*Content Warning: Mention of the word rape*
“You are my wife and it affects me when pictures are too sexy.” A distressed Kayne West proclaimed to Kim Kardashian.
“You built me up to be a sexy person and have confidence! Just because you’re on a journey and you’re in a transformation doesn’t mean I’m in the same spot with you.” Kim Kardashian’s response perfectly summarised the outlining issue. Men always want us to be sexy, until they feel they sexiness is no longer for them.
“I went through this transition where being a rapper, looking at all these girls and looking at my wife, like, ‘Oh my girl needs to be just like the other girls showing their bodies off.’ “I didn’t realise that that was affecting, like, my soul and my spirit.” Ok Kayne, but why does it affect your soul so much? Why is your spirit so broken because your wife is dressing sexy?
“A corset is a form of underwear. It’s hot, but for who though?” And there’s our answer. Kayne is afraid of sexually empowered women because he doesn’t understand why women are dressing sexy. If it’s no longer for his gaze, then who is it for? The answer may shock him more than a female nipple would shock Zuckerberg.
Women dress sexy for, brace yourself...themselves.
I know. Big shocker. A concept so ludicrous not even the great Kayne West can wrap his head around it. Though this is coming from the man who didn’t understand the fish-sticks joke, so are we all that shocked?
In all seriousness, this whole fear of women’s sexuality is getting old. I don’t know about you, but I am so tired of people trying to govern women’s bodies. And Kayne West is just a small example of an overarching narrative that I keep seeing in society.
Kayne West has found God. And to be quite honest, I couldn’t care less. I myself am not religious, but people can believe in what they want to believe. So good for him. My issue with Kayne’s new found spiritual journey is that he is trying to police not only his wife’s body, but his daughter's.
"I don't think North should wear crop tops just because I had her wearing a slip dress when she was 2 years old,” he said. “I think and feel differently now, now that I'm Christian.”
Now that Kayne is a Christian, he is dictating what his daughter can and can’t wear. Seriously, that is so messed up. North West is 6 years old and already experiencing what so many femme bodies have to endure, being told what we can and can’t wear in order to prevent men from lusting after us.
Our entire lives we are told to cover ourselves. Don’t show too much skin. Don’t let people know you’re wearing a bra. Hide any part of you that shows that you are a woman. My own father once told me I shouldn’t wear bikinis to the beach because “boys will stare." And that’s the most disturbing thing about the policing of women’s bodies; it’s that people do it because they know how men will view us if we dress “provocatively.”
Kayne West has sexualised women in the past. But since having a daughter, he has become self aware and reflective of the way he has viewed and treated women as sexual objects. And that’s great. But the problem is how he’s reacting to that. Now that he has a daughter he feels guilt for his objectification of women, but instead of asking men to better themselves, he is putting that blame onto women. He is projecting his own guilt onto his wife and daughter, and that is a problem.
Men are afraid of women’s sexuality because they know how powerful it is. Straight men’s greatest weakness is their desire for sex with a woman. They often turn into animals just to get it. You have any doubt that humans evolved from apes? Put a naked lady in front of a straight man and tell him he’s not allowed to touch her. Watch his “primal urges” kick in as he throws a tantrum over not having access to something he believes is his right. “This woman has aroused me, therefore she owes me sexual gratification.”
Ok I’m being harsh. Comparing men to apes is insulting. Even apes have more self control than most men.
Men like Kayne want a sexy woman, until they actually get one. Once they have her, they don’t know what to do with her. They’re afraid of her confidence and autonomy, they fear other men will lust after her and steal her from him, so they try to control her. Take Kayne West as an example. He went for Kim Kardashian because she was known for being sexy. And then when he felt her sexiness was no longer for him, he told her to stop.
When men cheat, they often blame the woman they cheated with instead of themselves. “She came onto me! She enchanted me with a spell! How was I meant to resist?” When men rape, they blame the woman. “She was wearing a sexy outfit! If she didn’t want my attention then she shouldn’t have made me so aroused.”
Maybe the issue isn’t women being too sexy. Maybe, just maybe...the issue is men. I'm a queer cis woman, which means I am sexually and romantically attracted to other women. And as a stripper, I am constantly surrounded by beautiful naked women. But do I try to touch them without their consent when they’re naked around me? No. Because I understand that just because I am attracted to them, it does not mean I have the right to invade their personal space. Even if they’re naked, it’s not an invitation for me to touch them. If I can control myself around women, why can’t men?
A lot of men have no self control. But instead of self reflecting, they point the finger at women. And thus the witch hunt begins. How powerful we must be to turn even the most respectful man into an animal. Women are always blamed for the sins of men, because men who commit sins don’t want to admit that they are wrong. Instead of teaching women not to wear certain outfits in order to avoid being the centre of unwanted attention, we should be teaching men to have some basic self control. But that would involve the men having to take the blame and work on themselves, and we all know how much they don't like to do that.
So instead, the guilt gets projected onto women. Wives, sisters, daughters and mothers have to carry the burden of their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons guilt. Men know how other men will view the women in their lives, because it’s the same way they view women.
We may have come a long way from the days of sentencing women to death for being accused of using witchcraft to corrupt the "innocent" minds of men, but the overarching issue still remains. Too many men are afraid of female sexuality, and will continue to blame women for their own sins. Most men will keep lusting after a sexually empowered woman, but will try to cover her up once she “belongs” to him. Because according to Kayne West, a woman should only be sexy for a man's viewing pleasure. And once she has been claimed by a man, why does she still need to be sexy?
We may as well still be accusing women of being witches. In fact, there are still countries where women are hanged, burned and tortured for not conforming to how men want them to act.
Instead of blaming women for being too sexy, maybe we should ask ourselves why is it such a problem to begin with? Let women dress however they want to dress. Stop sexualising little girls bodies. Don’t be like Kayne who’s masculinity is so fragile that his own wife and daughters bodies scare him.
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