Model Says Her Legs Are Getting Her Rape Threats

A Swedish model says she's faced an onslaught of online harassment after daring to pose for an Adidas advertising campaign with unshaved legs, the BBC reports. "Literally I've been getting rape threats in my DM inbox," 26-year-old Arvida Byström writes on Instagram. The ad for sneakers was posted Sept. 26 on YouTube. “Is this what some woman have become? No thanks," the Guardian quotes one of the nicer comments on the video as reading. Byström says she's getting harassed despite having "an abled, white, cis body with its only nonconforming feature being a lil leg hair." She adds: "I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to not posses all these privileges and try to exist in the world."

It hasn't all been negative. “It is something absurd to say in 2017 but she is so brave to show natural legs, you go girl!” one commenter writes. And Adidas says it's honored to work with the model, who "questions femininity and gender standards using so-called 'girly' aesthetics." In the past, Byström has called the default of women shaving their bodies "f---ed." She's known for posing for photos displaying her body hair and cellulite and has published a book of 270 images censored by Instagram because they showed female body hair, nipples, vaginal secretions, and more. (More models stories.)