Regarding the rise of Instagram as a platform for women to express their sexuality, Camille Paglia first describes what she sees as the problem:
Welcome to the flesh parade!… Instagram has grown into a global obsession, used by more than twice as many women as men. Mating has morphed into a digital mirage, dizzyingly multiplied on Snapchat and Tender. Instagram’s tweaked, filtered photos and videos are both boon and curse, sharpening self-definition yet intensifying social anxieties and risking physical safety via hypersexualized self-advertisement and fantasy.… An overwhelming number of today’s female-authored Instagrams seem stilted, forced and strangely unsexy.… The sexual revolution sought and won by my 1960s generation envisioned women as responsible, mature free agents, equal to men. We certainly did not foresee the ‘booty pics,’ reducing women to their buttocks like Stone Age fertility totems, would become a wildly addictive genre of Instagram self-portraiture.
Respond to this. Do you agree with Paglia: Is there a problem? By displaying “their buttocks like Stone Age fertility totems,” are women objectifying and devaluing themselves? Or, is this display of
sexuality empowering? Explain.
Your essay must include:
- The required length is 1,000 words in the body of your essay.
- You must use and correctly cite at least 3 sources (1 source can be from class readings, but 2 sources must be from San Jacinto College Library databases). These sources must be relevant to your claim and arguments about the painting or artist in question.
- As we have learned, a good argument needs to bring up at least one opposition to the thesis statement and then offer a rebuttal.
- Essays should follow MLA formatting and include correct MLA citations
- Remember, one paragraph = one idea or concept. It might help to make a brief outline for yourself so you know what you will say before you begin.
- Essays should have a clear introduction ending in a thesis statement, clear topic sentences (located clearly at the beginning of each paragraph), focused paragraphs (that ultimately refer back to the thesis in some way), and a solid, strong conclusion.