Showing the buttocks

They send me a screenshot where the reggaeton singer Yomil refers that "Nowadays women see it as normal to show their buttocks in a publication (...) but they lose all exclusivity".

The artist's statement was endorsed by almost all users who interacted with the publication, whether or not they were followers of his music. Paradoxically, in his latest video clip Wildwith more than 34 thousand views on YouTube in nine days and about two thousand five hundred likes, the recurring exposure of the model's buttocks focuses the narrative of the audiovisual, in addition to making explicit reference to her buttocks in the lyrics of the song (unintelligible to me).

It is not a new topic. The controversy about the amount of cloth that should cover a woman's body to qualify her as decent or indecent is very old. Discussions revolving around "morals" and about who has shaped those morals, too. We lose sight of the apparent "double-facedness" of our judges: they make videos apologizing for the hypersexualized nudity of women and, at the same time, criticize those who, outside the program, decide to do the same. The key in all this, in fact, is exclusivity: from whom and for whom?

Exclusivity and ownership are not exactly the same, but their relationship is almost like that of father (ownership) to son (exclusivity). So, if the mandate to cover women's bodies with "appropriate" clothing is already sexist, the fact that it is stated in terms of "for me", makes it unmasculine. It is not a speech that wants to do "good" to women, it is a statement that says, in essence: "find yourself for me, not for others, because you are mine". And we already know the consequences in terms of hierarchy, control and violence of the entrenched notion of "you are mine".

In these ambivalences, reggaeton continues to flourish. new agethe cast and its declamators. Accommodating to the narrative of pop feminism, individualistic and white; but without losing the essence of misogynist machismo. Combining lyrics of "feminine empowerment" that raise the reification of the body or sexuality as their ideal route (I refer you to The triple M of Mawell); incorporating in a "novel" way non-binary subjectivities, cuirs, trans, drags (I am thinking about I twerk aloneby Bad Bunny, and in Imagine with meby Bebeshito), as long as the male voice has the last word.

This does not disobey the interests of the industry, which not only instrumentalizes and distorts the terms of feminism, but also harmoniously adds the commodification of bodies, sexuality and their representations. Otherwise, Something niceiLe's song with Ivy Queen, would have received awards and would have closed some award show of those that are priced in millions. But no, they talk about swollen eggs, ovaries, rage, being told something nice, and without offering anything (not even their bodies) in return. If the men, their desires, or the spite that they provoke with seas of tears or longing for a bill are not the focus of the songs, they are of no interest to the industry. Note: I refer to songs and not to their performers, because many times we find famous singers in those genres, but with songs written by men (an example are Karol G and Keityn, or the most famous songs by Anitta).

So far, a brief critical analysis of the systemic and structural.

Now, just as overdressing or not always ends up as a "result of patriarchy"; dancing in a sexually suggestive/explicit way or not, showing too little or too much buttock, showing off or not showing off our bodies, also leaves us at the same crossroads: whatever you do, you obey the males. 

If we are guided by these parameters, our actions are never the result of our decisions and we women will always be explained (read and interpreted) in terms of submission or under the shadow of paternalism. Either because we want to please the male gaze or obey patriarchal morality.

It is terrible, but it seems that we have no choice but to be "victims" of objectification or demure.

At the last party I had at my house, a friend questioned me about the videos I uploaded to my stories "showing my buttocks" even though I was practicing a sport or physical discipline (pole fitness). Another friend, in a private conversation, referred to a influencer Cuban as "the one who likes to show her flesh". As if we were less respectable, or as if our work were threatened by what we do in our daily lives.

Photo: Still from Yomil's music video Salvaje.

In my case, I was a gymnast from the age of four. My childhood was spent between leotars, splits (what they commonly call "cracking up"), opening my legs, doing cartwheels, competing, dancing patriotic choreographies in the school matinees with the gym suits that "showed my buttocks" in front of other people's eyes. My relationship with my body was like that: to show it uninhibitedly, to express myself through it, covered with barely a leotard.

Certainly there is a saturation of banal and frivolous meanings about women's bodies and sexuality. The networks are full of suggestions of this type of content and, like any empty repetition, it becomes tiresome. But it is not essentially a "problem" of women, nor of a musical genre, nor of morals. Worse than all that is to insist on disenfranchising ourselves.

Each woman, each person, constructs a personal history with her body that does not cease to be collective, nor does it cease to be influenced by the cultural, local, traditional and global context. However, it is important to remember that they are simultaneous expressions of everything that constitutes us and that we will continue to try to be read as sovereign territories.

By now, it should be clear that the exclusivity or not on our buttocks, we decide it ourselves.