I’ve got a bone to pick with you, Instagram. I liked your vibe, the pretty pictures and wellness bloggers, vegan food and slime squishing videos; there were no arguments in the comments, I could control who I saw and who saw me. I thought it was social media paradise, but then I gained more followers and the burden that comes with it: harassment. All of the sudden, things I posted, that I’d always been posting, were being flagged. My inbox surged with gross messages and reporting didn’t stop them. In trying to make a point, I was threatened with removal from the platform. Why? Plenty of reasons: mass reporting, bullies, but at the core of it was... nipples. The elusive woman’s nipple. It was ridiculous, such a small patch of skin that everyone has has caused such a fuss. There was a problem and I had to solve it. I researched and here is the conclusion I’ve come to: Women’s nipples should be allowed on Instagram as they do not violate the “no sexual themes” rule, they would be desexualized on a large scale; you’d promote equality, prevent cyber bullying, and will ultimately make you, Instagram, more money. I know, I know. Keep reading. 

I can’t say this loud enough. Breasts are a secondary sex organ. Chest enlargement is a result of puberty and hormone stimulation in all sexes; they’re not directly related to reproduction, which is to what “sexual themes” would allude. Here’s how puberty works: the hypothalamus starts producing hormones, which stimulates the gonads, and leads to the production of testosterone and/or estrogen and progesterone (everyone is different). This leads to the development of primary and secondary sex characteristics (Lipshutz). In boys, those secondary characteristics include: shoulders getting wider than the hips; enlarged chest; hair growth; muscle growth in the arms, chest, and legs; and the enlarging of the Adam’s apple. In girls, there’s hair growth, the hips get wider than the shoulders, the chest enlarges, and there’s increased fatty tissue in the breasts, shoulders, and hips (Haeberle, 1982). What’s the difference between muscle and fatty tissue on the breast bone? Sometimes, in men, it’s just fatty tissue as well. Sometimes, in women, there’s little to no fatty tissue and/or a large amount of muscle. Why is the appropriateness determined by an individual’s chosen gender identity? 

Now, let’s go through male and female reproductive anatomy, or primary sexual characteristics and organs. In females, this includes: the vulva, mons pubis, uterus, labia majora, labia minora, ovaries, vaginal opening, fallopian tubes, urethral opening, urethra, pubic bone, clitorus, cervix, os, and perineum. In males, this includes: glans, shaft, prostate, urethra, scrotum, epididymis, foreskin, vas deferens, cowper’s glands, testes, seminal vesicles, and seminiferous tubules (Lipshutz). Notice how NEITHER of these lists includes “nipple” or “breast.” Nipples can feed children, yes, but most of the time in male/female/non-binary lives, they’re completely useless and no more directly related to sexual activity than an lightly touched exposed stomach or a bare shoulder. They’re just there, hanging out. What makes the nipple the inappropriate part of this equation? Cleavage? Under boob? Side boob? Nope! If I put a pink sticker the size of my nipple over my nipple, it’s fine to post, the rest of my breast exposed. I can photoshop a man’s nipple onto my nipple and it’s fine. If I photoshopped my nipple on top of a man’s nipple, would that be against the rules? Why is this the rule? It doesn’t make sense. My nipple isn’t any more sexual than the rest of my breast, the rest of my non-reproductive anatomy, or any other gender’s nipple.

Everything can be sexualized; breasts have not abided by that rule for most of history and in most cultures around the world. It wasn’t until Christianity and Islam started their spread around the world that covering up women’s breasts became a traditional norm and cultural demand  (LaMonica & Smith, 2016). Most cultures around the world strutted around proudly with their bare chest until these people were told that that was something of which to be ashamed. “Breasts are an example of concealment feeding into sexual attraction today...” (LaMonica & Smith, 2016). Women have always been told to cover up what men found beautiful for fear of their gaze, but modesty should not equal sexualization. Victorians covered their ankles, the sight of one seeming to send the Victorian man into an orgasmic frenzy. Religions have required women’s hair be covered, only to be revealed to her husband or “God,” whoever that may be to you (LaMonica & Smith, 2016). All are symptoms of an even greater concealment: keeping our women suppressed , controlled, and obedient.  

Take, for example, the Golden Lotus: the Chinese art of binding women’s feet to be so small that they were ineffective doing what feet are meant to do: walk around on. The culture found this extremely sexual (LaMonica & Smith, 2016). It’s no coincidence that the act was parallel with keeping women prisoner, only to be moved at their captor’s (husband’s) whim. While this is no longer the norm, there are still people who find feet sexual. There are instagrams dedicated to foot fetishes. Should these accounts be blocked for sexual content? No more than breasts or ankles should be. Who gets to decide the norm on what’s sexual? Everything CAN be sexual, yet you hold a significant amount of  power in deciding what’s acceptable, Instagram.

