I have two births on my schedule this month. And I’m feeling it in the air. That universal communication that happens between mother’s, their families, their midwives and birth workers, and myself when they hire me to photograph the delivery. If you’ve had a baby, you know the shift that happens in that last month before going into labor. That’s where I begin the prep for my work as well.
The polarity between that newborn energy in the air, and the posts that are filling my facebook feed, feels significant.
I don’t know why the super bowl, one of the most white centric and cult like public displays of entertainment, shifted something for me when it comes to birth photography, but it did.
It has to do with the endless facebook posts, critiquing and policing women’s body’s, with every comment being linked to the “sexuality” behind the performance. Attempting to shame the women involved, as a means of protecting children.
Which makes me curious, why do children need to be protected from women whose skin is showing? What are we protecting them from?
From seeing a display of female sovereignty that has not been displayed to that extent before? From unpacking the problematic belief our society has created, that the female body is primarily about sex? And that any extra skin, inherently makes the female body sexual and therefore “bad”?
“As a woman i’ve been on the other end of feeling like my body is somehow wrong. And as a birth photographer, i’ve seen the damage it can cause.”
Besides the endless amounts of information regarding the cultural references made in the dances and outfit choices, another justification I hear for the shaming around the performance is display of pole dancing. Pole dancing has been an art for hundreds of years, and is quickly headed toward becoming an olympic sport. I saw no more “sexual” behavior than I’ve seen on one of the more popular family shows, “Dancing with the Stars”, or from the cheerleaders at family events. Even assuming that pole dancing is primarily about sex (it’s not), is to dismiss the fact that sex work is a valid form of work. And people are allowed to do that kind of work, without it meaning they are “disempowering themselves” or “inviting” mistreatment. We wouldn’t consider any other business exchange where one party crossed a boundary, our own fault because our existence somehow “invited”it. Sex work is no different.
We will unquestionably expose children to men intentionally tackling each other to the point of permanent brain damage, but won’t draw the line at seeing women in leotards as provocation?
I’m not referencing what you choose to do in your home, as I am the “public shaming” you are choosing to take part in every time you tell another woman to sit down. Because as a woman i’ve been on the other end of feeling that my body is somehow wrong, and as a birth photographer, i’ve seen the damage it can cause.
I won’t go into the fact that the shame we have created around things that are “sexual”, is one of many reasons that sex trafficking is at an all time high. Shame will send people toward a level of evil and darkness that we can hardly comprehend. And once a person steps into that paradigm, it seems there are no limits they won’t cross. It’s horrible. It’s also not happening because of two Latina’s getting on the stage, performing in their cultural excellence. To equate the two, is to miss the many religious leaders that vulnerable children and teens are subject to, that are also predators. Predators exist everywhere. It has nothing to do with this specific half time performance or the amount of skin the women showed.
To me, the fear and shame response to that performance, holds a similar charge that can lead down the path to what becomes as sadistic and horrible as sex trafficking. To link female nudity with sex trafficking, is to completely miss the point of what creates the need for sex trafficking to begin with. The shame that leads to secrecy. Secrecy that festers until it needs to cross the line further and further, with nothing ever being enough. In what world is your shame around that performance, not leading to the same idea that women are objects that need to remain covered if they want to be treated well?
Seeing people police the women who performed, wasn’t just a message for Jlo and Shakira, it was a message for all of us, about the female body, and it’s going to echo in our delivery rooms. It is the reason child birth can be so transformative, jarring, and existential for those involved.
When the female body is at the fore front, as opposed to the privacy and secrecy society has traditionally asked for when it comes to childbirth, it gives us no choice but to face our own programming that associates female nudity as being bad. As a birth photographer, one of the most common things I hear from women, is feelings of shame around having others present at their delivery. When I first started out, it was common for my clients to apologize as soon as I walked in the room, for how “unpleasant” it must be for me.
And I can’t stop thinking about that, and all the ways we contribute to it, when we fill our social media with words about how “out of line” the performance was. The same messages we pick up from an early age:
Don’t show too much skin. Stay polite. Stay classy. Your body is wrong. It makes us uncomfortable. We don’t want to be uncomfortable.
I think about the amount of silencing and policing instagram and facebook do, when they continually remove and shut down accounts that post breastfeeding or female nudity of any kind. Photos of female bodies that are doing nothing but existing, and are somehow associated with sex and being “bad”.
I think about the two births I have scheduled this month and the many more I want to be apart of. I think about the two tiny souls coming into the world, and the blank slates they will be. I wonder what kind of world we will be for them. What kind of messages their community will send to them, as they grow and absorb the information they are (already) receiving. And I think about the messages we keep sending their mothers, which this week was this:
Sit down and apologize. You only exist to be good.
And with my work, I hope to send the opposite message.