steelweaver

Exposure Levels

I really tried to ignore the whole thing. I did, honestly. But it’s just the plain weirdness of the phenomenon that got to me.

Let’s start from the beginning. As you may have heard, purported photos of lots of (female) ‘celebrities’ without their clothes on were posted on the controversial online community 4chan. Some of the individuals have denied the photos’ authenticity, some confirmed it but stated that they were private pictures that could not have been leaked, and that some form of active hacking must therefore have taken place.

So far, so tawdry, sleazy and immoral. Human beings like seeing pictures other human beings without their clothes on, particularly if they are human beings they have previously found attractive with some or all of their clothes on. But it’s good manners not to steal such pictures and share them indiscriminately against the individual’s wishes. On this much we can agree.

And then someone opened a new pack of gender-cards to play with. Step forward The Guardian:

First up was Van Badham, who, in a generally reasonable article published on the same day the news broke, made the points I just made, but chose to also argue that, in the words of the article’s headline, “If you click on Jennifer Lawrence’s naked pictures, you’re perpetuating her abuse”; an interesting, if legally tendentious suggestion.

“It’s an act of sexual violation,” Badham argued - which you might be OK with, if you are happy to dilute the usual sense of the term 'sexual violation’ to include an act that does not involve the presence of the 'violated’ individual, does not (in any one individual instance) intensify their existing suffering, and the existence of which act they will forever be entirely ignorant of – “…and it deserves the same social and legal punishment as meted out to stalkers and other sexual predators.”

Now, if you’ve agreed that looking at an image of someone on a computer screen without that someone’s permission constitutes 'sexual violation’, you may well be of the opinion that there should be some legal or social sanction against anyone caught doing so. But I would have thought it is reasonable to provide different degrees of sanction: one for the crime of looking at a particular webpage, and more severe punishments for other forms of sexual violation – rape, say, or being the person who stole the nude photos in the first place.

Still, Badham’s entitled to her opinion, and there’s nothing particularly gender-specific in her argument – although the language of 'abuse’ and 'violation’ is something we’ll see more of.

But don’t worry, we’re just getting warmed up:

“There is an insatiable curiosity when it comes to the nude celebrity woman’s body,” claimed Roxane Gay in the next day’s edition, which I guess is true, although the sentence would also work without the word “woman” in it. “It goes without saying that there aren’t many nude photos of men being released. Men are largely free to bare their bodies as they choose without repercussion…”

Like I said, I tried to ignore this whole bullshit media non-issue. I tried to restrain myself from writing this essay. It is, apart from anything else, such a fucking a cliché for me, a man, to write a piece on the internet complaining about some feminists being too woman-centric, and the point I need to make is uncomfortably close to that unhelpful habit of male trolls everywhere, of saying “yes, but what about the men?”.

So let me be clear: I in no way deny that our deep cultural ideology continues to construct women as passive objects, as useful tools for men’s sexual fulfillment, as chattels to be traded for wealth and status. I acknowledge it as fact that more naked photos of women than men are circulated in this manner (although there is some evidence that both men and women are strongly attuned to images of women, and that men are more sexually oriented to the purely visual, which, when coupled with the male-heterosexual predominance of the hacker demographic, goes some way to explaining this differential).

I also recognise that there is a spectrum of abuse, that the trauma of public exposure is very real, and that 'violation’ in that more abstract sense enables and legitimises sexual violation of women in the horrifically physical sense.

But there is a problem with contemporary feminism, and this particular moment of media self-mastication seems to capture it in particularly stark clarity. When a journalist can write sentences so divorced from well-known and easily confirmable facts, so bluntly at odds with established reality, I find myself consumed with curiosity as to how an otherwise intelligent person could be inhabiting such a distorted perceptual world.

“These women’s lives and their private choices will be dissected. They are women, so they must be judged,” writes Gay. “Lives have been, if not ruined, irreparably harmed, because we are a culture that thrives on the hatred of women, of anyone who is Other in some way, of anyone who dares to threaten the status quo.”

Gay’s claim that “The Great Celebrity Naked Photo Leak of 2014… is meant to remind women of their place,” comes over a tad conspiratorial, given the alternative possibility that - while in a patriarchal society, there may well be an irreducible element of power politics buried in the subconscious of such perpetrators - the photos were primarily intended not to remind women of their place but as an aid to masturbation. Or, I guess, as a means to gain status or money by providing such an aid to others.

But the major problem with this perspective is that it assumes that men are entirely untouched by such victimisation. The assumption continues for another two paragraphs:

“Don’t get too high and mighty, ladies. Don’t step out of line. Don’t do anything to upset or disappoint men who feel entitled to your time, bodies, affection or attention. Your bared body can always be used as a weapon against you. You bared body can always be used to shame and humiliate you. Your bared body is at once desired and loathed.

