As a society, we have a love-hate relationship with the female body.
On one hand, we admire certain half-naked bodies. We like them so much that we plaster them on advertisements, use them to spice up movies and television shows, and showcase them gratuitously in video games. Bare legs, exposed cleavage, glistening flat stomachs, and barely-concealed buttocks—all of these body parts are strategically curated and packaged for our consumption.
But at the same time, when a mother breastfeeds in public, we recoil and tell her to put her breasts away. When a businesswoman wears a blouse that reveals a little too much skin, we call her out for being unprofessional. When a schoolgirl wears a skirt that is an inch too short, we ask her to replace it because she is distracting her male classmates and her male teachers.
In the age of artificial intelligence, this paradox becomes even more pronounced. With apps like DignifAI and DeepNude, it is now possible to feed images of real people—even you—into a program to dress their bodies or strip them off their clothes. The user only has to upload a well-lit picture that shows the full body of the subject. Within minutes, they can receive a new photo that leaves either everything or nothing to the imagination.
None of these cases are about aesthetic preferences. It’s about control. It’s all part of a larger culture that expects women’s bodies to exist for male pleasure. The idea of a woman existing in isolation—outside of the male gaze—is simply bizarre. It explains why social norms prevent women from peeling off their shirts on a hot day. When women use their bodies for a purpose other than serving an audience, that’s when they become unacceptable, inappropriate, and taboo.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with finding women’s bodies attractive. However, it becomes an issue when a person feels entitled to those bodies. This entitlement leads others, especially men, to police them. Breasts, legs, butts—those are all great to see, but only when people want to see them. When they do not want to get aroused, then they believe that women’s bodies should be removed from their sight.
It is this entitlement that drives some people to create pornographic deepfakes of female celebrities and ordinary women. According to the verification company Sensity AI, a shocking 96 percent of deepfakes in 2019 were sexually explicit and featured women who didn’t consent to the videos.
Even on the streets, this entitlement can be observed. It is why some people have the gall to interrupt a woman’s walk, wolf-whistle, and point at her like she’s nothing but a piece of meat parading in front of them.
It is also this entitlement that enables one of my classmates to boast about his sexual exploits and the lesbian porn he watches in his free time. Yet, when he learned that some women walk around half-naked while hanging out, he found it “weird” and wondered why we couldn’t just cover up. He was uncomfortable at the thought of girls existing in private with no one to watch them and enjoy the show.
It is this entitlement that encouraged an ex-friend to send me non-consensual explicit photos and expect me to return the gesture. At first, I gave him a chance to explain himself. I guessed that perhaps he got confused and sent it to the wrong person, or maybe he misread our relationship and where my boundaries stood. But as the conversation went on, it was clear that he believed that women’s bodies are for male consumption. When I denied him that, he saw himself as a victim of “cruel friend zoning.”
While there are laws that criminalize these acts—albeit limited—they may not be enough to put an end to the problem. We still have a long way to go before we can ensure that every woman’s personal agency, consent, and privacy will be respected. At present, we seem to be more comfortable telling women what to do with their bodies rather than asking others to stop sexualizing said bodies.
Whether it’s on campus, at the workplace, or in our homes, we are bombarded with news that highlight the harassment and abuse experienced by women who are simply living their lives. In order to tackle these issues, we need tangible societal change. That starts with dismantling misogyny and addressing sexual entitlement. If we can cultivate a culture that sees people as beings with agency, with a right and a say over their own bodies, then perhaps we will begin to treat others not as objects for our disposal or momentary pleasure, but as subjects of their own experiences.
