The Female Gaze and the Sex Industry

One of the most damaging parts of girlhood is how we learn to use our bodies as currency. Tiny smiles, quiet voices, and batted eyes gain us capital. We are rewarded if we are silent when our boundaries are crossed. We are promised a special dessert if we agree to hug our strange uncle. Our parents allow us extra snacks or extra time at the playground if we let that suffocating aunt kiss our cheeks. We begin to learn.

As we get older, it begins to look like ever so slightly touching a male classmate’s arm as a way to convince him to help us on a homework assignment. It becomes low cut shirts that show just the right amount of skin so the man behind the counter at the movie theater doesn’t try to card us for the R-rated movie we’re trying to sneak into.

It’s watching movies where the female superhero’s only way of survival is to seduce the villain. It’s watching TV shows where if a man saves your life or an outcast substantiates his worth then he deserves to be taken to the bedroom or to have your hand in marriage.

And this mindset, this commodification of our bodily selves, is detrimental. It distorts and deforms how we see ourselves and our connections with the world. It places a “For Sale” sign on us and it says we can be bought. Where does that leave women? Scrambling to set the price.

So many women internalize this message of objectification. There is amplified pressure for young girls to conform to our sexualized narrative, leading to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and a drastic increase in eating disorders. Even our school dress codes objectify women: our little girls’ values are determined by shorts that are at least finger-tip length, straps that are three fingers wide, and clothes that are loose enough to shame them for having curves.

In a culture that teaches women from the earliest of ages that their value lies in their physical attractiveness and sexual appeal to men, being wanted sexually by men may feel validating. There is often the conception that selling sex can be empowering for women; it’s no wonder so many girls flock to the strip clubs to try to feel valued.

The Dove Self-Esteem Project found that only 11% of girls worldwide would call themselves beautiful and among the women in the commercial sex industry, that percentage is even lower. The sex trade is full of broken women who have accepted the fact that the only worth they have is the use men get form their bodies.

In a few years, our society will be made up of broken and traumatized young women who did all the things that were supposed to “empower them”; young women who clung to that false narrative even as they were being abused and exploited. They try to define their worth by the men who buy them and it’s time to teach them that they can’t be bought.