Our modesty preferences have no business being pushed onto others. The Papunya community in Australia had every right to practice their thousand year old traditional topless dance. They were proudly dancing and celebrating until police came in, sexualized and shamed off their own land (2004). The Reed Dance Festival in South Africa encourages the preservation of childhood virginity, with open discussions about sex to reduce teen pregnancy and the spread of STIs. Everyone is topless at this festival, men, women, and children, no matter what your identity as. They don’t feel that breasts are sexual, it’s their norm (2011). Northern Europeans practice nudity frequently, particularly in sunbathing. To them, the naked body isn’t inherently sexual (Märlender & Möhring, 2015). We are taught that, and as a result, we fully sexualize our most natural selves. Being naked doesn’t mean you’re available for sex, but we all think that, don’t we? Nudity isn’t consent, and we are not brainless, animalistic, rapists. 

What happens when breasts are sexulized to the extent they are now? No shocker, it’s most harmful to the people we’re trying to protect: our children. “Morandi (2011; in source reference) has theorized that sexualizing experiences lead to an internalization of both the paramount importance of how one “appears” and beauty ideals which, in turn, leads to self-objectification” (Karsay, Knoll, & Matthes, 2017). Let me be a little more clear; self-objectification is when people view themselves as objects and for someone’s use, not what we actually all are: humans. Self-objectification is a learned trait. We’re not born feeling ashamed of our bodies. Cultural sexualization, telling us that our nipples,breasts, and other body parts are sexual from a very young age, can affect psychological and mental health for an individual. Cognitively, it teaches us to value appearance over competence. Behaviorally, it encourages chronic body monitoring, which is linked to mental health problems (Karsay, Knoll, & Matthes, 2017). I weighed 40 pounds until I was around 12. I didn’t pass up 100lbs until my senior year of high school. Still, I was anorexic for much of high school because my stomach wasn’t flat. I was flat chested, and then I woke up one morning with a D cup. I went from being anxious about how little breast I had, that I wasn’t woman enough, to being called a “slut”, and struggling with being sexualized immediately at 14- years- old by my peers and family. Why? Society told them to regard me in this way because of timely, natural changes to the body I was born with. Boom: a child’s breasts are sexualized. 

Men experience this in a similar way with characteristics thought to be masculine. Their muscles aren’t toned enough; their chest isn’t big enough; they’re not tall enough. The difference is men aren’t forced to cover themselves. They’re allowed to be topless in public. No non-sexual organ is off limits for them to show off. They’re allowed to be prideful in their appearance; no one shames them for that. They get to choose. Women don’t receive that opportunity. 

In a meta analysis of 50 studies about sexualizing media’s effect on viewers, it was identified that there’s an increase in self-objectification when exposed to sexualized media content; that increase is even higher in minors. As an individual is exposed to more sexualizing media, their self-objectification increases, and this affects everyone regardless of gender, age, and ethnicity (Karsay, Knoll, & Matthes, 2017). This is linked to eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression. It can also inhibit the development of healthy sexual self image (Zurbriggen, et al., 2007). We’re teaching our children to view their breasts as sexual and wrong, and lowering their self-esteem for the rest of their lives, and we don’t even have to! Why are we doing this to our children? Why are we doing this to ourselves? What does it accomplish?

So far, this is all deeply negative…. But what happens when we throw away those learned stigmas and modesty and embrace our natural form? It’s been tested time and time again that everyone hates their body, it doesn’t matter what size or shape we are. It’s not perfect, so we hate it. The bodies we’re exposed to are perfect, after all, across the photoshopped media, and negative body image stems from the pressure to achieve those unrealistic perfect body standards. Naturalist activities counteract this feeling. Naturalism, nudism, practicing non-sexual public nudity, reduces body monitoring. When we’re exposed to regular bodies and we see how not normal everyone is, and how beautifully unique we all are. Brief exposure to heavier bodies increased preference for heavier bodies. After a life drawing session in an art class, women report having higher body positivity. Body image and self-esteem are directly linked, and self-esteem is linked to life satisfaction (West, 2017). We all want to be happy, right?

“But what about our children? They’ll be scarred for life!” Not so, my friends. Think back to the first naked body you saw no matter the gender. Was it one of your parent’s in a safe environment? Was it in a non-sexual context? Was it an average body, or was it a porn star? I’m going to go ahead and guess it was a porn star. That’s how most of us see our first naked body. It’s what the internet gives access to and we get to search for anything we want, in any context. Is that really what we want our children to see when they first look at a naked body, perfect and dripping with sex? Is that what we want them conditioned to search for when curiosity peaks? Because it will. Probably not, so let me throw some facts at you. 

