CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Posting Pictures Of Yourself on Facebook In a Bikini

Monday, May 28, 2012

this entry brought to you by sword and sworcery soundtrack, "the cloud"


I saw this link while wandering around the Internet, and I thought it was worth commenting on. It was posted on someone's blog called Young and Catholic, and it was an entry about how young women shouldn't post bikini pictures of themselves on Facebook.

1) Because EVERYONE that you are friends with (and more, depending on privacy settings) can see these pictures.

 Let’s stop and think about this for just a minute. Think carefully of all 812 of your friends. I’m sure you will come across at least one person that you wouldn’t want staring at you in a bikini. To put it another way: imagine putting on your bikini and knocking on the front door of random Facebook friend—we’ll call him “Bob”—‘s house, and then just saying, “Feel free to stare at me. I’m just going to stand here smiling.”

Are you sufficiently creeped out? Unfortunately, that’s really not much different than what you’re doing by posting that “super cute” bikini picture of yourself on Facebook.

(If you’re having trouble thinking of who looks at your Facebook, here are some ideas to start you off: Uncle Jim, that kid you went to highschool with, the random guy you added because he kind of looked familiar but you’re not really sure you know in real life, potential employers, your lab partner, etc.)

2) Because the good guys (i.e. – the guys you want to date) will choose to “hide” those pictures from their newsfeeds anyway

We ladies can be so naïve. That picture we took at the beach with our friends last Saturday? We see it as a great shot of us with our friends just having a good time, looking cute in our new bathing suit, and are thankful those crunches have paid off because our abs look darn good. We even often post these pictures with the hopes of catching the attention of that cute guy from school.

This is so misguided though. Assuming the guy you’re interested in is a good guy trying to do the right thing, he will not want to objectify you by reducing you to a mere collection of body parts. But asking a guy not to reduce you to a collection of body parts and then presenting him with an image of basically nothing but body parts is sending some seriously conflicting signals. (That picture is not inviting him to admire your beautiful smile…)

In other words, if the guy that you want to see this picture is a good guy with some discipline, he is going to hide the picture from his newsfeed because it’s an occasion of sin that he is wise enough to eliminate (and I have this on the authority of some pretty spectacular dudes). If he’s not, well then he’s just going to objectify you without a second thought. It’s a lose-lose situation. Either way, you’re definitely not getting the kind of attention you want.

3) Because you’d never post a picture of yourself in your bra and underwear on Facebook Right? Of course right. Let’s stop pretending that a pictures of us wearing material covering the exact same amount of skin looks any different.

4) Because your beauty is more than your body

Like I said, you will definitely attract attention from guys by posting pictures of yourself in your bikini, but they’re not going to be focused on your beautiful smile or your magnetic personality. Don’t believe me? Just check out the comments on anyone of you or your friends’ current bikini pictures. I’ll bet they all read something along the lines of, “Dayyyum, girl!” and use words primarily like, “hot,” or “sexy.” You’ll be hard-pressed to find a “beautiful” or a “lovely,” but isn’t this the kind of attention we want far more than being referred to as, “hot”?

It’s a cheap way to get attention, and let’s face it: it’s beneath you. You’re beautiful, and you don’t have to post a half-naked picture of yourself on Facebook to prove it. "


 Here's the thing: I actually agree with reasons 1, 3, and 4. When girls post pictures of themselves in a bikini, it's exactly like posting a picture of them grinding with a female friend at a bar, or open-mouth kissing another girl, or posting a picture of themselves with a big sign with an arrow pointing at their boobs that says "Look at these! Look at these! Post Comments About Them Below!"

And the comments they get from friends are just going to be variations of "I'D HIT THAT lol j/k srsly you look hot", and all that does is just activate that center of the brain that wants compliments and does nothing else. Women are beautiful. Pictures of them are going to be beautiful, bikini or not. Showing pictures of oneself where the center of attention is their personality and not just their body is obviously a much more dignified way of getting attention that doesn't also scream "attention whore". I mean, let's face it, we're all on Facebook to be acknowledged and appreciated by our peers, but that can be accomplished without desperation.

But then there's number two.

Listen, nobody, but nobody, is hiding pictures of a female friend on their Facebook list unless they're homosexual or a psychopath or both. Looking at and admiring a woman in a bikini isn't any more objectifying than looking at a woman and admiring her with all of her clothes on unless those bikini pictures are intentionally taken in an objectifying way by the girl posting them. It's ridiculous to think that anyone, good guy or not, wouldn't be able to look at a picture of a girl and be utterly unable to remove sex from their minds, and it's ridiculous to think that a man looking at a girl in a bikini is somehow being tempted towards sin no matter what. What about every dad that goes to the beach with his family? Is he able to see his daughter in a bikini and not think of sex? My guess is all he sees is his daughter in her bikini, and sex doesn't even enter his mind until she's got some idiot boy coming around offering to put sun block on her back, and in that case the sex he's thinking about is the kind he wants to destroy with his fists or a large stick or at least a harsh glare. And while I'm sure dad would frown if you posted that bikini picture of yourself on your facebook page, if he forbids you from wearing a bikini at all and you're a girl of appropriate age to wear a bikini, he too is a fucking psychopath.

Let me put it another way: I have never, not in my life, ever masturbated to a picture of a female friend in a bikini. Or anyone in a bikini. Not once. Do you know what seeing a girl in a bikini makes me do? It makes me smile. It might make me gasp. It might make my eyes go googly for a second and say "Homina homina homina". But does it force me to hide it from my eyes, lest I accidentally be tempted to think about sinning? It might, if I was violently repressing some sort of weird psychological issue or series of issues.



That, my friends, is how a child thinks. A child sees a girl in a bikini and says "Ew! Gross!" and averts his eyes. It makes him feel weird inside when he sees something sexually attractive, because he doesn't know how to react to those chemicals bouncing around in his body. It, in fact, does make him feel gross. Physically! But anybody above the age of being afraid of cooties is, in fact, above the age of hiding pictures a facebook friend posted of herself-- gasp!-- showing some thigh and some bare torso. He should, in fact, understand what those chemicals do and how they should make him feel. Happy, but able to control himself, and not having to violently repress himself lest he think about sinning.
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with love from CRS @ 4:08 PM 

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