to in regards to this form of blackmail. In many 'modern', 'democratic' and 'western' societies, there is substantial criticism of certain forms of religious dress (eg. The burqa, niqab, hijab etc). They can be seen as tools that enable gender inequality to continue and promote the marginalisation of women in general. However, in the same way followers of Islam may seek modesty through covering their hair (considered part of one's 'awra' (nakedness) in Islam), women in these societies are inclined via social stigma and the law to cover up parts of their bodies considered in a 'free' society to be indecent, sexual and immodest.

The main body parts I want to discuss are naturally breasts. This is mainly due to the fact that in this society there is at least equality if not freedom as regards to female and male reproductive organs being on show in public. Most of the time this is considered indecent exposure, be the person male or female. The disparity is more prominent in regards to naked torsos. Whereas a male can walk around topless, a woman cannot. When I say cannot, I refer not only to the stigma this would bring, but also to the law. Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 it is not an offence to be naked in public in England and Wales, however, when a person is deemed to be attempting to provoke upset or alarm by being naked, they could be arrested or prosecuted through laws relating to public decency, indecent exposure or harassment.

Despite the law clearly stating that public nudity is not illegal, women are often told to put their top back on in public places and wrongly told (by misinformed law enforcers) that being topless in public is against the law. On a hot summers day however, while not regarded as particularly 'classy', many British men walk around topless in broad daylight. There often seem to be more sweaty bare male chests on the highstreet than shops during these months. As offensive as I could find it to be confronted by a swarm of bare-chested men (not that I do find the human body offensive), I recognise the importance of their freedom to do so. For the same reason, I strongly believe in a woman's right to be topless and for the female form to be desexualized.

There should be no guilt or shame in toplessness for either gender- the leaking of topless photos of females my age online, and the slut shaming that tends to follow is in my mind therefore irrational. Many males even have photographs of themselves topless in their Facebook photo albums or as their profile picture. Yes, breasts are considered attractive and splashed across male magazines, but so are male torsos. Yes, breasts are considered attractive to heterosexual males, but so are male torsos to homosexual men. Reasons often given to justify women covering their breasts include to avoid distracting men and deliberately provoking sexual attention. It seems unlikely however, that society would condemn a straight man for deliberately provoking a gay man through his choice of (or lack of) top.

The argument therefore needs, in my view to be shifted in a different direction- by addressing the real issues of sex guilt amongst and against women and gender disparity, sex will cease to be used as a weapon against women, and embraced instead as a natural and moral act. On an even deeper level, nakedness itself and the perceptions of nudity as being something solely restricted to sex and showers should be reevaluated. I tried to find a good quote on general nudity to include in this concluding paragraph, but couldn't find one that wasn't about sex. That in itself seems a particularly relevant point to end on.