My Single Mom Life

I'm writing an article, not sure if I'll post it here, but I will be submitting it to a women's issue type magazine, hopefully for publication.

Anyway, this mornings internet discussion was about women who post pictures of their breasts on the internet.
Now, as a woman who has been taking pictures of my breasts and submitting them to the boobiethon every year since 2003, I was intrigued by what was being said.

A young man asked the following question; (please try not to cringe at the obvious lack of writing skills)

Ok, is posting pics of ur g/fs boobs on the internet (with her knowing and being 100% ok with it) whore-ish??
i think it is but some ppl tend to disagree

A woman, a very young woman at that, age 20, said this;

If the girl posts a pic of her own boobs on the internet - whore.
If the guy posts a pic of his girls boobs on the internet - disrespectful.

So I threw myself into the fray and said no, it's not whorish at all. If the woman is ok with posting her breasts on the internet, bare or covered, it's entirely her choice, and not a whorish thing to do.
I used my own example of participating in the boobiethon, and people were all no no, of course that's not whorish, that's for a good cause!
But wait, it's still breasts, and some people sent naked ones and others covered ones.
They still said no, it was for charity.
Hrm.
The conversation kept going, just what type of picture of breasts posted to the internet, decides if it's a whorish picture or not?
One of my issues with the entire thread was that women were calling other women whores.
Why would any woman say something that degrades another woman?
Why would they send out such a harsh judgment on their fellow sisters?

One reply was, it depended on what type of site the pictures were posted to.
Charity sites like the boobiethon, where the pictures are helping to raise money for a cause, were just fine.
But sites like rate my tits (not linked for obvious reasons) and myspace profiles, were very bad, and definitely the sign of a whore.

A single fellow woman stood up and asked the same question, "What the hell is with women calling other women whores? Can't they just be proud and sexually confident?"
No, sorry, they can't.
Several more very young women spoke up to say breast pictures on the internet were whorish.
Even women who themselves have pictures of their breasts in varying states of covered, posted on this very forum.

Such odd judgments coming down from some very self righteous gals doncha think?
Luckily we had some other level headed women step into the discussion.
"I think there are so many other factors that make a woman a whore, pictures of boobs doesn't even cut through the surface of that one."

By definition- Whore: a woman who engages in promiscuous sexual intercourse, usually for money; prostitute; harlot; strumpet.

But we still had women coming in and saying that it was tacky, without class, and flat out attention seeking. Then we had some really silly, laughable answers like this one; "Ummm, that is whorish, why would you want other people to see your boobs when you have a b/f...those are your b/f boobs only!!!" Well boy, am I glad to learn that once I get into a relationship, that my breasts suddenly become the property of the boyfriend. I'll keep that in mind.

More and more of these young women were saying how tacky it is to post pictures of your breasts, because they were for your partners eyes only, no reason to ever post that shit.

The hypocrisy taking place was absolutely incredible, so I reminded them of their very own boobie pictures posted right there on that very forum, in their profiles and in threads.
Pictures they had taken at events and get togethers, where lots of alcohol had flowed, cameras were every where, and fun was being had, and suddenly the tune changed.
Suddenly it was totally ok to post pictures like those ones because it was for fun, but bare breasts were still tacky. And whorish.
It was even worse if the boyfriend posted the picture with the girls consent, it seemed to show a ton of disrespect, and made the girl an even bigger whore.
Questions were asked about if the girl did it for money, on a web cam type of site, or if she just did it for attention.
There were 'moral ideas' for which way and type of site, a picture could be posted and not be whorish, and which way they would be.

All of this got me thinking about how women treat each other, how we do far more damage to each others self esteem and sexuality, than any man could ever do.
It's pretty bad when a man calls you a whore, but when your fellow women say it about you, it's said with the most malicious intent.
We truly mean it, we have decided that you are a whore, even if you're not, (definition) and that we don't like you.
We have been your judge, jury, and social executioner, based on a picture you post on the internet.
We decide that our drunken pictures are perfectly acceptable, that it's fine if it's done in the name of fun and good times.
But any other reason aside from that and charity, maybe an artistic reason is acceptable, but art is subjective, is definitely bad, and you are not a good woman in the eyes of other women.
You lack class, you're trashy and tacky.

I honestly can't figure out why women do this to each other though.
It's certainly not for competition of affection from men, these women all have men in their lives, in secure and committed relationships, yet they will put down another woman for a bunch of reasons.
It's been said that women are very catty creatures, and it's true.
The claws come out and they attack.
But what we say to each other, is what we say about ourselves, it affects all of us women, not just the woman we are labeling.
We do damage to women as a whole, when we continue to use those words against each other.
We choose how we react to things, and what the message of our reaction is going to be.
If posting a picture of your breasts on the internet is not something you would do, then don't do it.
But we can decide not to impose our morality on other women by calling them degrading names. We can say that we would never do it, and then just leave it alone.
I don't understand how or why, we would continue to encourage the use of such damaging words, when the action that has been done doesn't even come close to the actions set forth by the definition of the word we tossed out there.