Kevin Baldeosingh
One interesting aspect of the hacked photos scandal is that the people who lent support to the victimised girls seem to have as low an opinion of them as the people who have been denigrating them.
For example, one commenter who, as is usual with these types, hid behind a pseudonym ("Verdehabanero") wrote on the Guardian's online edition: "Marriage is an honorable (sic) institution and your bodies are meant only for your husbands. Sadly, under the guise of seeking to be liberated, from what I don't know, they flaunt themselves, forsaking all semblance of morality and spirituality, because it's 'old fashioned'."
But, writing in the Express newspaper about the traumatic effects this incident might have on the girls, prominent obstetrician/gynaecologist Sherene Kalloo essentially echoed Verdehabanero, saying: "Our girls need to know that they are beautiful inside and out and their body is their temple that they must treat with dignity."
Now, I doubt that Dr Kalloo intended to insult the girls or that she has any conscious contempt for them. Yet her unstated premise is that the girls did something wrong just by taking nude pics –ie, even if the pictures hadn't been hacked, the girls gave up their dignity just by the act of private exposure. But of course, this concept of female modesty is a device which has been used by religions for eons to contain the power of female sexuality. "Historically, women's sexuality and intellect have never been integrated," writes sex therapist Esther Perel in her book Mating in Captivity. "...Femininity, associated with purity, sacrifice, and frailty, was a characteristic of the morally successful woman. Her evil twin, the succubus (whore, slut, concubine, witch) was the earthy, sensual, and frankly lusty woman who had traded respectability for sexual exuberance."
Dr Kalloo goes on: "Another issue arising from this unfortunate situation is whether parents are failing their children by allowing them to be brainwashed by Western culture." But–ironically, given her profession–this assertion is rooted in the Judeo-Christian morality of the same Western civilisation Dr Kalloo blames for the girls' sexual expressiveness. Perel by contrast argues that "Sexual desire and good citizenship don't play by the same rules...The poetics of sex are often politically incorrect, thriving on power plays, role reversals, unfair advantages, imperious demands, seductive manipulations, and subtle cruelties."
Dr Kalloo then asserts that, "The obsession with taking selfies is clearly for praise, affection, and maybe even confirmation for some women that they are beautiful." But isn't the desire for praise and affection fundamental to the human psyche, moreso in sex than in any other area of life? Do we not all want our sexual partners to find us attractive? But Dr Kalloo's position is that a woman displaying her nakedness through photos is an unacceptable method for fulfilling these wants, even if it works. The message is that young women should try to get praise and affection only from non-sexual avenues or, at the very least, only from sex within a committed relationship, preferably marriage.
Dr Kalloo then advises parents to remind "girls of their value so they would not feel the need to get approval from elsewhere." The very questionable assumption here is that any female who takes naked pictures for the pleasure of their partners must be suffering from low self-esteem. But Dr Kalloo's even more astonishing premise is that parental approval is fungible with sexual approval. Even if this is true in the indirect sense that parents influence their children's confidence or insecurity, it cannot be that parental approval substitutes in any meaningful way for sexual approval.
The American philosopher Alan Soble in his book Pornography, Sex and Feminism argues that the "condemnation of the pornographic woman as a mindless slut is informed by the traditional sexist view of the sexually hungry or needy or aggressive woman, even if these critics are 'progressive' feminists." This, by the way, also explains the loud silence from local feminists on this issue. In her book Playing the Whore, journalist Melissa Gira Grant says, "There is also an alarming air, in some feminists' response to slut shaming, of assumed distance, that the fault in slut shaming is a sorting error: 'No, she is certainly not a slut'! This preserves the slut as contemptible rather than focusing on those who attack women who violate compulsory virtue..."
So adults in this place have been surprised, if indeed not shocked, that normal young women from stable middle-class families have erotic sex lives. The fundamental premise of both the girls' critics and their defenders is that normal sex–meaning the public concept of what most people do–is the only acceptable kind of sex. But as sex therapist Marty Klein asserts in his book Sexual Intelligence, "'Normal' is an attempt to establish boundaries around sex so it can't escape, acquire too much power, or hurt others. 'Normal' is an attempt to make sex small enough that it doesn't threaten us or even require us to grow."
In that context, these young women are more likely to have a healthy attitude towards sex than any of the people who have been passing judgment on them.
Kevin Baldeosingh is a professional writer, author of three novels, and co-author of a history textbook.