i uninstalled tiktok from my phone three days ago, noticing the irritation at my videos not doing very well in the algorithm yet again and realising i was getting too invested in numbers, the usual story. i left a daily fit check video behind, short shorts and a black turtleneck with my beautiful lace-up brown leather heels hoping to be the focal point. i was awaiting comments on my outfit, maybe my makeup. i follow a lot of girls around my age online. ones whose style i take inspiration from, i always try to leave nice comments when i see something i like about their video.
but due to my frustration at the everlasting gain game, i shut the app and took a break, leaving my video on a little under 100 likes. what i didn’t expect when i logged back in was an abundance of new followers, hundreds of them, thousands of views, and oh… more comments than i usually get.
it was off-putting to see the plethora of comments rolling in from men, some more than thrice my age. not commenting on my outfit, or even my face really. just my body. it seems my shorts had the algorithmic pendulum swinging all the way over to that particular dark corner of the app’s user base. some of them took the liberty of going all the way over into my direct messages to attempt to get my attention or to go and comment on my other videos. i quickly removed the video from being public and set it so only mutuals could see it.
i’ve had a decent share of unpleasant comments left for me in the past. typically under videos of me playing bass that i have uploaded to both tiktok and reddit. i’ve even had a guy on reddit get so mad at the idea of a woman such as myself playing bass guitar that he sent me a several-paragraph long message of his detailed — and violent — rape/murder fantasy about me, and yet this seemed to blow my mind even more for some reason. those 100 saves made me feel weirder. made me feel more objectified than some random stranger’s shitty expression of his anger towards me. the genuine lust and desire-turned objectification thrown my way made my stomach turn more.
it feels incredibly dehumanising to be viewed in this way. reduced to nothing more than easy jerk-off material. i cannot wrap my head around the way they all comment like animals, telling me exactly what they think of me, of my body. some of the comments professed their love for my ‘natural look’ (unshaved armpits), some tell me i’m gorgeous and have a wonderful body. more disturbing ones comment on the appearance of my actual genitalia through my clothing, some on my chest. i only got one about my ass, but i think he was just letting me know it was flat, always good to be humbled after the ego boost from brain-rotted 65-year-old men drooling over a pair of legs and a little bit of ass.
it’s easy to say i could just stop posting videos posing in my outfits and shut the app, but these men exist in real life too. these are the same men that lock their eyes in on my body when i walk past them in the street, only to break it when they look up and meet my gaze, realising i am staring right back at them. noticing everything. and every single time i am looked at in that way, like a piece of meat to be devoured selfishly and cast aside, i want to shrivel up and hide away more.
i just spent five days in the netherlands with my mother, three of those in amsterdam exploring the city. it was gorgeously hot, a treat for someone english like me. i ventured out on my second day in those same short shorts and a camisole not thinking anything of it, definitely not expecting the onslaught of a days worth of degrading comments about to come my way.
unfortunately, hours worth of male tourists calling at me, staring, pointing, attempting to touch me when they got close ended in me returning to the hotel the first chance i got and abruptly changing my outfit. my mum screamed at one of them to ‘fuck off’ and they just laughed upon seeing her anger and my uncomfortable exhaustion.
the realisation that your body is often just seen as a vehicle for mens pleasure and satisfaction is a sad one, no matter how many times i re-realise it. no matter how many times i truly think nothing of the outfit i am about to leave the house in. the realisation itself is usually made worse for me personally because it’s rare i go out in an outfit i genuinely feel sexy and desirable in that i get catcalled or leered at. it tends to be when i am dressed ‘down’, maybe i’m in a bad mood, or i’m just minding my own business with my mum or my friends that a man decides to make it known of his desire for me. more-so his desire for my body.
it doesn’t matter how aware i am of the fact that men only tend to catcall to degrade and assert their dominance over us, i still fall to blaming myself deep down. catching the eye of any man who has seen me first. the men seem dazed and hypnotised, their eyes glossed over, unaware of my presence as a living human woman outside of the existence of my legs and breasts. my first instinct is to cover myself up, prevent them from being able to see me at all.
it always makes me laugh in a sick and disgusted way when men complain that women in revealing clothing are leaving ‘little to the imagination’ as if we are ruining the fun for them by wearing fewer clothes and tighter fabrics. ‘how dare you wear a short skirt and a tank top? now i can see your legs, now i can see your chest and your shoulders, i can no longer fantasise about what might be hiding under your jumper and your baggy jeans.’ they unmask themselves with that phrase. it doesn’t matter how covered up we are, they think about what we look like naked anyway.
now more than ever i am tired of being perceived in any way by men. i do not want to know what they think of me, i feel dread when they look my way, nice or not. the fact i am being seen by them at all takes me out of my mind and straight into the awareness of that i am being seen.
the denim short shorts i keep getting harassed in used to symbolise my memories of girlhood. they felt inherently innocent to me. the style of them reminded me of the shorts i used to wear as a little girl in the summer. i thought they were really cute. obviously i know that they are indeed quite short, however i had gotten to a really good point with my body where in my mind, no part of my body was inherently sexual. no part of it is, i still know that, but after being verbally violated in those shorts multiple wears in a row, i have ended up feeling really grossed out by them. as if i couldn’t see how ‘sexy’ i looked in them. maybe i was silly for not considering that my legs are those of a woman and not a girl now.
i am fearful of coming off as whiny for expressing my discomfort at being sexualised, as if it is a bad thing for people to find me attractive, ‘oh, poor me, people think i have nice legs and nice tits!’ (obviously i’m not actually complaining about that aspect of it, but i can see how it could come across that way) but i think for myself and maybe a lot of women there are so many confusing feelings that come between the dichotomy of wanting to be desired, wanting people to find me beautiful and sexy, but feeling so disgusting when they actually do. feeling shameful about it.
recently it has lead me back to the hatred of my own body, of my breasts, of my curves, of my sexuality. wishing to carve off or starve off the tits that protrude and draw attention that i don’t wish for.
i wish for spaces without male prying eyes, without judgement and perception. i just want to wear my cute little outfit and go walk around the city with my friends, feeling cool and beautiful without any worries about who the next person to shout something out at me will be and what vile words he will say that will continue to ring around in my head for a while.
all i know is that my denim short shorts are hung up on my clothing rack where they will remain for a good while now.
Ugh this is so relatable 🥲 I am completely uncomfortable in “sexy” outfits these days and I mostly wear baggy clothes. It’s so sad that I basically let those cat calling assholes win by being afraid to wear “revealing” clothes. The gaze is so disgusting and it makes me feel gross. In such a moment i just want to disappear. Also recognize your fear of talking about it with the possibility being called “whiny” because people find you attractive. I think people who say that must not know the feeling of being sexualized. Very well written piece 🤍
Absolutely incredible read! It’s unfortunately so relatable - makes me so angry how collectively as women we don’t have any safe spaces to wear what we want! And we will be shamed for everything, wearing too much, too little, the lot! X