Why sexy selfies are more harmful than lads’ mags
WHAT are you up to this weekend? Regardless of where or what you find yourself doing, I bet that many of you will be capturing each moment via your smartphone and uploading said images on Facebook and the like. If you slip in a few photos of yourself doing the obligatory chin down, heavily styled smile, you would be forgiven. The perfect “selfie” has become totally normal in today’s snap-happy world. And the art of making your selfie as gorgeous as possible is accepted as just how we capture ourselves “having fun” web 3.0 style.
Both sexes are at it — but women are definitely (via my straw poll of around 400 Facebook “friends”) more into producing “stunning” and “sexy” selfies of themselves while they are sharing the moment. Because they can control the camera, the pose and what they are wearing — they are upping the game in what they decide to share. I’ve seen pics of some girlfriends on Facebook and Twitter wearing less than I’ve seen them sport in real life.
In the UK, the “lose the lads’ mags” campaign has persuaded one supermarket chain to put lads’ mags featuring scantily clad women in sealed “modesty” bags, and is now targeting other chains. They would like major retailers to stop selling the offending titles altogether, said campaign founder Kat Banyard.
This campaign is confusing. While women’s glossies remain in full view, sporting famous ladies in a state of undress and promising weight-loss regimes that sound criminal, lads’ mags will be censored or even banned?
Also, this campaign has overlooked the internet and the far bigger impact female celebrities posting risqué selfies has on young girls and boys. Just check out Rihanna’s daily photos on Instagram.
The forward-facing camera on smartphones has led to millions of women objectifying themselves, for their own and others’ pleasure, on a minute-by-minute basis. Why just play Scrabble on a rainy weekend, when you can do so while posting selfies on Facebook — wearing a sexy pout and not much else?
I get Banyard’s concerns about lads’ mags being on sale two aisles down from the fruit and veg. I understand the worry that these publications are sending the message that it is normal and acceptable to treat women as sex objects — but what about when women do it to themselves?
Seren Haf Gibson, a former glamour model, makes this very point. Like many lads’ mags models, she found posing empowering and freeing. This is an argument many feminists in Banyard’s mould find difficult to digest.
Millions of girls around the world are getting a similar buzz from objectifying themselves to their social media chums. Every “like”, share and comment feeds the need to share more and more images of themselves looking “perfect” and “hot”.
Girls today don’t need lads’ mags to pose sexily in front of millions of people. They just need a smartphone and a social media account. Modesty bags don’t work on the internet. Nor does censorship.