Picture Perfect

I’ve been viewing a lot of nude women these past months as I explore my take on pornography, media, women’s rights, and body acceptance.  I, personally, have rarely ever frowned upon an obese person and thought of them as disgusting or not attractive.  In fact I usually find that ALL people are beautiful in one way or another.  True that I am more attracted to the tighter, firmer, more hairless bodies but I understand that what is underneath our clothes has little to do with the person we are or the attractiveness we carry.  Certainly we have all been around that super model 20-year old who even with all her physical Kabam! can’t keep our interest for more than a minute.  You know, the girls that look gorgeous but carry absolutely zero substance because society has praised them for their looks and left them unchallenged in their maturity and growth as women.  These are the women who you like to ogle and fantasize about as long as their mouth is taped tightly shut.

And, of course, I’ve longed to look like the swimsuit models, playboy models, or porn stars that men often seem to think are the pursuit of life.  I’ve wanted to be physically desired in the same manner as those women.  I’ve never wanted to be the envy of other women but to know that a man, including my husband, would think that I could compete with a supermodel, well that would just be a life worth living.

How many of us get caught up in wanting to be physically desirable?  How many of us alter ourselves through diet, exercise, surgery, beauty products, clothing we can’t afford, all so we feel desirable?  I know I have and do.

But the more I research the more I understand that there is so much more than our bodies that makes us desirable.  Unfortunately cameras usually can’t capture our essence but only our outward appearance.  And as we age, as we birth babies, as we get illnesses, as we fluctuate in weight, as gravity takes it’s toll, the pictures will always fail our true beauty.

And when it comes down to it…you can alter me with photoshop and make me stunning too.  I can be thinner, with less acne, brighter skinned, and made in to a picture perfect false image of myself just like every supermodel, playboy model, and porn star I see.  That’s not really them.  That’s just the image of those women that greedy companies are selling us so we keep trying to live up to an impossible standard.  The very women in those pictures are unable to live up to the standard they are selling.

So I’m saying bravo to the women in the Nude Photo Revolutionaries Calendar!  Men and women, these are what real ladies look like and they are far more beautiful than anything I’ve seen in Glamour, or ENews, or Playboy!  I would love to see a nude revolution.  What would happen if we took the shame and sexuality out of nudity? A breast would be a breast would be a breast.  An ass an ass an ass.  A woman is a woman is a woman.  All of us different and unique and all of us stunningly beautiful.  If we were all naked we might start to see the essence of our beings rather than a body I must fuck.  Or a standard I must achieve.  We might all start accepting one another on a level playing field.  Religion has put shame in our bodies since the first chapters of the Bible when Adam and Eve covered themselves with leaves.  It’s time to take religion out of our bodies and leave the shame behind.

Real women take pride in your bodies and the life they give you.  Real women lose the shame and understand your beauty is far more than skin deep.  Real women look in the mirror and smile and recognize that you are just as beautiful as a Kardashian…because each of us has beauty.  Real, genuine beauty.