“This is what we must remember. Women cannot be sexual in certain ways without consequence. Women cannot pose nude or provocatively, whether for a lover or themselves, without consequence. We are never allowed to forget how the rules are different girls [sic].”

This is not simply a case of talking about a problem that affects women. To wade in uninvited (whatever that means on the internet) to say “what about the men” might well be considered 'derailing’ such a conversation. But these are active assertions that women are victims and men are not; direct comparisons of the relative victimhood of the two genders - and to question the veracity of the weighting of one of those genders’ victimhood is far from a derailing of the subject. It is, in fact, very much on topic.

In this case, Gay’s assertions go strangely unillustrated by anything resembling evidence. So let’s examine whether the rules really are “different for girls”:

“It goes without saying that there aren’t many nude photos of men being released” - in this particular leak, perhaps (presumably because it was the work of o̶n̶e̶ a gang of male heterosexual hackers). But to ignore the multitude of leaks of nude photos of men seems obtuse, to say the least.

Take Kanye West, for example. Or NFL quarterback Brett Favre.

“Men are largely free to bare their bodies as they choose without repercussion…” Is this why, when Premier League footballer Ashley Cole sent nude photos to a model (who then chose to leak them and sell her story to the Sunday Mirror), he was widely mocked in the national press and referred to as “disgraced Ashley Cole”? Were his “life and private choices” insufficiently “dissected” to engage Gay’s sympathy? “They are women, so they must be judged” implies that men would not be judged – but that doesn’t seem to be true.

When former professional wrestler Terry Bollea’s private sex tape was released, he was the recipient of extraordinary ridicule. This Gawker article exults in what it calls “a masterpiece”, evidently finding the prospect of a 59-year old man having sex inherently hilarious.

His physical appearance is mocked: “Hulk strips down. His tan line is exposed and his hairline is vulnerable and silly without the do-rag, but there is sex to be had regardless.”

But, according to Gay, it is only women who need to remember that “your bared body can always be used as a weapon against you; your bared body can always be used to shame and humiliate you.”

There is an unrelentingly detailed account of Bollea’s actions, pausing only to imagine how funny it would be for a man to show signs of domesticity: “It is a slow, dutiful blowjob and Hulk is thrusting himself into her mouth to speed up the process. This goes on for a few minutes and at one point Hulk examines the canopy bed curtains in a way that suggests he’d like to purchase this particular style for his own canopy bed some day.”

When a judge ordered the footage be removed from the website, Gawker posted a defiant article headlined A Judge Told Us to Take Down Our Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Post. We Won’t. (They did, eventually, but were sure to provide links to other sites where it could still be watched.) There is a stark comparison with the general outcry of disapproval in relation to the more recent leaks, which have been removed by all the major sites that initially posted them. As of this post, naked pictures of Prince Harry are still available on the TMZ.com site, with a deeply ironic sidebar of links to articles decrying the leaked images of women:

“Lives have been, if not ruined, irreparably harmed, because we are a culture that thrives on the hatred of women” states Gay, and I think this belief cuts to the heart of the willful blindness she and so many other commentators have exhibited; to the reason language like “abuse” and “violation” is employed in relation to female victims of such leaks and not to male victims: they believe that it is worse for women to be exposed in this way than men, that women suffer more from such treatment.

And this is in line with the – sexist – beliefs of our culture in general. Women are portrayed as vulnerable, sensitive; attention towards their bodies is always considered to be fundamentally sexual; and sexual attention towards them is considered, if not always coercive, assertive to the point of violation.

Conversely, men are tough, active, possessed of no meaningful emotional vulnerabilities, and are thus not to be considered as equivalent victims of public exposure. Men enjoy any and all kinds of sexual attention, and thus it’s impossible for them to be 'shamed’. Their public exposure is not worthy of sympathy – they should just 'man up’ and get over it.

But none of this is true. When long-lens nude photos of Brad Pitt were published by Playgirl, his legal action to stop distribution of the magazine cited the “emotional distress and humiliation” the exposure had caused. Should we disbelieve this distress was genuine simply because he is male? When Pete Wentz of the band Fall Out Boy had his private photos hacked he was so upset he quit his band (albeit temporarily). His trauma was evidently real; those photos are still easily available online. Was this not “irreparable harm”? Why is this suffering invisible to Gay and her ilk?

Gay’s list of 'invasions of privacy’ suffered by 'the Other’ stretches the concept of 'privacy’ to breaking point: “A stranger reaches out and touches a pregnant woman’s belly. A man walking down the street offers an opinion on a woman’s appearance or implores her to smile. A group of teenagers driving by as a person of color walks on a sidewalk shout racial slurs, interrupting their quiet.” But far greater invasions, violations and humiliations - of people who happen to be men - seem to be beneath her notice.

