Kem and Dom watch the girls (Picture: ITV2)

Okay Love Island lads, it’s time to have a chat.

I don’t think it’s fair to call you some of the names going round social media, and I don’t think for a single second that anyone applying to go on Love Island – or anyone watching Love Island, thank you very much – is missing a few brain cells.

Yes you clearly love the hair gel and even those of you who claimed in your introduction videos that you don’t go to the gym – Sam – do go the gym (we can see you, it’s clear you’ve got a membership for your local leisure centre).



But you’ve all got full time jobs or your students, you’ve all traveled and partied – and some of you have even hit the charts – and really is there anything different to you five than the rest of the lads we all know in our lives and love?


No.

But there is just one itsy bitsy little problem that I do need to address.

On Wednesday night’s episode, the ladies were seen working out in the villa’s garden. They’re currently in Majorca, where Love Island is based, and of course the sun is shining and it’s probably bloody boiling over there.

If you’re going to lift a few weights, why not do it in your bikini if you feel comfortable? And if you’ve got some attractive men ogling you, all the better.

But then Dom opened his mouth.

‘Camilla is so respectful in every way,’ he began.

‘Look at her, obviously all the girls are in bikinis and she’s in shorts and T-shirt… the self-respect she has for herself is wife material.’

Kem then chimed in: ‘It is wife material.’

Oh boys.

Boys boys boys.

Self-respect doesn’t come from your clothing, nor your hair, your beauty routine, the amount or lack of make up you apply, how long your extensions are, if you shave every day or not, or even if you never wear a bikini on the hottest day of the year.

It doesn’t come from who your friends are or your actions or what you drink or don’t drink or eat or don’t eat.

Our own self-respect, actually, means something different to every single one of us – even you.

What Dom may think of as respect for himself may mean something else to any of the other lads, Kem, or Sam, or Marcel, or Harley.

Montana and Camilla working out (Picture: ITV2)

Self-respect is a pride and confidence in oneself; a feeling that you are behaving with honour and dignity, two words which, again, may mean something different to every one of us.

As long as the choice was hers and her alone, whether a girl wears a bikini to do some lunges, a pair of shorts, or even a burqa, it does not mean she does not have any self-respect.



It’s disappointing that in 2017, these men still don’t see the problem with believing that Camilla has self-respect and the others don’t because of their clothing choices.

And what’s most disappointing is that neither Sam, Marcel, nor Harley spoke up.

Still, I shouldn’t be surprised – a Fawcett Society poll in January confirmed that men aged between 25-34 were ‘nearly twice as likely as men aged over 65 to believe that women’s equality had “gone too far” and significantly more likely to believe they would be disadvantaged by women’s equality compared with those men aged 35 and above.

But I am. Sort it out.

Yours, Rebecca Lewis

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