When Bianca Censori stepped onto the 2025 Grammys red carpet in an entirely nude look, every flashing-red warning bell blared in my ears. Next to her notably covered and tauntingly proud partner, Kanye West, she was, for lack of a better term, put on display for hundreds of paparazzi and millions of online viewers.
My initial horror was tangibly marked by what I knew would follow: a progressive cry to celebrate the action as feminist, to check our discomfort with exhibitionism and to steer clear of critiquing her individuality. As avid a defender of autonomy and feminism I might be, I cannot help but sharply disagree. There is something deeply concerning about the myth of informed consent, a ploy that has steadily attempted to cajole women into sexualizing themselves in the name of liberation.
Patriarchal control is distinctly recognizable when it attempts to exert control over women in a restrictive and suffocating manner, one that inhibits their clothing choices or honest desires. But the more subtle — and frequently more threatening — method of control exists in a way that encourages, even forces, overt displays of sexuality. In both instances, the underlying motivation is the same: to undermine and subvert a woman's humanity.
Of course, I do not know the true intentions of Censori, nor can I say I bore witness to any stages of the drawing board with her management team prior to this decision. I cannot say with certainty this was a manipulative and coercive attempt on the part of West to control or abuse her — though I certainly have some well-reasoned suspicions, following his subsequent social media rants claiming “dominion” over his wife. Recent rumors of divorce proceedings prove, if nothing else, that the likelihood of a balanced and equitable partnership were slim. But the guise of liberation sustains much more than a one-time camera flash on a red carpet; it sustains entire institutions, like that of modern-day sex work and pornography.
Many would like to claim it is empowering that, in a society as modern as ours, women have enough autonomy and individuality that they can “voluntarily” opt in to performing sex work or participating in the pornography industry, as if it is simply a neutral institution that does not seep into the daily lives of billions around the globe. But this assumption lacks an understanding of the inner-workings of such organizations. The vast majority of sex workers are women. Most of them are impoverished. Most of them are underage — in fact, the average age of a sex worker worldwide is 14 years old.
When power structures exist that put worldwide sexual hegemony in the hands of men, consensual self-sexualization for women cannot truly exist. Thus, under these circumstances, it is counterproductive to insist upon enshrining it or normalizing it under the optics of progressivism. In an ideal world, of course, our autonomy and sexuality would exist entirely outside the bounds of commentary or critique. But this is not reflective of our current societal ideals — and to pretend as such is to facilitate this continued imbalance of control.
Thus, the key to real, authentic sexual liberation lies not within celebration of sex work, but in the abolition of the institution that, more frequently than not, relies on exploitation to sustain itself. The key to authentic liberation lies not within a nude display on a red carpet, but in a societal condemnation toward anything that appears to be an act of sexual abuse. The only way we can fathomably combat such an imbalance of power is to stop celebrating and start scrutinizing.
Regardless of a shift toward the bare-boned efficiency of technology in social and political spaces, our bodies — our ability to take up space, to move, to breathe with each other — remain our single greatest resource in the fight against global and domestic injustice.
