Kim Kardashian’s been at it again – breaking the internet with her naked form in the form of a naked selfie. The concept of the naked selfie – so very unique to the social media-obsessed times we are a-living in - is one that causes GREAT debate. Is it a feminist statement? Is it empowering women? Or playing into the patriarchy, giving men what they want to see? Is it just a cynical money-making ploy for Kim? What are the politics of a naked selfie? Writer Elizabeth Day investigated this very matter for Grazia earlier this summer...
It's hard to remember now, but there was a time when Kim Kardashian was not yet famous and the term ‘selfie’ had yet to be coined. Now, we live in an age where Kim is worth over £102 million and selfie is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.
The fortunes of both are inextricably linked. Kim's globally successful business empire relies on the posting of frequent selfies to sate the appetites of her 72 million Instagram followers.
When Kim, 35, posted a fully naked (but censored) selfie on her Instagram account earlier this year, it caused a furore that has rumbled on for months. But of all the defenders of Kim’s right to nude self-expression, Harriet Harman was possibly the most unlikely.
The MP and former deputy Labour leader, a lifelong feminist, last month told journalist Piers Morgan that she thought Kim was ‘brave and pioneering’ for the act. Piers couldn’t hide his astonishment that a woman who campaigned against Page Three could be supportive of Kim ‘stripping’ for public consumption. Harriet argued Kim was in control of her own image, unlike the Page Three girls who were produced by male editors for male readers.
It’s confusing to know what the feminist response should be.
Kim, who is married to Kanye West and is mother to North, two, and six month-old Saint, had already shared so much of herself that it was shocking precisely because we were shocked. We thought we had seen her in every possible guise – and yet here she was, completely starkers in front of a bathroom mirror, accompanied by the caption, ‘When you’re like I have nothing to wear LOL.’
What did the naked selfie mean? 19-year-old actress Chloë Grace Moretz tweeted saying that she hoped Kim realised ‘how important setting goals are for young women, teaching them we have so much more to offer than just our bodies’. Bette Midler, 70, joked that if Kim ‘wanted us to see a part of her we’ve never seen she’s gonna have to swallow the camera' - a reference to the fact that the reality TV star first became famous for appearing in a sex tape.
But I came away thinking: isn’t it a woman’s right to portray herself as she chooses? Shouldn’t we celebrate that Kim has control over her body and is confident enough to share that with the world?
When Justin Bieber posted a naked Instagram shot of himself on a camping trip a few weeks later, no one accused him of putting pressure on young boys to look a certain way; or inferred that he should be ashamed of exposing too much.
Kim slammed her critics, insisting she was ‘empowered’ by her body and that she wanted other women to feel the same way. She compared the response
to ‘slut-shaming’. I have respect for Kim for how she dealt with the fallout and I support her right to do what she wants with her body.
Perhaps a nude selfie is an act of regaining control? After all, for centuries women in front of the camera have been subjected to ‘the male gaze’. Maybe this is a way of reclaiming power?
Prior to the Kardashian kerfuffle, I had never once taken a naked selfie. But in the interests of research for this piece, I took one a day for a week. I didn’t do anything with them; I simply wanted to see how it felt. I thought I would feel embarrassed, slightly grubby. It was alright for Kim to say she felt empowered by the act, but then she has an amazing body and a host of make-up artists and hairstylists on hand. I had none of these things.
And yet, to my surprise, I didn’t hate the experience. I had dreaded being confronted with that rst truthful shot of myself. But in fact, when I came face-to- face with all my physical insecurities, it wasn’t that bad. My breasts weren’t as small as I feared. My hips didn’t look wildly out of proportion to the rest of me. And yes, the Crema filter really was the most flattering. I looked OK.
Still, knowing they were on my phone made me feel strangely vulnerable. I was worried about who might see them. They were stored in my usual photos folder. Once, when I was showing a friend a picture I’d taken of a dress she might like, I realised that if I accidentally swiped right, I’d also be showing her rather more of myself than I’d intended.
I didn’t want anyone to see them because I didn’t want to invite either their disapprobation or their judgement. I’m the kind of woman who has an issue with communal changing rooms. The idea of sharing my naked selfis made me break out in a clammy sweat. If someone saw them, what would they think of me? That I was arrogant? Or slutty? Or a narcissist?
Depictions of the female nude have been a form of artistic expression through the ages – from Renaissance masterpieces to Lucien Freud portraits. There’s a sense that the female body is more aesthetically pleasing than the male, but I suspect it’s proof of male dominance in art history. Most artists and most patrons were men.
‘Men act and women appear,’ wrote the critic John Berger in his influential art historical essay Ways Of Seeing. ‘Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.’
It’s important to challenge that objectifying gaze. But then again,
the naked selfie becomes problematic when you consider the ‘pornification’ of mainstream culture. We live in a hyper-digital era, where pornographic content is readily available. That, in turn, has fed into how we view men and women in sexual terms.
And then there is the rise in ‘revenge porn’: jilted men publicly circulating compromising photos of their exes in an attempt to shame them, in much the same way as an anonymous computer hacker leaked naked pictures of the actress Jennifer Lawrence in 2014. In both instances, men are attempting to stake their ownership of our bodies. Worse, they want us to feel bad about it.
That’s why, when I see Kim’s naked selfie, I can simultaneously respect
her right to post it while feeling uncomfortable about the way it’s done. Because – however subconsciously – the way that image is posed is designed to turn men on.
According to Gail Dines, the author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexualty, 'Bcause of porn culture, women have internalised that image of themselves. They self-objectify, which means they’re actually doing to themselves what the male gaze does to them.’
As my naked selfie experiment wore on, I noticed a shift in the way I was staging each shot. I wanted to look better. I arched my back, I curved my neck and at one point, I cropped out my head altogether.
Without realising it, I was curating my own image to fit in with one that I had been taught by society was most desirable – I was recreating those familiar tropes of ‘sexiness’. I wasn’t telling the truth.
I was packaging myself for the gaze of some hypothetical man who would tell me I looked hot and from that, I would get gratification and self-worth. I felt uncomfortable and deleted them all from my phone.
I’m left asking myself whether a straight woman taking a naked selfie is doing it for herself or because she wants men to think of her as sexual. And if it’s the latter, doesn’t that mean we’re playing into the idea that we should be valued primarily for our bodies – for how sexy we can be? Of course, there’s nothing wrong with looking hot. It’s just that, when you’re making yourself this vulnerable, you need to be sure what purpose that hotness serves.
READ MORE: Women On Film Are Less Likely To Speak And More Likely To Be Naked
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