Week 2 Reading - Phoebe-Jane Boyd's recent Guardian commentary on "sexy selfies"

 This article explores the history of women being presented in a sexual manner as an explanation to why we have seen this transfer into today's common selfies. A quote used in this reading by Berger is used as a historical look on this matter: 'men look at women. Women look at themselves being looked at'. This gives some explanation to why throughout history we have seen a frequent depiction of women in this way, for male pleasure. 

This articles overall explanation for the posting of sexual selfies is that it is an 'evolutionary game' and the winners 'maximise their lot in life'. Of course this is somewhat reductionist as it implies that the attention of a man is the only thing to strive for, as with it you have 'won' in life. But, this idea stems from the history of it all, where this was true. So it is possible to argue that those ideologies have been inheritably passed onto to todays society, therefore giving an explanation for why so many females post selfies in this manner. 

I think this is extremely interesting to look into for my own project. This can be applied as for my documentary this year we are looking into Onlyfans, and with this information we could look into the history of 'sex work' and how there is an explanation somewhat her for why it has always been so prevalent and has evolved over time.


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