On intellectualising gut instinct
the Bianca Censori of it all
I’m deliberately late to the party on this one. A lot of people talked about it and I was more interested in what they thought than what I thought. There was plenty of well thought out commentary - the Everything Is Content podcast did a particularly good job. I listened, watched and read women agonising over whether or not they were removing a grown woman’s agency by questioning her decision to go fully nude on the Grammys red carpet. There was a lot of understandable unease about whether the stunt was regressive (woman who never speaks reduced to her naked body, as fully clothed man stands next to her) or progressive (woman says fuck you I can do whatever I want with my body, and if it makes you uncomfortable, perhaps you are the problem). There was the inevitable tension that always plays out in feminist discourse when it comes to sex and the commodification of women’s bodies: can any woman truly own her sexuality in this way, when society reduces women purely to their aesthetic sexual appeal? When sex is bought and sold by and through majoritively exploitative systems, even if some of the participants are empowered? When we are all taught that slim, European, able-bodied hotness is the highest form of female currency? If you’re using the tools of patriarchal oppression to lift yourself up, are you truly free? Is this all there is?
There was so much all these brilliant, smart, compassionate women unpacked - I will summarise it and leave a list of sources below for you to peruse on your own time. Here are just some of the talking points:
The main issue is that Censori’s experiences and perspective are never front and centre. We don’t hear her speak in public, her social media gives nothing away - although she has posted a picture of herself in the nude dress, implying, surely, that she’s on board. There have been suggestions floating around the internet that there’s a kink element to the relationship…
…Except that, regardless of if that were the case, there is something jarring about the contrast between her silence and wardrobe and Kanye’s very vocal presence, as well as the fact that he’s always fully clothed. Regardless of intention, the impression it gives is of a heavily commodified woman, there for Kanye’s pleasure and nothing else. It’s giving ‘seen but not heard.’
And yet, let’s get one thing clear: Biana Censori is a grown adult (30). She’s not a child, and surely it’s infantilising and condescending to assume that her silence or what she wears is a symbol of victimhood or oppression? Are women not capable of owning their own body and choosing what they do with it? Have women not been slut shamed for centuries simply for exerting control over their sexuality and ignoring convention?
But whose control is it, really? Does Censori’s nudity benefit Kanye’s image or career whilst also potentially harming hers? Some have argued she’s a distraction from the fact that West is falling from relevancy, despite his obvious creative genius and huge contributions to music. The anti-semitic, misogynistic rants, recent grammy appearance and pivot to deeply offensive ‘merch’ have already led to being dropped by Adidas, concerts worth £16m have been cancelled, and he’s been dropped from his talent agency. Ten years from now, West will be almost sixty, but Censori will be forty - her career far from over. We know, unfortunately, that men are given far more grace to bounce back after seriously controversy. We also know that society is so swift to disrespect women who take off their clothes for money - will the court of public opinion ever let her move on, should she want to?
There is also Kanye’s history of displaying women’s naked bodies that provides necessary context to the dynamic between him and Censori. West’s ‘Famous’ video features hyper-realistic wax mannequins of celebrities naked in a bed beside him and his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. And right next to him is a naked Taylor Swift, her breasts on display (Kardashian is on her front). Although naked men also feature in the image, all of their dicks are safely tucked away in sheet or shadow. Four out of the five women have their breasts on display - and that’s before we even get into the dynamics of having Rihanna and Chris Brown next to each other, or including his ex, Amber Rose, who has claimed West has bullied her for over a decade. Swift called the video an act of revenge porn.
And (last one, sorry) speaking of revenge porn, when Censori and West first began dating, a lot of people pointed out the very obvious physical similarities between Censori and Kim Kardashian, which only seemed to become more overt as their relationship progressed. There is something really sinister about immediately finding a woman who looks just like your ex-wife and then being photographed with her in different states of undress, so that at first glance, it might look like Kardashian herself is naked. (Although, Kardashian seems to have capitalised off this for a recent Skims shoot, because of course she has). So…if she’s ok with it, should we be ok with it too? Are we all wasting all our time fanning the flames of a fire that all three are basking in the warmth of?
