One big media topic of late is the debate over teens and women posting naked pictures on the internet. Why, do a google search for "naked pictures internet" and...um, scratch that. While some of the coverage, especially after the discovery of naked photos of a certain "High School Musical" star, centers on the concern that children will see these photos, others are lambasting the way many women and teens post these photos themselves, asserting that this self-objectification will result in women being treated as sex objects.
Let's take both things as they relate to kids. I'm not particularly hysterical when it comes to the idea that my child might see nudity, and so I guess the fact that there's more nakedness on the internet than before doesn't worry me too much. But then there's the idea of teens posting pictures of themselves, and whether or not that's a problem or if it will just become so common that no one will bat an eye after a while--like we'll all have nude photos of ourselves on Facebook. And here's where we get into the debate that Jezebel has been covering, the "women and girls promoting themselves as sex objects" idea.
As I read about things like the lad mag site Nuts.com, where women send in topless photos of themselves to be voted on in a feature called "Assess my Breasts" I get completely skeeved out by the idea that teen girls (and grown women) would choose to do this. There's a fine line between "empowered sexuality" and "exploited sexuality," like in the MILF dilemma, but this one clearly has crossed over. I detest the idea that teenagers would go the sex-doll route because teenagers are so vulnerable, and I shudder to think of them trying to get something from an online boob ranking or by garnering page hits for a revealing picture.
It's not the nakedness that bothers me, it's the hungry search for validation, and looking for validation is kind of inherent to adolescence (or at least it was to mine.) Are we women setting an example for our teenage girls by being so stripper-pole and "I'm hot"? I don't think this is a black-and-white issue, and frankly, I'm leery of blaming women, but I do believe the difference is less about whether a nipple is covered and more about who is in control. And I think there are places in which it's hard for any of us to know the latter.
