I am an amateur photographer, and I’m told I take a pretty good photo. The most important thing I’ve learned about the art is that each photo tells a story. It can inspire a feeling, remind you of something, spark a latent memory. But guess what? Bad photos in smeared bathroom mirrors, cluttered closets and in your bed also say something, some of which you probably won’t like.

We live an an Instrgram nation, where the story of you is taken in greedily, and in the dating world, is often used as a filter. Depending on what they are looking for, men filter according to goals–short term and long term. In general, a guy looking to have a serious girlfriend he can take home to his mom and feel like she won’t sleep with half his friends won’t be telling this story…

Let’s analyze this photo, shall we? What story is it telling about the subject? I asked my husband to answer. While he admits the photo is alluring, he also told me that if a woman sent him this, they wouldn’t be getting out of the house much. Yep; she’d be the booty chick. Would she get some attention and instant gratification that goes along with posting such a photo? Sure! But how long would it last? About as long as it take for the dude to reach an orgasm.

And while such encounters are being force-fed as “empowering” to the young and silly, that fact of the matter is, to be used as an instrument of another’s pleasure, being a vessel for sex, with a fleeting or nonexistent emotional connection leaves you feeling empty, used, lonely, and hungry to fill up that hole again. As a wife and mother in my forties, I can’t lie that I once thought that my worth was in my sum of parts. As a dark-skinned, nappy-haired girl, I could see the types of women who were rewarded with long term relationships and marriages to quality men. By far, it was the light skinned women with the “good hair,” who seemed to always get a man–she could be rail thin, 100 pounds overweight, a litter of kids from different men, didn’t seem to matter. If a dark girl was to be noticed, her ass and tits had better be displayed as appetizers for greedy, hungry eyeballs.  So, needy for attention myself, I wore the tube dresses and the Daisy Dukes, and thank the gods there was no Twitter or Instagram. I wore those things not because I wanted to celebrate my body in the fullness of womanhood. I did it so the guys would holler. People in my circle are reporting girls as young as 10 and 12 are partaking in such behaviors, and if anyone thinks that this is somehow empowering young black girls, you need to come close to the screen so I can slap your ass.

Now of course, things have evolved so much that even these women are being passed over for the women colorstruck men really wanted in the first place.

I’ll also be honest with you that I never took photos like this, but I suspect the same reasoning applies. Photos like this are in abundance on Facebook:

Now does that mean that showing any skin at all is wrong? Of course not. But ask yourself, what’s the story? What is this image SAYING? For example, the woman is fully naked. But what’s her story?

Do you think this woman’s primary goal is to provide consumption for horny, sweaty men looking to jack off? Nope. She’s displaying the awesomeness of the female body entwined in a very difficult advanced pigeon pose that I’m STILL trying to twist myself into after years of practice.

I also want to make a disclaimer at this juncture. If you’re offended that humans make judgements based on how you dress, or huff and puff when strange men send you dick pictures after you posted a “head’s down, bottom’s up” pose, then you need a one way ticket to Jupiter. No amount of naked nipples in Times Square is going to change a cornerstone of human evolution. Tits and ass make heterosexual men horny. When your photo tells your story like this….

…Don’t come crying to me about how men only want to use you. By their mid-to-late twenties, high value men choose long-term girlfriends based on what they envision their future wives and mothers of their children would be. Does that mean that no man will ever love you because you put your ass on Facebook? No. But ask yourself, am I being loved at the level I deserve with a high-quality man, or someone who is needy with a rap studio in his grandmother’s basement? Like attracts like. Quality attracts quality.

And in closing, I’m all for the celebration of the female form, but in ways that will tell a complementary story, not grimy and bottom basement. This is lovely to me….

What’s her story?