Nudity and the Wayward Generation

Anyone who knows me will know my feelings towards self respect, nudity and the receiving and "leaking" of naked images. I'm quite outspoken about these things, but I'd like to further establish my feelings in the form of a blog. More characters and thinking space gives me more justification, which hopefully won't end up with me sounding too forward or promiscuous. 

A lot of people these days seem to link self respect with nudity. I disagree with this connection. I believe that self respect should be exactly what the term implies- respecting yourself. This would entail keeping yourself fit, making yourself happy and doing what's best for you. Though while some may argue keeping yourself covered up is what is "best", we have to consider why these people may say these things. So we don't get sexually assaulted? So we don't offend people? So we have something to leave to the imagination? So children don't get corrupted? But of course times are changing, we know it is not the fault of the victim in a sexual assault, people should not get offended over anatomy, there's plenty beyond our body that we can leave people to figure out (one of my favourite quotes is "seduce my mind and you can have my body, find my soul and I'm yours forever") and with the television shows, the films, the social media children are exposed to these days, I very much doubt the few inches of cleavage you just tutted at in the street will make a huge impact upon them.

The sooner we stop sexualising bodies, the sooner we will see a change. Mothers cannot breast feed children because of the revelation of a breast yet there is nothing sexual about breast feeding at all. There have been news stories of even if a mother and child are in a quiet part of the restaurant complaints against breast feeding. It seems our society is more offended than ever before, but only really about women's parts. The female anatomy has transformed into a sort of taboo. 

I feel so strongly about this matter because it affected me closely not so long ago. I had my personal image sent around and people mocked me for my body. It was of course humiliating at first, because those were personal images. They were not taken to please the eyes of the inquisitive perverts. I received a lot of abuse about it. But why? Can we not get over the fact that female bodies differ in shape, size, colour etc? The mole on my stomach served as quite a discussion point to some, but not once when I have became intimate with a male have I been rejected because of a mole. It seems if we strip off then we are made to feel bad. Never in a million years do you expect something quite so horrible to happen to you, but when it does you must brace yourself for the backlash. No man nor woman should never be put down for their body, but I feel as if women get more stick for personal images, especially due to the rise of revenge porn. If anyone has suffered this, you can contact me on Facebook and I will do my best to help you through it. It can be devastating but someone to pull you through is all you need sometimes. I'd imagine it'll happen to every girl at some point, whether on a large or small scale. Do not think you are alone in this.

When will such a barbaric view of anatomy serve its time? Can we not indulge in a new perspective yet? 

The wayward view of nudity also affects men. I find it offensive to men to suggest that they cannot handle their sexuality due to lack of clothes. Men have control over their sexuality (of course in some cases both men and women choose to lose control), they are not neanderthals. To blame a victim of sexual assault or rape for their attack due to lack of clothing is a naive and frankly ridiculous view to look at things.

In this blog I'd also like to discuss "slut-shaming". Sleeping with numerous people is what some people would say a sign of lack of self respect. I don't understand how, however. If a woman is safe, gets herself checked out and does the dirty with a single man then where is the issue? I agree, if the guy is taken then she may be seen as a slut or a homewrecker. Not all women are built for relationships, likewise with men. Women also get scared of commitment, women also want fun and no ties at some points. It is often said that a man is legend if he sleeps with loads of women, but a woman is a slut if she sleeps with loads of men and it's true, isn't it? Personally, I don't sleep around much, but if another woman wants to then who am I to stop her? Sometimes I think people need to get their own sex lives instead of slating everyone else's. There are worse things going on in the world than hanky panky. Sexual liberation for women was first introduced with the invention of the pill, which allowed a contraceptive that meant women were in control. Before a man could prick a condom, or simply not wear one and if the woman got pregnant, he could easily leave her. The pill helped do away with this. On one hand, you may say that this idea of a girl being a slut for sleeping with different men is men's way of punishing women for their sexual liberation, similarly to women in patriarchal literature. For example, Beatrice in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" is portrayed as the "bad" female in the novel, the less innocent one, because she does not want to get married and she wants to dispose of her sexuality as she pleases, whereas her cousin Hero is portrayed as the innocent one and when she is framed for sleeping with another man while she is betrothed to Claudio (who I despised in the play- he did not deserve Hero back), she was shamed without any chance to stand up for herself. Not my personal viewpoint, but something interesting to think about. Of course with the loosening of the rules with abortion, as discussed in another blog, women gained more control over their sexuality. I think that women's sexuality will always be never ending discussion of morality and of equality- which one is best to have? Is there any difference?

To conclude this blog, I'd like to hope that together we can over come our issues with female anatomy. We should stop being offended by a bit of breast or cleavage. There is plenty worse that could happen to mankind than female genitalia. We also need to stop picking on others and invading privacy for our own credibility and twisted pleasure. It's time to put a stop to slut shaming and body shaming. If I have at any point sounded misandrist I have not meant to (I love men, I promise). I think that both men and women are important to note when it comes to nudity and sexuality and that the viewpoints from both genders are equally important to think about.