I used to be one of those bitter, sanctimonious people who indulged in my hatred of reality TV star Kim Kardashian West. When society presents the illusion of meritocracy, it can be pretty alarming when we’re not quite sure what a ‘professional rich person’ gets paid for.

But ignoring what her net worth of around $150 million would indicate, claiming that Kardashian ‘has no talent’ did nothing but reveal my embarrassing insecurity, through the laughable suggestion that I, on the other hand, do. How sulky. (I couldn’t, of course, tell you why I’d be any more deserving of a few million quid, and international attention.)

More embarrassingly, my pre-teen brain and internalised misogyny had me believing that it was morally questionable that Kardashian rose to fame on the back of a leaked sex tape. This slut-shaming narrative deeply permeates our social conditioning, continuing to emerge through derogatory Twitter comments nine years after her appearance in said tape.

But by cleverly courting the media, Kardashian is not only an immensely successful business woman. She has also reclaimed the narrative of her body by subverting objectification into sexual empowerment, pocketing millions of dollars in the process.  

In spite of this, the predominantly dismissive reaction to Kim K being gagged and bound at gunpoint recently highlights a widespread failure to see her as a person. 

In the context of attempts by men to commodify her body as a sexual object, the lack of empathy for Kim in mainstream social or corporate media exposes how sinister the objectification of women is. Objects don’t have autonomy. They can’t choose when, how, or with whom they have sex. Significantly, they can’t be ‘victims’ and they can’t speak out. The clash of personhood to this perception became clear as people began to blame Kim for her attack, implying that she was somehow ‘asking to be robbed’ in bringing up the irrelevant question: “but why does she own millions of pounds worth of jewellery?”. If not blaming her for her assault, a popular reaction was to accuse her of lying about it for attention – revealing a cultural attitude that emboldens abusers and silences victims. 

If not victim-blaming or accusing her of lying, a common response was for people to laugh because they ‘hate her’. This vitriol is, in part, because Kim K subverts tradition – turning attempts to commodify her on their head, and capitalising on it while she’s at it. She’s sexually empowered and rich as fuck. People hate it. 

Slut-shaming functions as a means of controlling women, who are told by society that they are props, not protagonists, in a sexual story. People hate Kim Kardashian, partially, because she is inherently subversive. It makes people uncomfortable that Kim has taken the script from Ray J (who leaked the sex tape) and made herself the protagonist. Now, he is barely an extra – a pathetic voice crying from the background that he “hit it first” in a feeble attempt to suggest that he has some kind of ‘claim’ over Kim’s body.

The powerful significance of Kim seizing back the script is potent in the context of a tragic suicide that recently shook Italy. Tiziana Cantone was driven to end her life following a crucifixion on social media after a sex tape leaked by her ex as ‘revenge porn’ went viral. A woman is dead because our culture attaches shame to women’s sexuality. 

Kim K's reclaiming of her sexuality is reflected further by her notoriety for taking selfies, going so far as to publish (and profit from) an entire book devoted to them. For a long time, women have been sexualised by men in art and media, yet as soon as a woman takes the camera and points it at herself, it is a deviant, controversial act: “vain”, “arrogant”, “attention-seeking”, “shallow” and “slutty.” People are uncomfortable when women become the painters of their own picture.

I am amused by the thought of Kim’s oiled, glistening bottom taunting Piers Morgan. In March this year he tweeted: “RIP feminism” in response to her topless selfie with model Emily Ratajkowski, which she had captioned: “however sexual our bodies may be, we need to have the freedom as women to choose when & how to express our sexuality”. Kim Kardashian is owning her sexuality and it’s pissing off people like Piers Morgan. That’s why she’s an inspiration.

In spite of this, many view Kim K through a patronising lens. Asked to do an impression of her, most people would resort to an exaggerated impression of vocal fry – a form of speech that fits the phrase ‘it’s Britney, bitch’ and has been dubbed ‘Kim Kardashian voice’. It is a voice register that young women have been criticised for adopting, being received as nauseatingly ditsy or ‘unintelligent’.

But sociolinguists have hypothesised that the ‘Kim Kardashian voice’ – or vocal fry – is an example of women assimilating to ‘masculine-sounding’ voices, endowed with more authority and value. An alternative suggestion is that the use of vocal fry is an affectation of insecurity, with women being more likely to doubt the legitimacy of what they say. A final theory is that it’s an expression of the cultural capital of being a socialite – with The Telegraph speculating that young women are “changing how they speak to sound more like Kim Kardashian.”

Whatever the reason, the reaction of nausea at hearing Kim K’s voice is the reaction of nausea at hearing what we identify to be a ‘feminine’ voice. Yet Kim Kardashian keeps speaking, keeps posing, keeps playing the media and telling people not to be “so fucking rrr-ude!”

Like any other human being, Kim Kardashian West isn’t a ‘perfect’ feminist (which isn’t a thing – sorry, Piers), but she is an unapologetically sexually-empowered woman. She is a person who deserves compassion. She has compelled me to think more about what ‘empowerment’ means.

“But first, let me take a selfie.”