It started around midnight. I had gotten out of the shower, pulled on my cozy pajama bottoms with little drawings of the Eiffel tower on them, and snuggled into my warm bed. When my phone illuminated and began pinging insistently. I let the phone’s light roll over me. One after another I saw @g_bizz92 had liked every single one of my pictures on Instagram, and had also begun to DM me on the app’s direct message feature.

First, I felt surprise. Who was this guy? I assumed I must have met him if he had found me on Instagram. But then after scrolling through his direct messages I felt disgust. When they began they were almost like digital catcalls. And he wasn’t the first. Ever since I moved to the city, these digital cat-callers have Facebook "friended" me, tried to slide into the DM’s and more. I knew that cat-callers I experienced while living in Harlem were harmless men loitering along 125th street yelling in the wind to the women who passed by. They just yelled to amuse themselves and pass the time. But this guy, and the others on line, had the power to see my whole adult life, and I had given it to them for their ready assumption. To him these images were not my life but rather objects to feed his predatory gaze. I was no longer deemed a human but an image with the possibility of sex. He was brazen enough to message me. He thought the image he saw was real enough to message back.

I was 15 when I finally knew, the person who I saw was not the person everyone else knew. My visage was being constantly distorted and reiterated back to me by those around me. I didn’t quite understand how even my best friends and teachers had gotten me all wrong. Walking through a predominately white high school I felt hyper visible and invisible at the same time. Instead of loud cat calls, whispers followed me. Somehow rumors of my sexuality and imagined sexual exploits would always come to me, usually by a noisy acquaintance. I was to them the two Black female tropes that Melissa Harris Perry talks about in her book “Sister Citizen.” I was a Jezebel, a Sapphire (Sassy Black Woman). The boys in highschool, like @g_bizz92 saw me as a Jezebel, a Black woman who is sexually available to a man’s every wish and whim. The few parties I attended were filled with blond haired, blue eyed young men clad in salmon shorts. I mostly remember their freely grabbing hands and the sudden drunk interest that they bestowed on me. I guess I should’ve felt grateful for the attention, but the attention was for something more than I could give them on those nights. Most of my teachers and friends saw me as sapphire forever prepared with sass and jokes, they were unable to see my vulnerable side. I was trapped in assumptions and levels of oppression I did not know I had to navegate.

Images do the same thing that writers do, they set up an argument, a tension, and then a resolution. They create a story through pictures, but also they use the implicit as fodder for their argument. On instagram I thought that I was portraying a person who was fun, young, and a person who cherished family and friends. After a quick scroll through my followers list I found that most of my followers were either men or fake-instagrams filled with naked women. Nothing I’ve ever posted on social media has nudity in it. But because I am a young black woman on instagram there is an implicit sexuality that is read into my photos. I thought I was just popular on instagram because so many people I did not know followed me- I have over 800 followers. But the truth was that instagram is a place where assumptions work on my image and only garner attention I do not call for.

My body isn’t white, but there are aspects of my body that are likened to whiteness, the lightness of my skin, the shape of my nose, my thinness, it all gives me the seemingly harmless privilege of “Beauty”. And I was taught, through film, disney movies and images, that “beauty” is the first thing a woman should have. But my beauty is complicated. Because there are other factors at play, because I can be easily recognized as not white, my beauty is also put into another category of fetishization. I’ve also learned that beauty in ways will give you so much privilege, but it is rooted in oppression of others who are not deemed beautiful, and not deemed worthy. If I were darker, larger, disabled, then perhaps people would tell me that I should be grateful for these catcalls, the way I’ve seen people tell others on the internet. My privilege is that no one has ever told me to be grateful for violence. No one should ever be told that.

Gender also plays a role in how bodies are viewed. A woman’s body is not her own. It is her family’s and it is societies. I always hear my parent’s voices in my head when I put on shorts that expose much of my thighs, sometimes their voices are overwhelmed by those of the catcallers around me. Their voices justify all the others. If everyone agrees I look slutty, than I must be a slut, rather than comfortable. My mom would always raise her eyebrow when she condemned my choice of shorts or skirts. To her, she was trying to protect me from the catcalls, from the implicit violence that is implied in their shouts. She was trying to teach me that how I presented myself could be a strength, if I wore the right clothes, or a vulnerability. If I dressed the way I wanted then I was a Jezebel, a slut. And sluts have no value in this world.

My mom’s questioning of my attire is problematic because it sets up an ideal woman against an undesirable one, putting more moral and ethical judgment on the victims of gendered and often racial oppression. Justifications begin to to evolve as to why those women aren’t valued. The women who survived sexual harassment and violence were promiscuous, dumb, too feminine or too masculine and thus deserved violence or never saw it coming, rather than put the judgment on those who inflict violence on women.

I thought that if I post on Instagram and I constantly look at my photos on Instagram I could ensure my existence. I thought my existence is in these photos and the value of my existence was within the followers and likes. I could measure my importance by how many people have seen my videos, how many people have clicked a little red heart for my pictures. But I was really opening myself up for harassment. I thought that heart indicates that my followers love me, they value me, they cherish me. And that’s everything I wanted from Instagram. But while vulnerable in bed I can see how much I’ve been duped. My insecurity stemming from not being seen most of my life led me to try to produce more images of myself to the outside world. And even realizing the harassment inflicted on me I have to be realistic in understanding how much worse it could be. With every photo and video featuring myself I thought I was showing the world the person I really am, unfortunately others took possession of my images and put their own assumptions and preconceptions to them. Reinforcing my mother’s lesson that my body is not my own. But where she is wrong is that my image will not protect me, what I wear, do, say, will not protect me from those who wish me harm and only see me as an object. Although this is a depressing thought, it also is liberating. There is no reason not to be yourself, because nothing you do will change how others perceive you. Live your life to the fullest… and also turn your Instagram to private.