Okay boys and girls, here’s why the opinions of your parents, teachers and preachers don’t really matter on this particular issue.
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I know. I know. Posting your naked body on the internet seems like a great idea right NOW (in that small, insular way that right now can be so very deceptive). Sexting your girlfriend is a terrific option right? But before you do any of that, there is someone whose opinion you really need to consider. And I don’t mean us moms or dads. I don’t mean the teachers at your school. And I don’t mean the Pope or the President or any of those people. Forget them. They really aren’t the one who matters.
The person you really need to think about is the person you will become. Yeah. THAT person. The person for whom the current version of you will have to get out of the way of, when he or she arrives. The person who, by the way, may not really want you to put their (younger) naked picture up on the Internet.
The older you. The next you. The person who you are going to change into.
The person you really need to think about is the person you will become. Yeah. THAT person. The person for whom you will have to get out of the way, when he or she arrives.
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The person you are today, right now? Gone. New person. Older, evolving, fundamentally different person. The person who will have to explain why their naked body is posted on the internet to their fiancé, and their kids, and their employer, to the US Senate Armed Services Committee, and maybe a LOT of other people. Like maybe everyone they will ever meet.
And I guess, in a way, if your old self won’t actually be here anymore, you don’t really have to care, right? If you are going to have to “get out of the way” for the new you, then you won’t have to deal with the fallout, right? That much is true. But the you that you will become? THAT you will be YOU. And that person is the one you’ll have to live with. Be.
Now, I realize that its fun to fly in the face of convention and laugh at people who council caution. Did it myself. Loved it. But I am fortunate enough not to have done it on camera and not in the age of the internet. Because the Internet is forever.
But wait, it gets better. What used to be a little bit of a problem on the Internet… that somebody you know MIGHT see your picture. That problem? Well that problem is now a certainty. Or will be very soon. Because the Internet has tagging and facial recognition software, and it has friends who aren’t really friends who might be amused by creating a YouTube video of you naked to the soundtrack of American Idiot.
And, you my dears. All of you. You are vulnerable, kind, sweet creatures. You are not designed to deal with the brutality that the ‘net will dump on your naked pictures. What felt like a liberating moment of self expression, will become a lifelong avenue via which you will forever be open to ridicule and attack. And the ‘net can be one mean-spirited place. The kinds of things some people say will leave you feeling violated and shamed. Evil people with nasty dispositions. People who do not deserve access to your wonderful intimate selves.
Please, in your real time life, explore gender, sexuality, expression of self and all the wonderful things that becoming an adult will bring. I encourage you to present images on the net that share your view of what love and life looks like for you; gay, straight gender-bendy and all points in between. But that naked thing? Wait. Exercise a little bit of caution on that one single issue.
Some day you may spend time at a nudist colony, or model unclothed for art classes. Or just be naked because it feels right and human and empowering. All of these moments will please and comfort your future self. Your bodies are wonderful magical things. You deserve to be comfortable and guilt free in them.
But for now, just hold off on the naked on the internet thing. Okay?
For a mom’s perspective on this issue, read Shannon Fisher’s I Won’t Teach My Daughter It’s Wrong to Flash Her Boobs.
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I’m calling bullshit. Saying “Don’t post naked pictures on the internet because mean people will make fun of you.” sounds an awful lot like “Don’t walk around dressed like that, mean people might rape you” or “Don’t let your son wear his favorite My Little Pony shirt to school, mean kids will make fun of him”. What you are really saying is “Don’t do anything you want to, something bad might happen because there are bad people in the world, and you should hold yourself back from your full happiness because other people out there are bad.”
It’s not complicated at all, which is what’s so peculiar. What you are saying is exactly the same thing as “don’t wear that, someone may think you’re asking for it,” or “don’t wear that, someone may think your queer,” or….. it is the same. And it’s wrapped in all the same concern-trolling that purity culture is always wrapped up in. We will never agree on this, but when I read your article, however well-intentioned, I see the same old tropes of “don’t do anything to embarrass me” and “please be ashamed of your body and don’t use it in a… Read more »
Alyssa,
Okay. I’ve added a paragraph that I hope will help with this concern.
I couldn’t disagree more. What if we’re finally ushering an age in which people are like “eh, naked, whatevs.” “eh , you have same sex sex, whateves.” “eh, you party sometiems, whatevs.” What if the igonracne and arrogance of their youth is finally what’s ushering in the tolerance we all claim to want. You cannot simultaneously tell someone to be proud of something, and hide it in shame. Or even potential shame. They’re just bodies, of people who are just kids, who are just being perfectly normal and human. How other people react to them is not their problem. And… Read more »
Hi Alyssa, Then we’re in agreement, because I, also, couldn’t disagree with you more. 😉 Let me see if I understand you. Are you somehow suggesting that sexual expression and liberation isn’t valid if its not photographed and put on the internet? Because the case I’m making here is not that we should hide. Mine is a simple position. “Kids. Don’t pose naked on the internet.” What I’m saying here is to make a distinction between accepting and exploring our physicality and posting these aspects of ourselves forever on the internet. I’m not telling my son to hide who he… Read more »
The problem I have is the idea that merely being naked is a sexual act. I’m totally fine with “kids, don’t post pictures of yourself having sex on the Internet.” But being naked isn’t the same as having sex. Being naked isn’t inherently sexual. And I think the conflation of those things is where we get into a lot of trouble. It’s saying “because someone thought something sexual when they looked at you, it’s your responsibility.” It’s not that different from the yoga pants “scandal” of last year. There are jerks everywhere, no doubt about it. But I don’t think… Read more »
I think this sounds a bit like, “Be Out to yourself, just don’t let other people know.” Personally, I rather look forward to a day when people, at 18 or 80, stop caring what small-minded people think about what society has told us to hide beneath our clothes. Women will breastfeed in public without people falling all over themselves in shock that someone hasn’t learned to be ashamed of a beautiful thing. Because, let’s be honest, That “certainty” you talk about? Where people you know will see your pictures? In a generation or two, if the people who are taking… Read more »
Glen, there is no correlation between breast feeding in public as an adult and putting a naked selfie on the net when you are still a child.
I think we need to teach society to be indifferent to women’s bodies.
A guy who posts his stripping video on youtube doesnt get a million views from women.
Why does a girl who posts hers, get so many?
Womens bodies need to be desexualized and made neutral just like men’s bodies,
Mostly agreed. I don’t want to say that women’s bodies need to be entirely desexualized, but the only time anyone’s body, male or female, should be viewed sexually is if they presented their body in an explicitly sexual way.
I’ve wondered if my bits are out there for all to see, oh well good luck to those that look.
Couldn’t agree more, Mark. It’s one thing for us to moralize and threaten and try to use scare tactics, but ultimately, the person who will suffer most from these poor choices is the person who made them in the first place. The problem, of course, is that teens are notoriously bad at projecting consequences for their actions.
Thanks, Karen,
I tried in my own way to get the reader, young or old, to step into that future self. Don’t know if I succeeded, but maybe it will work with some percentage of readers. Many methods, one goal.
Totally agree. The same advice goes for visible tattoos, especially on the face. Just pause a second and meditate on “Permanence” before you get a word indelibly printed on your neck.