Research has failed to support that exposing your child to non-sexual nudity has any negative psychological effects. In a study done analyzing the relationship between naturist activity, positive body image, and life satisfaction, there was a correlation between naturist activity and positive body image. The reverse model didn’t fit. Two additional studies were done at nudist events. You know what they found? People had stronger body positivity after the nudist event (West, 2017). Non-sexual nudity doesn’t scar our children and make us sex crazed animals, it desexualizes our bodies. It naturalizes our body’s functions and form. Imagine that world. I can. I bet it’s full of open and honest consent and self-love. And I’m not even saying let’s go for full nudity on Instagram; I’m asking you to meet me, us, all of us, half way. Nipples aren’t sexual and mass nudity improves body image. 

Now let’s talk about you, Instagram. 

We all know Instagram’s support team is lacking. You can never get an actual person to talk to; it’s all run by algorithms, which is no secret. This begs the question, how is an algorithm supposed to censor photos? Let me tell you, it’s not. Here’s how that WOULD work. You type a code that basically says “Search through all the pictures and remove it if there’s a female nipple.” Sounds easy, but it's not that simple at all. You have to define each thing in your command. How does an algorithm define a nipple? And even if you could define a nipple, how do you have the algorithm distinguish between male and female nipples? They look the same across sexes, differences manifesting in people, not sex. So how does it work? From what we can tell (we being anyone that's actually looked into it), the algorithm is based on the amount of times a picture or an account gets reported. However, I've found no evidence to support reporting messages works in the slightest. So, if a post/account gets reported a certain number of times, it triggers the algorithm which acts automatically. If real people aren't going through censoring Instagram, and the algorithm is only triggered by high amounts of reports, the power to push people off the platform resides in anyone that wants to launch a bully campaign towards a specific user. Effectively, Instagram is hands off when it comes to their own platform (Lorenz, 2018). 

Harassment mostly happens in the DMs on Instagram. Women are sent disgusting messages, people are bullied for their differences, so we report those messages. Nothing happens, “They didn’t violate anything,” the Instagram Bot says. Then OUR accounts/posts start getting reported and for some reason, the Instagram Bot says WE violated their terms and conditions.

The account @DaniDiamondPhotography was taken down for violating their terms, but which terms, Instagram didn’t say. He filled out forms to get his account back and never heard anything. So, he wrote an article about it. It was popular. An hour after it was posted, his account was restored with still no explanation (Diamond, 2016). 

A boy with a rare form of dwarfism, Brandon Farbstein, had an account to encourage and empower people like him, to educate about his condition. He was bullied every day in his inbox, death threats, stalking, and he’d report them. Never once did Instagram decide these messages he got violated their terms (Lorenz, 2018). Pretty sure death threats are illegal, Instagram. 

Joanie Diana Goss started posting screenshots of gross messages she’d get in her inbox. She’d post them on her Story. She’d reported these messages and had never gotten any sort of help from Instagram. The screenshots of these gross messages were flagged, but not on the accounts they came from. Goss’s account took the blame for violating Instagram terms (Lorenz, 2018).

Evelina Forsell, @evelina.forsell, posted a picture of herself in a bathing suit as advertisement for the bathing suit company. Instagram took it down for sexual content. She reposted it, saying, “Fck u Instagram for body shaming me.” It’s still up on her profile.

I’ve done the same thing on my account, posting gross messages on my Instagram Story. I was solicited for prostitution, which is illegal (Figures 3-7). Reported. No violation (Figure 8). I’ve been harrassed, reported, and still they saw no violation (Figure 1 and 2). A picture I posted was taken down for “sexual content.” My traveling partner, Carl, @carl.wilk, posted the same picture on his profile, tagging Instagram in the description. It’s still up today (Figure 11). I can’t post a picture of my own body, but a man can, I suppose. I was shadow banned, meaning I didn’t show up in hashtags or on my friends’ feeds. I was blocked from liking posts for 24 hours at a time multiple times. I started posting pictures I found that violated Instagram’s guidelines and were still up, then reporting them. I’d tag Instagram every time, asking, “Are you gonna delete this @Instagram?” Pictures of woman’s unedited nipples posted by men, men’s bare asses, men wearing baithing suits and underwear strongly outlining and emphasizing their penis, drawings of sexual acts and naked people, straight up porn, for weeks. Instagram could easily find these accounts and take action, but they didn’t. Instead, my Story was flagged for, you guessed it, sexual content, and I was threatened with deletion (Figure 9 and 10). None of the posts I reported were taken down. 