Urgh, there’s so much to navigate. The thing that struck me the most when wading through the discourse was the near-universal feeling of discomfort. All the women who wrote or spoke about the stunt voiced their gut feeling that something about it wasn’t quite right - before diving down a rabbit hole of caveats and benefit-of-the-doubts. It was fascinating to see so much intellectualising of gut-instinct, almost to the point of undermining it all together. I do it too, all the time. In fact I suspect we all do, because we (women) are so routinely socialised into ignoring our instincts in favour of never rocking the goddamn boat. It’s the brushing off of a colleague’s weird comments because trying to repeat them out of context makes you look insane. It’s making yourself ignore the man staring at you on the tube because, what, you’re going to police where a man looks now, you militant feminist?
We all know how to dampen down that feeling that tells you things are not alright. I wonder how much we lose as a result of this - and how much easier it is to sit in the grey space, where everything is true all at once, instead of definitively expressing an opinion out of the fear of accidentally getting it wrong. Sometimes, getting it wrong means simply getting it wrong. Other times though, the stakes are higher - denying a woman’s agency, for example, and unintentionally risking denting the women’s movement. Or being so concerned about harming the women’s movement that we sit back and watch something concerning unfold, thereby denting it anyway. Does it mean we should be bolder in our response to things that feel immediately and alarmingly unequal, oppressive and degrading? I want to say: yes. I believe: yes. And yet.
I don’t know whether or not Bianca Censori truly wanted to wear a fully sheer minidress to the Grammys. I don’t know if she and Kanye did actually argue before or on the stunt, and I definitely don’t know what kind of relationship they have as two grown, consenting adults. The whole stunt made me feel sad. I have a lot of gut instincts about the power dynamics that might exist between them, and about what it might be like to be with a man who seems to enjoy alienating and offending everyone around him - and who claims to ‘have dominion’ over his wife. But gut instincts aren’t facts, they’re feelings, and those are harder to hold up to scrutiny when deliberating over whether we’re all being bad feminists. I don’t agree with it, but we’re taught to rely on cold hard facts, on the opinions of others at the expense of our own, especially when it comes to power dynamics. We’re taught that without solid proof, gut instinct, memory and emotions are too weak to rely on, which is especially damaging when it comes to some of the very worst manifestations of gender inequality, such as sexual violence. I’m not suggesting that’s what we’re seeing in this case, to be clear. I’m saying that subjugation, power imbalances and autonomy aren’t always clear cut and easy to define. Sometimes this means that even though something can feel wrong, we’ll do all the mental gymnastics under the sun to convince ourselves that it’s all fine. And it might all be fine, or it might be something really awful. In this, who can say except Censori herself. That doesn’t feel like enough, unfortunately.
One thing is pretty clear though. For the brief moment they were there, Kanye West and Bianca Censori dominated the Grammys, and their method for doing so - objectification - has been the least imaginative, but perhaps most reliable: we’re all still talking about them, after all.
Everything Is Content, episode 36
Shameless, episode 732
The Kit: Why Bianca Censori’s Nakedness at the Grammys Was So Unsettling
The Guardian: The exposure of Bianca Censori’s body is contrasted with the enigma of her mind
Vogue: The Naked Truth About Bianca Censori’s Grammys Look
Marie Claire: The World Can’t Look Away From Bianca Censori’s Naked Dress And That’s A Problem
Grazia: Grammys: Bianca Censori’s Naked Stunt Is Uncomfortable – And Not Just Because Of The Nudity
The New Daily: Was Bianca Censori’s stunt self expression or control?
The Cut: A Bianca Censori Primer
Marie Claire: Bianca Censori’s naked Grammys stunt looks like clear exploitation
A quick favour. I love writing these posts, and I intend to do them for free for as long as I can. If you enjoyed reading this, forward it to a friend (or three) who you think might like it too. It helps massively, because validation from strangers is truly the only thing that makes the horrors bearable for me.
So eloquently put! 💙