To be curious about the psychology of this perspective is surely a long way from “whataboutism”; in order for Gay to re-cast a phenomenon of general human suffering as a specific exemplar of misogyny, she must actively deny the existence of the male victims. Is this not a strange thing to do - to sacrifice one’s relation to reality on the altar of gender partisanship? When did a belief in truth as inherently valuable get traded for this kind of rank tribalism?

Today, Hadley Freeman added her voice to the gendering of the issue, with an article headlined “The naked celebrity hack: an outstanding example of sexism” and subtitled “Why are there almost no men included on the list of celebrities whose privacy has been violated?” – the obvious answer, the sex and sexual orientation of the average 4chan user, again being mysteriously ignored.

“Personally, I have never understood the appeal in looking at naked photos of people who I don’t know and who certainly have no interest in me” claims Freeman, and on the basis of this personal proclivity feels empowered to declare that no-one else could possibly have a sexual motivation: “Anyway, the point of these pictures isn’t to give anyone sexual pleasure… It’s purely a power thing.”

Unlike Gay, Freeman has evidently noticed that some naked photos of men occasionally appear against their wishes, but she moves swiftly to block any misguided extension of empathy in that direction: “The only time naked photos of men get leaked onto the internet is when they ham-fistedly leak them themselves, as happens with various priapic male politicians like Anthony Weiner, and the general response is laughter and mockery.”

“The only time…” - except when it’s a leaked sex tape, like Bollea. Or paparazzi intrusion, as with Pitt. Or, just like the latest leaks, having a private photo cache hacked into, as happened to Wentz. And the (implicitly appropriate) response? Laughter and mockery. Even though Gay told us that “men are largely free to bare their bodies as they choose without repercussion…”. Never mind, back to the female exceptionalism:

“With women, that leaking happens when others steal the images from their phones, and the response here is darker, sexual, triumphal. Neither response is good, but the one in regards to women is definitely more threatening.” Is this just a feeling Freeman has, or is she claiming that things are “darker… more threatening” for women in some objectively real fashion? How does she know the inner psychology of the leakers? How can she be so sure that there isn’t a simple motivation of sexual titillation? Is it possible that her impression that things are “darker… more threatening” is just the result of her being more inclined to empathise with the women’s suffering; more likely to see women as victims?

She goes on to suggest that the phenomenon of “revenge porn” can be defined as “when a man leaks photos of an ex-partner” - despite the many examples of women doing the same to men. Once again, the fact that she personally would not derive sexual enjoyment from naked images of a celebrity is taken as proof that the leaks are not about sexual attraction, but are actually all about reinforcing society’s structural misogyny: “It’s a means of exuding [sic] power over someone who thought they were, if not powerful, at least independent.”

It’s fun to take the piss out of lazy journalists whose attempt to provide post-hoc rationalisations for their pre-existent prejudices can easily be disproved by facts (really, I still find it hard to believe that professional commentators could write such demonstrably wrong things as: “The only time naked photos of men get leaked onto the internet is when they ham-fistedly leak them themselves” or “Men are largely free to bare their bodies as they choose without repercussion.”).

But there is a serious aspect to all this. Because what we might as well call “internet feminism” (that small, largely Anglophone, white, Western and well-educated pocket of online individuals who occasionally mistake themselves for a representative sample of the world’s women) is becoming more and more obsessed with crying wolf over issues of minor importance, to the detriment of genuine emancipatory human politics.

When the ills of modern media – be they idiocy, immorality, prurience or simply superficiality and banality – strike, they will of course strike asymmetrically, along the societal fracture lines of intersectional identity. The ideologically and structurally disadvantaged – whether by class, age, race, sexuality or gender – will always suffer more. But, frankly, that’s not always the most important thing to say about the problem, nor the quickest way to achieving justice for its victims. And when the automatic reaction to every obstacle and injustice is to pour energy into arguing why one particular demographic group is the greatest victim, the solidarity that might actually enable genuine liberational change in society is dispersed.

The women who were the victims of this latest intrusion deserve our sympathy. And we should not ignore the way attitudes to them are inflected by the continued, entrenched sexism of our culture. But to use their suffering as an excuse to belittle or ignore the suffering of others is inhumane. To use the existence of certain anti-women attitudes in our society as an excuse to mock and humiliate men who have also been victims – of public exposure, of rape, of domestic abuse – is contemptible. And to twist, distort and brazenly falsify the facts to promote the value of one gender’s suffering and disguise that of the other is to diminish the power and purpose of democratic society, and to pollute the very arena of collective communication upon which we all rely for the continuation of freedom and tolerance - values which we need at this time in history so much more than ever before.

So cut that shit out.