Opinion: Posting your nipples online doesn’t make you more of a feminist

OPINION: Posting your nipples online doesn’t make you more of a feminist. Kristie Mercer’s nips are glorious, but she’s not getting them out.

Caitlin Stasey is a big fan of #freethenipple. Picture: Instagram

JUST because you post your nipples online, doesn’t make you more of a feminist. There I said it. As I sit at my computer with my nipples fully covered. Where they shall stay.

Before I go any further, I want to make a few things clear:

1. I am not a prude. In fact quite the contrary and have been known to regularly discuss my genitals and sex life in intimate detail on national radio.

2. I am not a woman-hating woman. Again, quite the contrary. I am a passionate and extremely proud feminist.

3. I do not have a deep-seated issue about my own nipples which has spawned into hatred of all the world’s nipples. I quite like my nips and have been complimented on them more than once. Just sayin’.

But regardless of my quiet (now not so quiet) nipple confidence, I feel zero, and I mean ZERO need to show them to the world wide web and I’m sick and tired of women posting theirs and acting as though the rest of us (women that is) should be eternally grateful. Because I’m not.

Miley Cyrus loves to show a bit of boob.

I’ve often felt intimidated by hardcore feminists and felt that I’m somehow not quite fem enough to class myself as one. As if there’s this secret handshake to get into the clubhouse like in Little Rascals that I’m not privy to.

For years I was uncomfortable to even call myself a feminist aloud, not because of a negative association with the word, but because I felt like a phony, that in some way I’d be exposed by the “real feminists” for not being legit enough.

I’ve feared that in disagreeing with Chelsea Handler, Cara Delevingne and Lena Dunham, all big supporters of the ‘Free the Nipple’ movement that argues women should have the right to show their nipples in public — that people will think I am disagreeing with gender equality.

Because that my friends, I am absolutely not. I just don’t see the big deal with Instagram’s guidelines stating “some photos of female nipples are not allowed”.

Cara Delevingne went topless for Free the Nipple campaign on Instagram recently.

To to be part of certain online communities, there are rules to adhere to, even if you don’t totally agree with them. That seems quite simple to me. Let me break it down.

• Instagram says “no female nipples’ to be posted.

• Woman posts photo of her nipples on Instagram.

• Instagram remove the photo.

• Woman gets mad.

If you’re not living day to day with your nipples exposed to the public, why the need to expose them to the public on your Instagram? If you were brunching topless, filling up with petrol topless, visiting the in-laws topless and even grocery shopping topless (the cold section could be troublesome, I’d suggest nip-eanies — beanies for your nipples. I’m patenting that don’t steal it) then I’d understand the frustration at Insta’s censorship. But you’re not.

That doesn’t mean I think women’s nipples as rude or dirty or shameful. In fact I see them as beautiful, sensual, life-giving parts of our bodies. I love my nipples. But do I have to prove that by posting them on my Instagram? No maam.

Hot tip — there are plenty of other spaces on the internet to post your nipples, trust me. Plenty.

We live in a world so completely oversaturated by (in particular female) nudity. I find fighting to expose even more of the female form than is already shoved in our faces daily a waste of effort when there are so many other gender based issues to be focusing our energy on.

Say girls’ access to education, female political participation and violence against women just to name a few. While I agree with the sentiment that “anything guys can do girls can do too,” fighting to post your nipples on your Instagram page seems to be a hashtag of an entirely different kind. #FirstWorldProblems

Kristie Mercer (left) is one half of the Thinkergirls.

Kristie Mercer is one half of The Thinkergirls — who chat all the thoughts you’re thinking but not saying weeknights on the KIIS network. Find the girls videos or podcasts on facebook or www.thethinkergirls.com.au