Selfie Pleasure

Go google selfie now

Let me tread lightly to begin here. The definition of a selfie as we are most familiar with it is a handheld arms length photo usually taken with a cell phone camera. I haven't done any research or looked up any studies but I'm gonna make a bet that females make up a larger percentage of selfie takers than men just because...you know, society is obsessed with our appearance on a level that far surpasses the obsession with how men look.

Okay, so I started taking photos of myself for the first time as a teenager. This was before cell phones or digital technology. I was old school with a Nikon film camera and a tripod handed down to me by my dad. Every woman has a unique relationship to her reflection, to her appearance. I can only speak to mine. I had no desire at the time to share any of these photographs with anyone except maybe my closest peers and even then I never took photos of myself to be seen by anyone but me. It just never occurred to me. I took them, had them printed and looked at them and sometimes put them up in my room. I was looking at many things when I looked at these pre digital age selfies. I was scrutinizing, admiring, making choices. Most of my photos of myself were taken by my dad who was and is the photographer in my family. Having the opportunity to turn the camera on myself as a teenager was an act of empowerment for me. Here, I could look at things about myself which did not require obligatory smiling and thoughtful outfits or whatever would suit the occasion for the kind of photographs parents traditionally take of their children. I could be serious, flirtatious, funny, naked, sad, ironic, and even things which I could not readily identify by looking. It was an experiment for the most part which I never desired to share with anyone. I didn't think of myself as a photographer then but a writer. The camera was like a toy to me and I was open to discovering what it uncovered for me in ways that were very different from what had been demonstrated by my father's photography which I also loved.

I'm reluctant to say that most selfies are bad self portraits. It would really depend more on what you look for in a good photo and what constitutes a good photo for you. For many females in this generation the selfie is nothing more than a photo of the physical self in order to show for example, what you wore that day, make-up choices, jewelry, etc. But the over arching message is "Look at me." That's it. Look at me. Because selfies are put out into the world in such volume and at such a staggering rate and seen by so many, there is no doubt that the intention is to be "seen." Again, I don't want to make assumptions but my guess is that when you're super invested in getting out a stream of selfies to be seen by whatever public you cater to, you're probably more concerned with their response than your own. Digital technology does that. In a Capitalist society, commercialism has a very pervasive nature even when you try to avoid it. Case in point, my clever word play in the title of this blog. In our culture the idea of self pleasure is titillating and eye catching and selfies are an extension of that. I think every woman should get off on her own selfie but I would encourage us to get behind our own self creation in ways that take apart the well worn gaze of constructed social ideals of acceptability which seek to validate some and ostracize and demonize others.

The selfie does not always have to be about "beauty" persay. It can also be about documentation. It can be about exposing injustice or deconstructing an idea. But I get just as excited and inspired by selfies of a new shade of nail polish, a favorite outfit (I love taking fitting room photos) or someone in their favorite spot in Central Park. I try as often as I can to see the truth even in the most artificial forms of expression because it's what I respond to the most and it's always there whether or not it is the intent of the selfie taker. It's what stays with me. But then didn't someone say something once about truth being beauty?  I don't think beauty is something that should be avoided. It is however, within the context of selfies and in general an idea that bears constant rediscovery and redefinition.