Here’s the thing. Men in our culture have been socialized to believe that their opinions on women’s appearance matter a lot. Not all men buy into this, of course, but many do. Some seem incapable of entertaining the notion that not everything women do with their appearance is for men to look at. This is why men’s response to women discussing stifling beauty norms is so often something like “But I actually like small boobs!” and “But I actually like my women on the heavier side, if you know what I mean!” They don’t realize that their individual opinion on women’s appearance doesn’t matter in this context, and that while it might be reassuring for some women to know that there are indeed men who find them fuckable, that’s not the point of the discussion.

Women, too, have been socialized to believe that the ultimate arbiters of their appearance are men, that anything they do with their appearance is or should be “for men.” That’s why women’s magazines trip over themselves to offer up advice on “what he wants to see you wearing” and “what men think of these current fashion trends” and “wow him with these new hairstyles.” While women can and do judge each other’s appearance harshly, many of us grew up being told by mothers, sisters, and female strangers that we’ll never “get a man” or “keep a man” unless we do X or lose some fat from Y, unless we moisturize/ trim/ shave/ push up/ hide/ show/ ”flatter”/ paint/ dye/ exfoliate/ pierce/ surgically alter this or that.

That’s also why when a woman wears revealing clothes, it’s okay, in our society, to assume that she’s “looking for attention” or that she’s a slut and wants to sleep with a bunch of guys. Because why else would a woman wear revealing clothes if not for the benefit of men and to communicate her sexual availability to them, right? It can’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that it’s hot out or it’s more comfortable or she likes how she looks in it or everything else is in the laundry or she wants to get a tan or maybe she likes women and wants attention from them, not from men?

The result of all this is that many men, even kind and well-meaning men, believe, however subconsciously, that women’s bodies are for them. They are for them to look at, for them to pass judgment on, for them to bless with a compliment if they deign to do so. They are not for women to enjoy, take pride in, love, accept, explore, show off, or hide as they please. They are for men and their pleasure.

I’m wary of anything that smacks of “making feminism sexy.” Sex-positivity should be a part of feminism because sexuality is important—not because feminism needs spicing up. I really don’t want to imply any “be a feminist ally and you’ll get lots of kinky sex” deals here, or any “don’t worry, we’re not man-haters, we’re into stripteases and blowjobs!” cajoling. The challenge of integrating sex-positivity into feminism is communicating “women’s sexual desire matters” without giving any ammunition to “women are for sex.

While filming a scene for Season Three of Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke found herself being heckled. The Khaleesi might have been in the process of checking out the Unsullied, a ferocious slave army willing to lose their nipples with nary a peep, but the “very overexcited Moroccan men” playing the soldiers were busy checking out the lovely 26-year-old Brit and her equally lovely co-star Nathalie Emmanuel. And whistling. And catcalling. It was a moment that called for a graceful intervention. “So basically when the cameras weren’t rolling, I made sure that I individually eyeballed every single one of them until they realized that we were a force to be reckoned with,” Clarke says. “Just because we were girls didn’t mean that we couldn’t be badass.” Without her having to say a word, her tactic brought the men to a heel: “They underestimated the intensity and ferocity of a woman’s stare.” Adds executive producer D.B. Weiss in his telling of the story, “Then she came back to the tent and talked for a good 10 minutes about how funny it would be in a later scene if Dany farted in the bathtub.