Today’s “trend” in Lebanon: a naked woman on the Manara Corniche. Dozens of phones raised, eyes locked on screens, and an entire crowd watching the “strange scene” with a curiosity that looked far more like spectacle than concern, questioning, or empathy for someone who may have been experiencing a severe mental health crisis. 

Some men on Beirut’s Manara Corniche seemed to find their ultimate battle: a naked woman standing by the sea. Within minutes, they gathered around her, pointed their phones at her body, watched her, shouted at her, and then one of them decided to complete the scene with a violent slap across her face. Amid the chaos, a man’s voice can be heard saying, “Don’t lay a hand on her.” A brief, passing sentence, yet for a moment it sounded like the last remaining trace of basic humanity in a collective spectacle of voyeurism and violence. 

But one of them did lay a hand on her. Just like that. An ordinary man, neither a police officer, nor a judge, nor a doctor, felt entitled to strike a woman he did not know simply because she disturbed his fragile moral order. The irony is that many did not see the violence in the assault itself, but in the woman’s body.

It is easy for the “Manara man” to play the hero when the target is a lone, exposed, and vulnerable woman. Suddenly, his sense of “honor” awakens, his moral muscles begin to flex, and he appoints himself protector of society against the danger of a woman standing by the sea. A naked woman? That is when the moral watchdog instantly comes alive. 

What happened on the Corniche was not an isolated incident, but a concentrated display of the nature of patriarchal authority in Lebanese society. A form of authority that does not need a law to strike, nor permission to punish. It is enough for a man to feel that a woman’s behavior “offends” him for him to grant himself the right to physically intervene. And that is precisely what makes the incident dangerous: not because it was visually shocking, but because it exposed how violence can become a socially accepted and justified reaction. 

Control and the Logic of Patriarchy

The man who hit the woman was not defending morality, but his own sense of power. What he did was closer to a declaration of ownership: this space belongs to us, and these bodies must submit to our rules. Many men in our societies cannot tolerate a woman who exists outside their control. A woman who screams, refuses, protests, exposes her body, or steps outside the expected image is often perceived as a direct threat to the patriarchal order. Violence then becomes an attempt to force her back into her “proper place.” The slap was not merely an act of aggression, but a message: we are the ones who decide the limits of what is acceptable.

This behavior is not isolated from Lebanon’s patriarchal structure. The study Understanding Masculinities, conducted by UN Women in collaboration with Promundo across Lebanon and several Arab countries, found that a large percentage of men still embrace traditional gender roles that position men as guardians and ultimate decision-makers within both the family and society. The study also linked adherence to patriarchal norms with the justification of harassment and violence against women in public spaces. It further noted that many men view themselves as “protectors of morality” or as responsible for policing women’s behavior. 

This mentality becomes particularly visible in the way women who step outside expected social norms are treated. In Lebanon, women are not always perceived as independent individuals in public spaces, but rather as bodies to be monitored and controlled. Reports published by UN Women and KAFA (Enough Violence and Exploitation) indicate that gender-based violence in the region is closely tied to the idea of controlling women and linking the “honor of society” to their bodies and behavior, while men are socially assigned the role of guardian and moral overseer. 

The “Heroic” Man, The Saviour 

The issue is not only the physical violence itself, but also the collective reactions that justified it. Some comments on the Manara video framed the man as someone who “saved the day,” rather than someone who assaulted a woman who may have been experiencing a serious psychological or health crisis, someone who perhaps first deserved concern, understanding, and care. This is precisely what gender studies warn against: the moment violence against women becomes socially understandable or acceptable if a woman is perceived to have “crossed the line.”

Another study, Comparative Study of Violence Against Female Reporters and Male Reporters, showed how women in public spaces, particularly those who speak loudly or step outside traditional gender roles, are subjected to higher levels of violence, harassment, and threats than men. The core idea is that a woman who occupies public space through her voice, her body, or an unconventional presence is often perceived as inherently “provocative” to the patriarchal order itself.

So the slap was not merely an individual reaction. It was a concentrated moment revealing Lebanese society’s relationship with women’s bodies: a relationship built on surveillance, discipline, and the constant urge to force women back within boundaries drawn by men.

For many, the real issue was not the violence itself, but the fact that a woman dared to appear outside accepted social norms. The nudity did not shake society because it was “immoral,” but because it shattered the illusion of control. Patriarchal society wants women to be orderly, silent, predictable, and easy to categorize. A woman who exists outside that script provokes panic.

