What Our Obsession With That Nude Woman Story Says About Sexism in Indonesia

OK, I get it. A woman walks into a convenience store in nothing by a black thong and people are going to talk. But who here is actually worse: the naked woman, the countless people passing by who just had to pull out their phones, record the scene, and spread the images like they were manna from Heaven, or the rest of us for getting so obsessed with finding out her reasons why?

She was first seen buying nail polish and minyak angin topless at a pharmacy in West Jakarta's Lokasari Square. Then the nearly nude woman appeared again at a mini-market down the street in Mangga Besar a few nights later. Somewhere in the middle of all that she found the time to take a stroll—sans-bottoms—down the street.

How do I know all of this? Because these videos were everywhere. They were in my WhatsApp groups. They were on Facebook. They were the most-read stories on most major news sites. Everyone was making snide remarks about her behavior, about her mental health, about whether or not she was forced to do it after she lost a Rp 100 million ($7,500 USD) bet.

People were saying she lost her mind after her boyfriend strayed. They said she was from a rich family and lived in a fancy apartment. That she had a history of being hospitalized for mental illness.

The hysteria was so out of control that the local police offered a reward for information leading to her arrest. The government then threatened to charge anyone who shared the video with breaking the law, a threat that, if it was enforced, would basically jail who knows how many people for sharing a viral video.

The police eventually managed to track her down to her apartment in South Jakarta. She now faces a possibility of being charged under the pornography law, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

But you know what's really troubling about our ravenous appetite for videos and photos of this nude woman? The fact that there's a huge double standard here. Think about it for a second. When's the last time you saw this much media attention about some scrawny naked dude wandering around in broad daylight? Have you ever seen an entire city suddenly question a man's morality over his "pornographic" behavior?

When a guy is photographed riding his motorbike in the buff, or seen waking completely nude down one of the biggest streets in Jakarta, or exposing himself to traffic, we all just shake our heads and move on. Or we just laugh. A guy going on a nude joyride in East Java gets called a "badass" or jokingly complimented for remembering to wear a helmet when he forgot everything else.

The "naked woman" phenomenon so easily hijacked the spotlight last weekend because of one simple fact: she was a woman.

And not just any woman. She was a young attractive woman with a slender body and porcelain skin. She was exactly the kind of woman who is most politicized—and most lusted after—in Indonesian society. This is why a chubby naked albino dude walking naked down the street gets an article or two and a topless woman buying nail polish monopolizes news coverage for an entire weekend.

I'm not alone in thinking this. The country's women's empowerment minister condemned those who shared the video as "predators" who were "adding fuel to the fire." A local police official said that if bystanders had just called the police instead of gawking and filming the whole ordeal with their smartphones it could've been over in a matter of minutes.

So next time something like this happens—and it will happen again—take a moment and think, "Would I be so obsessed if this was a video of a streaking young man?" Probably not.