Keke Palmer’s boyfriend is wrong. Men don’t get to tell women how to dress.

I was idly scrolling through Twitter last week when I happened across a social media post about Keke Palmer, who was recently captured on video at an Usher concert wearing a revealing dress.

It was a long-sleeved black sheer gown by Givenchy over a thong bodysuit that left her entire backside on display. It’s not a new look. Performers such as Ciara and Jennifer Lopez have been wearing similar butt-baring, barely-there looks on red carpets for years.

But Palmer’s boyfriend, Darius Jackson (reportedly from Philly, by the way), got in his feelings, as they say. The fitness instructor took to social media to publicly shame the mother of his 4-month-old son.

In a tweet that has since disappeared, he chastised the Nope star, saying, “It’s the outfit tho.. [sic] you a mom.” He included a video of Palmer hugging Usher and dancing in the gown as he serenades her during his show in Las Vegas.

This should have been fodder for a private discussion between the two of them before she went out that night. He could have expressed his concerns about her outfit, and she could have responded, “If you don’t like the dress, don’t wear it.” But boyfriend took it public.

You probably can guess what happened next.

Fans on social media rushed to Palmer’s defense in droves, asserting her right to dress any way she pleases. Instead of letting it go, Jackson kept digging in, writing, “We live in a generation where a man of the family doesn’t want the wife & mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others & he gets told how much of a hater he is.”

He added, “This is my family & my representation. I have standards & morals to what I believe. I rest my case.”

Oh, the patriarchy.

Contrary to what Jackson says, motherhood doesn’t negate a woman’s right to dress sexy. Women these days don’t hide their pregnancies the way they used to, or change their behavior just because they become parents.

Palmer, who is unmarried, has been vocal about embracing her post-baby curves. I was so irked by what I saw online that I wrote on Facebook, “Real men don’t try and control what the women in their life wear.”

» READ MORE: Who is Keke Palmer’s boyfriend, and does he prove that men from Philly are ‘embarrassing’? We investigate.

Hundreds of comments later, I walked away sobered by the number of men who are convinced they have every right to police the clothes of their wives and girlfriends.

Minister Rodney Muhammad, the former head of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, wrote, “Real men try to protect their women from wearing what another man designed. ...” Ogbonna Hagins, who earlier this year ran unsuccessfully for City Council at-large, wrote, in part, “There should be some cultural standards in our community. Accepting this way of dressing is part of the reason why things are so out of control in our communities. No standards.”

ESPN star Stephen A. Smith — a former Inquirer sports columnist — talked about Palmer and her boyfriend on an episode of his latest podcast and referenced my Facebook post, saying, in part, “A man doesn’t have a right to tell a woman anything? Well damn! What kind of relationship is that?”

It would be funny if this debate didn’t also point to a larger issue of male desire for control over women. I get that some women might choose to defer to what the men in their lives like for them to wear. That’s their right. But that’s not something they — or any woman — should have to do.

This discussion is way bigger than whether or not someone should be able to wear a revealing dress to a concert. It’s about outdated maternal archetypes and attempts to police women’s behavior. It’s also about a woman’s fundamental right to make choices for herself. It’s about a woman’s right to have sovereignty over her own body and has tentacles to her right to reproductive freedom and her ability to make decisions for herself, independent of the male gaze.

Ultimately, this whole debacle over Keke Palmer’s outfit left me disheartened.

If a wealthy, successful performer such as Palmer isn’t immune from attempts by her boyfriend and others to publicly shame her for making her own choices, then what does that say for the rest of us?