I have a younger acquaintance who I'm friends with on Instagram. She's female, I'm male. I have the misfortune to live in a really lefty California town, and this young woman is the epitome of that. She would unquestionably describe herself as a feminist, environmentalist, etc. She makes her living as a travel blogger, and lives in a converted van that she works in and uses as a home base for rock climbing throughout the western US. All fine so far.

Except that in the past couple of weeks, she's started posting nude pictures of herself on Instagram. They're shot outdoors, and nothing explicit is showing, but they're basically cheesecake. Strategically placed climbing harnesses, her body turned so you can see she has a lovely ass and nice breasts, but nothing more, and so on.

How does this square with being a feminist? How does this square with not wanting to promote objectifying women? Of course, when one of the thousands of people following her said something slightly salacious, he got immediately criticized as "gross". The bottom line is that it doesn't. If you want to climb naked, fine -- go for it. But sharing the image with thousands of strangers is moving into another, very familiar, emotional territory -- the female need for attention.

She has a lovely little body -- she's, like, 25. And all the loudly professed feminist politics and ethics and everything eventually comes crashing to the ground when it's up against the need for attention.

No matter what they say, AWALT.