Yes, I Posted Bikini Photos on Instagram, So What?

There is something almost moving about the dedication of commenters. I write 500 words about divorce, relationships and children, and they do a deep investigative job on me and come to the shocking conclusion: “She posts bikini pictures.” As if they had uncovered that I smuggle organs through airport security. I imagine them sitting in front of the screen with the dramatic look of Shin Bet investigators. They do not settle for the column itself, heaven forbid. They also go on Facebook. To Instagram. They zoom in on a vacation photo, and then, like true-crime detectives, whisper to themselves: “There. I knew it. I found something about her.” It is always written as if this were some deep character flaw. “She posts bikini pictures.” As if I had been caught starving cats and, to top it off, pulling their tails.

At first, it really surprised me. To this day, the column does not deal with my appearance, and beside it appears only a headshot. Still, it leads people to search for me on social media, and then come back to the column and write a comment that has nothing at all to do with the text. That is why, at a certain point, I stopped reading the gems, which of course are written in complete anonymity. But recently, while on vacation in Cyprus, I happened to glance at one and saw a comment that mostly amused me. Again someone, or maybe a 54-year-old man using the name “Ortal,” wrote: “I’m interested in what the ex-husband thinks about you posing in a bikini.” I was just drinking an Aperol Spritz by the pool, so I read it again and again to make sure I was not hallucinating.

Not only am I not allowed to wear a bikini because I am a woman of a certain age, or because I am a mother, I also have to consider the feelings of the ex-husband? The idea that a woman should ask permission from the man she is with is in itself insane. And now my ex as well? When we separated, we agreed to share custody of the child, not my waistline.

But because I had extra time, I started thinking about the fact that only in recent years, in practice, have I allowed myself to post pictures like that. I tried to understand why. And let me say right now, it is not related to divorce, and not to any external makeover after age 40. If anything, my body has always been the thing I have been most comfortable with. I was a girl who loved sports, and later a woman who loves sports. But for years, not only did I not dare post such a picture on social media, even when I went into the water in a bikini, the moment I came out I would put on pants. Wrap myself up. Shrink myself. As if someone might think, heaven forbid, that I felt good inside my own body.

Because that is the greatest absurdity: women are not ashamed only when they do not love themselves. Sometimes they are ashamed precisely when they do. Full-figured women are afraid people will say, “How dare she?” Thin women are afraid people will say, “Who does she think she is?” And in the end, no matter how you look, you are always supposed to carry some small apology within you.

Not long ago I saw a video of Hadar Levi saying that at basketball games, when the camera moves to the crowd and stops on men, they immediately wave, shout and pose. But when it stops on women? Almost always the same reflex appears: the hand over the face. Moving aside. An attempt to disappear. From a young age, women learn that being seen is somewhat dangerous, that someone will always have something to say, and so it is better to make themselves smaller.

But today I already know I made myself smaller for nothing. And the older I get and continue to be comfortable in my body, the prouder I am. So yes, I sometimes post a picture. Not because I am looking for attention, and not because I think I am a 20-year-old Victoria’s Secret model. I simply no longer feel ashamed that I am not ashamed.

First published: 23:55, 11.06.26