Your process is broken, Instagram. 

You’ve created the perfect playground for bullies. People make groups on Reddit to go flag people and get their account taken down. These people are pulling one over on you and it’s working. 

Karina Newton, Instagram’s head of public policy, says, “Bullying and harassment are completely counter to the experience we work to create. We want to stop this behavior, but we know we have a lot more to do.” Well, that’s an understatement. Your system doesn’t work at all, and we know you’re not working on it. You have a team you share with Facebook of 20,000 employees for safety and security. 7500 of those people review content from 3 billion users, (1 billion on Instagram, 2 billion on Facebook). Ya’ll, that’s not enough. And you know what your employees say about the system? They say not many people are actually “working on it,” and the guidelines and procedures are not in line with what the company says to the public (Lorenz, 2018). 

Here’s a genius idea, hire more people! 

But here’s another genius idea, let all of us show our nipples. 

Wouldn’t that cut the content you have to review in half? That’s less people you have to hire right off the bat. We’ve already learned that breasts aren’t sexual organs, so they don’t even classify as sexual content. Your algorithm can’t even sort through these pictures for you, so you’re letting trolls censor your content incorrectly for free. And isn’t that letting the terrorists win? No one will be scarred for life if they see a nipple, no, not even our children. Moreover, no one will be harmed. In fact, we’ll encourage our children to love their bodies more. You have 3 billion people under your influence, Instagram. If YOU say, “Boobs aren’t sexual,” think about how that could change the world. Suddenly, breasts aren’t taboo. Women can breastfeed freely, and take our shirts off when it’s hot outside and we’re doing yard work. Some, not all, but some of your bullying will stop. It will get easier to monitor the bullying. Boobs won’t be some secret sexual taboo fantasy everyone’s chasing after anymore. They’ll just be our chests, a tool to feed our children, a sexy chest, a well worked out chest, a flabby chest, a hairy chest, a loved chest that belongs to a person. You can do that, Instagram. You can change a world’s perspective. Think about all the money you’d make. Think about all the new users that would join with the new found freedom. Think about all the more ads you’ll get to show. Think about how remembered you’ll be! Think about how much it will benefit everyone! But we can’t forget... the money. I know ya’ll like that stuff. Let that be your incentive, it’s okay. Millenials like honesty, and all the other benefits will just be for us, your users. Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone. So, let my nipples be on Instagram; they’re just as sexual as Carl’s. How about it; interested in changing the world today? I am.

References

Asia-Pacific | Aborigines' fury over topless ban. (2004, February 27). Retrieved October 8, 2019, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3493408.stm

(2004)

Diamond, D. (2016, September 15). Instagram Deleted My Account with 135K Followers. Zero Warning. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://petapixel.com/2016/09/14/instagram-deleted-account-135k-followers-zero-warning/

(Diamond, 2016)

Haeberle, E. J. (1982). The sex atlas: new popular reference edition. New York, NY: The Continuum Publishing Company. Retrieved from http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/index.html

(Haeberle, 1982)

Karsay, K., Knoll, J., & Matthes, J. (2017). Sexualizing Media Use and Self-Objectification. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 42(1), 9–28. doi: 10.1177/0361684317743019

(Karsay, Knoll, & Matthes, 2017)

Lipshutz, J. (n.d.). SECTION I: Reproductive Anatomy and Physiology. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/hs/pubhealth/modules/reproductiveHealth/anatomy.html

(Lipshutz)

Lorenz, T. (2018, October 15). Instagram Has a Massive Harassment Problem. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/instagram-has-massive-harassment-problem/572890/

(Lorenz, 2018)

 

(2015, February). Retrieved from https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/ges/20480260.html

(Märlender & Möhring, 2015)

Reed Dance Festival 2011. (2011, September 10). Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://web.archive.org/web/20130116151210/http://kzn-media.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Reed-Dance-festival-2011/G0000PpNh1jfxpew/I0000elXHH3U_CEw

(2011)

Smith, M. (2016, January 31). No, you’re not ‘hardwired’ to stare at women’s breasts. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://theconversation.com/no-youre-not-hardwired-to-stare-at-womens-breasts-53449

(LaMonica & Smith, 2016)

West, K. (2017). Naked and Unashamed: Investigations and Applications of the Effects of Naturist Activities on Body Image, Self-Esteem, and Life Satisfaction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 19(3), 677–697. doi: 10.1007/s10902-017-9846-1

(West, 2017)

Zurbriggen, E., Lamb, S., Roberts, T.-A., Tolman, D., Ward, M., Collins, R., & Blake, J. (2007, February 19). Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2007/02/sexualization

( Zurbriggen, et al., 2007)

All screenshots in Figures are my own.