Woman's Message to Slut Shamers: We Deserve Equal Respect Dressed and Undressed

As a body-positive social-media influencer, Megan Crabbe fills her Instagram account, bodyposipanda, with uplifting posts about self-worth and respect. However, some people completely miss her important message.

Just some of the responses that she's received from strangers include:

For those who don't get the concept of loving your body exactly the way it is and that a woman's body deserves respect at all times — no matter what she's wearing — Megan is making it perfectly clear. "Fact: the amount of skin a woman shows has nothing to do with how much respect she deserves OR how much she respects herself," Megan wrote on Instagram. "Fact: a woman can choose to celebrate her body in its most natural state without it being for someone else's sexual pleasure or gratification."

To prove her important point, Megan posted two photos of herself side by side: one in jeans and a lace top with the caption, "worthy of respect," and the second in hot pink lingerie with the caption, "still worthy of respect," and her message is perfectly clear.

For those who automatically think "sex," "slut," or "put some clothes on" when you first see a female showing off her body, Megan wants you to understand the problem with those thoughts. "[They are] something that you've been taught by a culture that tells us women's bodies are for the consumption of other people and never for ourselves," she wrote. "Hypersexualising female bodies at every turn it simultaneously teaches us that our sexuality is shameful and that our bodies are scandalous."

However, Megan points out that there is still something to be aware of: it's possible to unlearn this kind of thinking. "Our naked bodies are not shameful. We are just as worthy of respect dressed or undressed and how much skin we show is up to us," she wrote. "Take your casual misogyny and slut shaming elsewhere, and I'll just be over here celebrating myself however I damn well please."