Why I love the company of naked women – the ones with wobbly arms and dimpled bums

God, it’s a relief, hanging out with naked women. Semi-naked might be more accurate, and I’m not talking sexually – though no judgment here – but you know what I mean. The change rooms in gyms, the showers in surf clubs, the sands of our beaches. That’s where you will see real women. No airbrushing, no filter, no ring lights, no practised poses. Just women, glorious women, with wobbly arms and dimpled bums, rounded stomachs and bodies that have just sweated, swum, surfed and basked in the sun like seals. Women who are imperfect and still, somehow, manage to be cheerful.

There should be a word for the sound of women roaring with laughter in surf club bathrooms. It’s a cacophony of mirth.

It is also almost a jolt, recognising that what we see around us is very rarely reflected in the media we consume. In January, Ocean Road became the first Australian magazine to feature an AI model on the cover. Her name – is it better or worse that this fiction has a name? – is, apparently, Laillani Ainsley.

Then in August, even Vogue featured an AI model in an advertisement for Guess in its print magazine. She was almost cartoonishly, conventionally pretty, and stood with vacant eyes and long blonde hair in a striped maxi dress and flower-bedecked playsuit. Her AI origins were only faintly acknowledged, with tiny writing in a corner.

The founders of the brand who created the ad, Seraphinne Vallora, admitted to the BBC that the AI images featured on their Instagram page are mostly unrealistic images of thin, busty white women – but they blame users.

“We’ve posted AI images of women with different skin tones, but people do not respond to them – we don’t get any traction or likes,” one says. “At the end of the day, we are a business and use images on Instagram that will create a conversation and bring us clients.”

They also claim “the technology is not advanced enough” to feature plus-size women.

Sure, the fashion magazine can save on photoshoots, but this is grim news for the work of not just models but photographers, stylists, make-up artists and gaffers too, the creatives who make those images sing.

According to Forbes, “the AI fashion market will reach $60 billion by 2034, with annual growth rates nearing 40 per cent”.

But the truth is the pages of Vogue are no longer where young women get their beauty guidance – they have long been surpassed by influencers who know how to manipulate apps such as Facetune to look thinner, younger, flawless. Their audience follows suit with widely employed editing apps, which is why so many people are going to plastic surgeons asking them to make their faces look the same way filters do. This gives rise to a syndrome called “Instagram face”. (Of course, AI is now creating virtual influencers, custom avatars for brands, such as Lil Miquela, who “works” with Prada.)

But few will weep for the fashion industry, much of which has centred on trickery, falsity and unattainable beauty standards upheld by practices such as photoshopping and airbrushing.

Part of the analytical armour of young women today is understanding artifice; it defines the online world they breathe. They know that fiction is part of the game; they play too.

The major problem seems to be not the way young women are appearing to others, but how they perceive themselves. A City, University of London study found 90 per cent of young women on social media use filters or edit their appearance, and it’s not to add cute bunny ears or funky hats. They are slimming noses, tightening jawlines, widening eyes, plumping lips, smoothing skin, narrowing waists. The gap between who we are online and who we are in real life widens, and experts say the evidence that young women’s self-esteem is damaged by this gap is clear.

Six out of 10 teens in a survey by the American non-profit group ParentsTogether said using beauty filters made them feel worse about their actual appearance.

In short, we are teaching young women to hate themselves – and the winner, again, is capitalism.

Researchers from the Dow University of Health Sciences, who conducted a study on the influence of Snapchat filters on young women, concluded that “regular exposure to these expertly manipulated and heavily filtered photographs by this app causes ordinary women to become detached from reality”.

“Young women alter their appearance in photographs to the point where their true selves no longer pass muster,” they wrote. “They begin to see problems in their appearance that no one else even notices, such as the shape of their face or a broad forehead. They spend a lot of time taking and retaking selfies, then editing them to get the ideal shot. In order to cover up defects or imperfections, young ladies frequently glance through earlier photos … [this] causes them to feel unhappy, has a negative impact on their self-esteem, and is a source of aggravation … they are no longer able to analyse how they appear in reality. Young women frequently react by feeling self-conscious when they see a photo of themselves without any filters.”

Recent Indian research on Snapchat filters echoed this, finding: “persistent exposure to augmented images may result in a dependence on external validation and a disjunction between online identities and real-world selves”.

Some of the platforms, well aware of the harm caused, have begun taking the odd tepid measure to reduce it, such as restricting the access of underage users to filters (TikTok) or removing third-party filters, although, notably, not their own (Meta). Our own social media bans on users under 16 could help. But the coffers of the tech companies continue to grow fat as we are sold the lie that we are all impotent against this hogwash, that monetising insecurity, sadness and uncertainty of children and young women is somehow normal and OK.

We never expected phones to become rectangles of self-loathing that cause our kids to grimace at their own reflections and loosen their grip on reality.

But while Claire Pescott, from the University of South Wales, was conducting a study of 10- and 11-year-olds, one child, discontent with the way they looked, told her: “I wish I was wearing a filter right now.”

Julia Baird is a journalist, author and regular columnist. Her latest book is Bright Shining: how grace changes everything.