Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Many young women embrace sexualized, often-nude self-representations to celebrate their own subjectivity. By employing social media, they create their own images, and thus participate in what some see as “the democratization of the tradition of looking.” Young women who self-sexualize claim that such self-expressions are important means of sexual empowerment and of broadening sexual expectations regarding women’s appearance and demeanor. While recognizing certain benefits gained by women who self-sexualize, this paper examines why such self-representations follow sexualizing conventions present in popular media. In conversation with work by feminist social scholars and Christian sexual ethicists, possible limitations of self-sexualization are explored. In addition, it is argued that a more comprehensive definition of sexuality as well as applying principles of justice, and mutuality to sexual self-expression could offer a helpful corrective. Contemporary examples of reclaiming women’s bodies as sites of social protest as well as sites of pleasure will be also discussed.