No good deed goes unpunished


She’s pretty, white, and blonde, but at least she used her privileges for good. Kaylen Ward, an Instagram model (not a very noteworthy accomplishment, it means she looks good and takes pictures of herself) made an offer: send her proof that you’d donated at least $10 to fight the Australian wildfires, and she’d send you a nude photo of herself. It took off! She has apparently motivated donations somewhere around $500,000. That’s a worthy use of her body, did harm to no one, and she wasn’t even handling any of the money, so there was no opportunity for it to be a scam.

But all is not well. What she was doing was classified as “sex work”, and that must be punished.

Donations poured in – but the internet fame had implications for Ward’s career as an Instagram model. Instagram disabled her account for violating its community guidelines, and copycat accounts are popping up to try and capitalise on the model’s viral success.

“My IG [Instagram] got deleted, my family disowned me, and the guy I like won’t talk to me all because of that tweet,” she posted on Sunday.

“But f**k it, save the koalas.”

The stigma around sex work has to end.

Comments

  1. chrislawson says

    I don’t understand how this qualifies as sex work if she never received a cent of the money that went to charity, not even by channelling it forward.

    In Instagram’s defence, they make it clear that nudity is a violation of their terms. Against Instagram’s defence, their terms make no sense. ‘Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK.’ So if the model had taken a photo of a nude painting of herself, that would be OK with them, no matter how explicit? I doubt it.

  2. Scott Simmons says

    “In a screenshot posted by Ward, Instagram said she had posted “sexually suggestive content,” …”

    Wha?!! Has Instagram even been on Instagram? It’s, like, 90% sexually suggestive content.

  3. frthtxcls says

    Shame on her. Imagine if America had a rogue, corrupt, philanthropist fraud President who would violate emolument clauses to enrich himself while in office without any sexual references or implications to mistresses, daughters, beauty contestants or former wives. We’d never stand for such outrageous character and behavior in a duly selected POTUS. The fires of passion, lust and trees burn ever for just cause. /s

  4. microraptor says

    Meanwhile, Instigram ignored dozens of bots that spam advertisements for sleazy porno sites that feature pictures that are being used without the consent of their subjects and will infect your computer with spyware and ransomware if you’re dumb enough to visit them.

  5. Akira MacKenzie says

    …my family disowned me…

    Ugh, speaking as one who grew up in a religious and sexually repressive household, this sort of nonsense never ceases to anger me. Your daughter/sister/niece/cousin is an ADULT! As long as all parties are consenting then who she can show off and do with her body as she pleases. HER SEX LIFE IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS AND YOUR JUDGEMENT OF HER IS FUCKING BARBARIC!

    Oh, and don’t give me any of that “What if is was YOUR little girl?” bullshit! I still maybe getting over half-a-lifetime of Catholic prudery, but at least I’m self-aware enough to not be a hypocrite.

  6. Rich Woods says

    “But f**k it, save the koalas.”

    She’s got her priorities right. She knows the fuss with her family will blow over eventually, and the bloke she likes isn’t as thoughtful and as understanding as she might have thought so it’s better to find that out sooner rather than later.

  7. says

    An ownership issue according to the conservatives, apparently a woman’s private parts can only be viewed by one man, who owns the rights to their exclusive use for the duration of the solemly signed contract. Heaven forbid you discard one of the primary rules of the patriarchy.

  8. kome says

    But let’s not even think of punishing the >50,000 mostly men who participated in a crime as heinous as a woman exercising her bodily autonomy.

  9. brightmoon says

    Wow! Good for her ! This isn’t sex work though! I did nude modeling for a friend taking a photography class once in my misspent youth . It’s not sexy cuz you can be cold and you’re a little nervous . I understand perfectly about the oppressive repressive religious upbringing ( which is the reason I did it. I was tired of feeling like that …. I’m freeeeee!)

  10. Kagehi says

    @2 DanDare But she didn’t post any nude pics on instagram itself?

    No, it seems its even more fucked up than that, this is pure, “If you did anything nude we won’t have anything to do with you, even if you a) don’t currently represent our company, and b) never did any of it on company property.”, anti-sex work bigotry from Instagram. Its the thing that says, in a nutshell, what every single person that has ever been fired for once being, not hired for once being, fired for just having a single pic taken, rejected for it even being hinted that you might have taken your clothes off for money, for any reason, you are unworthy of the same rights as anyone else.

    Its irrelevant to the sort of bigots that pull this if any of it was actually “posted” on Instagram.

  11. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    I thought “sex work” involved physical contact, not merely sending a nude picture.
    Playboy models are all sex workers?
    Heffner a pimp?
    I guess part of it could be the [e, snail]mail information needed to receive the nude photo, could be used to hack them severely, I guess, maybe, that’s what the censors think
    SMH

  12. Kagehi says

    I suspect, at least “among” sex workers, “sex work” gets defined as, “Anything for which you can be mistreated, misrepresented, or abused.”, which would pretty much include everything from actually prostitution, to web camming, to stripping, to even vacuuming someone’s house in the nude (since you run the risk of a) being assumed that you are doing more, and b) ending up with the same sick clients a prostitute would, given that they probably don’t understand, “This is just a cleaning service.”, any more than they comprehend, “No. I won’t do that.”)