Vanity Bare

So much for this being the month for Valentine's Day or the even nobler Black History Month. After this week I am officially re-dubbing February "Month of the Mainstream Nudey Mag."

First we have the "Why-bother-with Swimsuits?" Issue of Sports Illustrated featuring 10 topless cover girls (covering themselves with their arms of course, how modest!) . And now, not to be outdone, Vanity Fair just released its newest issue featuring a stripped bare Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johanson on the cover with an additional promise of 47 barely covered actors and actresses within its pages.

So what is "the buzz" on this new spread? Here are a few comments from a FoxNews report :

The reason female stars disrobe is simple, says Janice Min, editor of the much-read celebrity magazine US Weekly. "It's tried and true. You show some cleavage on an actress. You make her look sexy. You make her look hot." She needs to be hot — because in Hollywood, "you have to be sexy to be a successful actress. You just have to be."

So where's the nude photo of Brad Pitt? Or George Clooney, who appears later in the issue, dressed, amid a bevy of women in flesh-toned bras and panties? Let's face it, Min says: Women do like to see sexy men — just not with all their clothes off.

"Men just aren't viewed as sex objects in the same way that women are," Min says. "Women don't think about men being naked in the same way that men think about women."

Hmmm.... Men just aren't viewed as sex objects and women are. Well, now that that's settled....
WHA?!?!?!?!

What boggles my mind is why these women who are successful in their chosen professions, who are attractive, who seemingly have all the things women around the world think they want to be satisfied, Why are THESE women posing nude? Is it for the sake of art? Is it to make a statement of some kind? (not for liberation I hope) Do they think they have to? Or could it be that they really think it's no big deal? Sadly, if I had to guess, my money would go to that last one.

Why do I think that? For one thing, because I know that I have personally justified any number of otherwise embarrassing choices with the idea that none of it was a big deal. Also, because I lived with several girls in college and I observe women in my life everyday who have a similar laissez-faire attitude about their own sexuality. "So I took my shirt off at a party because I had one too many gin-and-tonics....what's the big deal?" Or , "So, I kissed a 40-year-old stranger but I barely remember it....what's the big deal?"

This passive, "whatever" attitude about our sexuality is harmful to women primarily because whether or not we strip naked for the world to see does matter, or maybe I should be more direct and say It IS a big deal. It matters in how we see ourselves and how we come to shape our own identity, it matters how others perceive us. Most of all, it matters because it exposes our deepest vulnerabilities in a forum that has no context to receive our flaws or insecurities with grace. We open oursleves to be seen and critiqued as a sum of our physical parts rather than seen and accepted as a whole person. Sure, a woman can say - and even believe - her body exposed is not a big deal or even that it will ensure her acceptance, but eventually her experience will tell her otherwise.

Case in point? Read the last sentence of the article:

So buzz-worthy was the VF cover, Min says, that her magazine went out and asked people what they thought of it.

The answer? Most thought the actresses looked better with clothes on.

OUCH!