This is precisely why women’s bodies so often become battlegrounds. Everyone feels entitled to comment on them, monitor them, control them, cover them, or punish them. In oppressive societies, the female body does not fully belong to the woman herself. It belongs to the collective, the family, the street, and angry men.

Cameras and Collective Spectacle

The most disturbing part of the video was not the woman herself, but the people surrounding her. Dozens of phones raised, footage captured from multiple angles, people filming with a cold sense of curiosity. At some point, the woman was transformed into content. She was no longer a human being who could be distressed, ill, or terrified, but material to be posted, shared, consumed, and reacted to online.

This is what “trend culture” does: it strips people of their humanity and turns them into spectacles for public consumption. Everyone wants the footage, not understanding. Everyone wants to film, not help. Even violence itself becomes part of the performance.

In social psychology, this is sometimes referred to as the Bystander Effect, where each person assumes someone else will intervene, turning everyone into observers instead of actors. But what social media adds today is more dangerous than ordinary indifference. The smartphone is no longer merely a tool for documentation; it has become a tool for manufacturing collective spectacle. A person caught in a moment of vulnerability is instantly transformed into a video ready for consumption, reposting, commentary, and mockery.

Research on digital behavior and social media culture suggests that platform-driven dynamics have fundamentally changed the way people respond to violence and public crises. “Documenting the moment” has increasingly become tied to the pursuit of attention and social engagement rather than understanding or helping. A study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior discussed how social media platforms encourage individuals to film and share shocking events within what researchers describe as the “attention economy,” where tragedies and crises are transformed into consumable digital content.

Other studies have explored the concept of Compassion Fatigue, the emotional desensitization caused by constant exposure to scenes of violence and collapse through screens. This repeated exposure can make people more inclined to watch and consume suffering, while becoming less likely to intervene or offer meaningful help.

The Crowd and the Manufacturing of Spectacle

In the Manara video, there was not only a man assaulting a woman, but an entire audience participating in the construction of the scene. Some shouted. Others continued filming even during the assault itself. This is not neutrality. Filming here was not separate from the violence; it was part of it. When a camera is raised in the face of a vulnerable person instead of being used to protect them, it becomes a tool of dehumanization.

What is even more dangerous is that social media platforms reward this behavior. Shocking videos spread faster, generate higher engagement, and give those who post them a false sense of relevance and visibility. In this logic, a suffering or psychologically distressed person becomes nothing more than an opportunity to create “powerful content.” The question is no longer, “How do we help?” but rather, “Did you film the video?”

What the Manara video exposed was not simply a naked woman, but a society experiencing a profound crisis in its relationship with empathy. A society in which people gather around someone who may be undergoing a psychological breakdown, not to protect her vulnerability, but to capture the clearest image and the best camera angle.

Violence as Part of the Social Order

The real danger in the Manara incident is not only the man who struck the woman, but the people who justified his actions. Societies that tolerate “moral” violence today will tolerate greater forms of violence tomorrow. Everything begins when an ordinary person becomes convinced that they hold a special right to discipline others.

Once the street turns into a courtroom, the man into a morality police officer, and the slap into an “understandable reaction,” violence ceases to be an exception and becomes part of the social order itself.

That is why the naked woman was not the most dangerous element in the scene.

The most dangerous part was the man who believed his hand was the law.

She Resembles This Country

In her nakedness, this woman resembles this country more than anything else. The issue is not the body itself, but the total exposure. A country stripped bare from within, collapsing and abandoned, with its masks falling one after another, yet still insisting on performing the role of the morally disciplined and respectable society.

Lebanon itself has stood naked before the world for years: a state without justice, without social protection, without accountability, without functioning institutions. People here are exposed every day to poverty, violence, fear, anxiety, and collapse, yet none of this provokes collective panic as much as the sight of a woman’s body on a seaside promenade.

Perhaps because this woman, without saying a single word, exposed everyone else. She exposed the fragility of a society that claims morality while justifying violence. She exposed men who only felt powerful in front of a lone and vulnerable woman. She exposed a crowd that raises phones faster than it extends a hand to help. And she exposed a country living through collective psychological collapse, yet preferring to turn an unknown woman into a moral scandal rather than confront its own devastation.

In the video, the woman appeared to be the only one exposed. But in reality, the cameras exposed an entire society: its fear of difference, its obsession with control, and its constant readiness to punish anyone who steps outside the script.

The naked woman was not the scandal.