To those young women on Instagram:

For everyone who has an Instagram, you most likely know what I'm talking about. We scroll through our feed and we pass by the "Instagram model." The girl with her butt being the main focus, or her boobs taking up the whole picture.

You might be beautiful. You might be built. You might love your body and have the confidence to show it proudly, and that's great. Seriously. In today's fast-food addicted world, maintaining a hot figure is challenging, but let's get real for a minute, shall we?

This is not classy, ladies—it can be trashy. You are giving yourself away for free. There are people who get paid to post those kinds of pictures and if you are not one of them, why post it? You are not a VS model. Those girls get paid to sell a product.

You get nasty comments from guys talking about doing things to you and girls calling you bad names, why even go through that?

The world today is all about girls putting themselves out there: “What is the picture that’ll get me the most likes,” “What will get that guy’s attention?” Yes, I am a victim to this thinking also, but we need to snap out of it. If we want to be respected as a sex, we need to act like it.

If you’re confident with all you have, that’s great, but there are other ways to show that. You can wear sexy clothes and take sexy pictures without letting everyone know your business.

Own who you are, be confident, be beautiful, but be respectful of yourself.

Side Note: This post doesn't encourage random guys to stalk young women. I'm not "indirectly contributing to rape culture." This post isn't about the men who gawk over these women, it's about *the women themselves*. Their self-esteems being fueled by the wrong things, and them offering a singular perception of their value. Beauty is great, but it shouldn't be the only source of your self-confidence.