Welcome again to everybody! Happy Lunar New Year. Make yourself at home. Go ahead and stand on that inconspicuous floor tile over there. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread!
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This is the first I’ve heard of it, but considering how sexualised Instagram already is, even without nudity, I cannot see this leading to any kind of healthy progress or discussion.
I don’t use Instagram, btw, partly for the same reasons that I avoid Twitter and Reddit. But also because it seems to be an especially concentrated form of commodity fetishism. I don’t think that’s a good environment for any meaningful discussion, including e.g. body positivity or the sexualisation of breasts, but maybe others see something in the platform that I don’t?
I mainly use it for keeping track of things happening nearby. I only follow political groups I’m active in, local bars/shops/events, some art stuff, some nature stuff and some people I know. I stay away from the memes and sports and news and celebs because I can’t be bothered with that honestly. I don’t feel like Instagram has problematic effects on me so imo there are healthy ways to use the app. But unfortunately it has done more damage than good.
That being said, I am all for stopping the policing of bodies, and mainly non cishet male bodies. It’s ridiculous that women get told what to show or what not to show. I remember when I was younger how at the beach people just couldn’t care. Lots of women were topless, people just dressed on the spot, no big deal. But I feel like with the rise of the smartphone and social media the whole body shaming, exposing, secretly recording, male creeping just got a steroid boost. And after more than a decade of Meta policing people’s bodies, a change in policy is at least somewhat of a postive step.
I don’t think women need to expose themselves en masse in order to be free or whatever, but we absolutely do need to bring back some form of normalcy to bodies.
My main issue is that, with Meta being an absolute shithole, it probably will not be the positive change it needs to be. A lot of damage has been done already. Not just to women, who would benefit more by being as sexualized as possible, but also to (young) men who have now been served a decade of hypersexualized and commodified women’s bodies at a rate previously unseen to people. They need to be re-educated as well, otherwise I fear that as soon as women post actual topless pics, they will just harass them even more.
To give an example of how Instagram ‘promotes’ women through their algorithm: I wanted to see how fast I could get my Instagram to recommend me dubious stuff. So I started at their explore page, which suggest content based on what you tend to look at. I found a picture of a woman who does running/swimming/hiking a lot, in a swimsuit. It was just a regular picture of a woman at a lake, nothing weird. But I started to go further from there. First it were similar pics of women doing the same stuff, still nothing weird. But I think after five minutes of scrolling my entire explore page was filled with women in underwear, women in extremely sexualized positions and actual straight up porn. It is such an unhealthy instance. For women that feel the need to do stuff like that, but also for men who get suggested that kind of stuff within minutes.
That makes sense. I know a few people who use IG to promote their work, so I can see how you could do what you do with a carefully curated feed.
If IG could be used to criticise sexualisation, that’s a good thing. I’m still a bit skeptical and think it could backfire. Partly because whatever wave of feminism we’re on today seems to be the political wing of the porn industry in the way it promotes sex work. Once some nudity is permitted on IG, there will be arguments to permit increasingly sexual images because ‘that is what women’s freedom needs’. I am probably overly cynical, though.
I think that’s a valid concern and I completely agree. Let’s hope this new policy will not turn into a sexualized movement as that’s the opposite of what it is supposed to mean.