Tag: Nudity

The Naked Truth

by Susanna Leein LOVE

One of the most common anxiety dreams that people have involves being the only naked person amongst the clothed masses, commonly at work or school.  In dreams, nudity is symbolic of vulnerability, being exposed for what or who we really are; unable to conceal our true nature.  I think this stems from the conditioning of culture, where we are taught that we must cover our natural state and avert our eyes from the flesh of our brethren, to be considered civilized and decent.  To be naked and unashamed is rare, and I say THANK GOD.

I’m kidding, calm down.  It’s just that I’ve spent years working nude, and have to say that if nudity was commonplace, if there was no air of cool mystery to it, if it wasn’t something that the majority of you found terrifying, I would’ve had a much more difficult time paying my rent without wearing a company-issued polo shirt and name-badge combo, and I’d probably still think there was validity to the idiom about no food tasting as good as being thin feels.  I’ve been a nude figure model and a stripper for years, and being professionally naked taught me more about the realities of confidence and attraction than the entire published run of Cosmopolitan ever could.  And now, I’d like to do my part to reduce your birthday-suit butterflies by sharing a few of the nuggets I’ve picked up during my time unclothed about how to feel better about being naked while not alone.

Perception is 9/10ths of the Law.

To begin, you must understand that our brains, filled with the sum total of our life experiences, are what attach feelings, thoughts, and judgments to those images that we take in with our eyes.  So though we may all view the same person, place, or thing, we all see something different.  My stripper friend, Tiffany, once quoted Anais Nin to me:  “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

Size and shape are nothing until we’re told how to feel about them, and with all of the mixed messages fed to us from all of the various sources (parents, friends, media and advertisers), body image is, at best, a clusterf*** of chaos.  With weight distribution, there is no baseline.  You wear 130 lbs. differently than I do, which is differently than my cousin does.

You can never control how another person sees you, because you can never control the experiences of their past, so it’s futile to spend your time worrying or being upset about it.  I learned this as a figure model at the Kansas City Art Institute.  I’d walk around the room on my breaks, mind blown by the differences that I saw on the easels.  One person’s drawing of a mountain of fleshy curves was another’s detailed shading of taut skin stretched over protruding hipbones.  The only person whose perception you can rely on, or even productively care about, is your own.

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PlayBoy… Full Female Nudity Over

by zfortadminin Sex

Weigh in… Playboy centerfold just doesn’t have the same sexual zing?

I was mildly surprised when I read today that Playboy has decided it will no longer feature full female nudity in its pages.

I mean, I haven’t seen the magazine in years, but I think it’s probably fair to say that Playboy, and its relatively tame photos, have touched the psyche of any American kid who came up in the age of Hefner, that is to say the second half of the 20th century.

Almost everyone I know has a Playboy story or two. Perhaps they once found their father’s stash. Perhaps their mother once found their stash. For an American teenager at one time, sneaking a Playboy was almost a rite of passage. I have a couple of stories myself.

Around 1972, my parents bought a beachside cabin in Baja, between Rosarito and Ensenada. It was a shack, really, and the sole bedroom was barely big enough to contain a bed. The previous owner, a Navy man, I believe, named Chester C. Crush (memorable name, plus his initials were carved into the doors), had papered the ceiling of the teensy bedroom with Playboy centerfolds.

My mother was totally grossed out.

She chopped up a bunch of Sunset magazines, and glued photos of landscapes and gardens over the rampant ceiling boobage. As a joke, though, she left one pair of breasts uncovered. I would lie on the bed with my friends and ask, “Do you see anything unusual on the ceiling?”

Many years later, I was asked by the Detroit Free Press magazine to write a story about a young Michigan woman who had been selected to pose as Playboy’s Playmate of the Month. I’d worked at the Detroit Free Press as a fashion editor and columnist for several years, and when I took a job at the L.A. Times in 1990, the Free Press asked me if I could squeeze in a freelance assignment.

What feminist wouldn’t want to write about the antediluvian custom of photographing naked women for the pleasure of horny dudes? I leaped at the chance.

Frankly, I did not have a huge objection to pictures of nekkid ladies, although I have never bought the idea that women who choose to pose nude, or dance nude, are exercising true agency over their own sexual lives. They are allowing themselves to be exploited for cash. That’s not my definition of empowerment. But hey, as long as there is no coercion involved, I can live with that.

At the time, I was told by Playboy spokespeople that I was the first reporter ever to be invited to cover an actual playmate shoot. Was that true? Really, I have no idea. But of course, that made the assignment even more enticing.

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