Ladies, can we talk about our bodies for a minute? I don’t mean the stretch marks, scars from childbirth or saggy skin we haven’t yet come to terms with. This isn’t that kind of post.
I want to talk about ownership of those bodies. And apparently, I need to talk about it because I just read a news story that sickened me.
The gest of it:
Model Bella Thorne, 21, recently posted nude photos of herself on social media as an “f*** u” to someone who allegedly tried to extort her by threatening to leak them.
This, of course, made Thorne a topic of discussion on The View, where host Whoopi Goldberg can be seen saying:
“Listen, if you’re famous — I don’t care how old you are — you don’t take nude pictures of yourself.”
Thorne responded with teary eyes in her Instagram stories.
“Shame on you Whoopi,” she said. “Shame on you, and shame on you for putting that public opinion out there like that for every young girl to think that they’re disgusting for even taking a photo like that.
“Shame on you.”
The former Disney star goes on to say:
“I don’t really want to go on The View anymore because I don’t really want to be beaten down by a bunch of older women for my body and my sexuality.”
The key words here are ‘my body and my sexuality.’
A young woman felt sexy enough, free enough and bold enough to take nude photos of herself. I happen to think that’s beautiful. It’s not slutty. It’s not stupid, and it’s not something she should be made to feel ashamed of.
It hurt me when she said she felt “disgusting” because that’s exactly how I would feel if someone shared nude photos of me without my consent.
I would feel disgusting and mortified, but I would have absolutely no reason to feel that way. The disgusting part is that someone would try to violate another person in such a hurtful way.
Shame on anyone who extorts women for sharing their bodies.
We share our bodies so often with the people we love as an expression of that love. How dare someone treat that as a business transaction? These are our bodies. We own them. We get to decide who we share them with and how we share them.
It’s not Whoopi Goldberg’s place or anyone else’s to tell us what we absolutely can’t do with our bodies. They are ours.
Still, I just can’t bring myself to say shame on Whoopi.
I really do think she was trying to advise Thorne and young women like her, not villainize them.
I’m a mother. I get wanting to warn your baby about how to avoid becoming prey to dishonorable people. Now, Whoopi’s tone was definitely too harsh, and I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to give an I-told-you-so speech when a person is embarrassed and hurt.
But at its core, this is not about Whoopi. This is about the disgusting person who tried to make a dollar off of a woman’s sexual freedom. Shame on that person.
Yes, shame on the extortionist, a truly disgusting person.
Personally, taking nude pictures has never been my thing, and I understand what Whoopi was saying, I just think Bella’s so hurt right now(by the extortionist) that she can’t receive the information Whoopi is sharing.
I agree 100% with your take on this topic. I think it was blown out of proportion. Whoopi definitely threw salt on her wounds but the advice was needed. When you’re in the public eye, unfortunately you have to be more careful than a regular person.