|
Are such nude or
semi-nude photos about sex, or
athleticism? The intricate
connection between the two is not new. What's new is the nudity
epidemic
in women's sports and in media. That it occurs more among women's
images
than men's is no surprise: In our culture, heterosexual men still
dominate
and are assumed to drop cash when women drop clothes.
Yet Ms. Thompson's
and Ms. Horn-Miller's photos
exude confidence and
strength -- not the attributes of classic girlie pictures. Their
affirmation
challenges male viewers rather than submits to some controlling gaze.
Ms.
Horn-Miller's defiance, connected to her native history, is formidable.
So far, so good: No
exploitation, no humiliation
for these women. But
in focusing on Ms. Thompson's breasts, one American journalist, Sally
Jenkins,
commented, "The photograph is utterly harmless -- there is not a
single,
actual, verifiable nipple in sight." Her implication is that when
women's
breasts are visible in public in their entirety, it is harmful, and
perhaps
indecent and immoral.
 I've argued before
that this attitude toward
women's breasts -- indeed,
their whole bodies -- comes from gender-based discrimination. But in
the
past decade, some women have been taking back their breasts and
asserting
"topfree equality" with men. Why "topfree?" We associate the term
"topless"
with strip bars; "topfree," a term invented by feminists, expresses the
idea that these women are removing their breasts from men's demeaning
rules
even as they remove them from clothes -- and in the same public
situations
where men may be topfree.
On Aug. 22, four
women ranging in age from 27 to 66 met in a park in St. Catharines,
Ont.
They had convened as activists of an association I support -- the
Topfree
Equal Rights Association. In mid-afternoon, the oldest said she was too
warm and took off her top. Two others did, also. No one seemed to care.
No youngsters were harmed by the sight of those bare breasts, two pairs
of which were being used to feed their owners' own children.
 This could not happen, however, without
corresponding changes in the
rest of society. That bare female breasts are now more acceptable in
public
is obvious, not only from magazines and calendars, movies and
television
but also from gay pride parades and pop music festivals, at which women
and men doff tops -- or more -- with no adverse consequence.
And yet
publications still go out of their way to
produce mannered poses
like Ms. Thompson's and Ms. Horn-Miller's. People call them "tasteful."
That term is now a code for nude photos with no female nipples and no
pubic
areas of either sex. Bare breasted women (but not men) are considered
nude,
and nudity with problematic parts is still seen as tasteless or
harmful.
 Such narrow attitudes don't prevail in much
of
Europe. There, publications
are less likely to print black bars over body parts or to hide them
behind
props, such as fists and cleverly placed water-polo balls. There, it's
understood that there's nothing even necessarily sexual in depicting a
nude individual whose "forbidden" areas are seen as part of the whole
person.
In the Dutch magazine Elsevier, one woman explains: "I prefer to swim
nude.
In a bathing suit, I feel I'm being examined." Many Europeans
understand
that bodies may be sexually more charged when clothed -- and that by
covering
certain body parts too obviously, photos may actually emphasize them
more.
In hiding unclothed
bodies, we North Americans may
simply succeed in
provoking curiosity. A 1985 study found higher rates of body and sex
problems
(such as teen pregnancies) in North America than in those parts of
Europe
where nudity is more common. I'd argue that our over-sensitivity to
unconcealed
body parts contributes to another problem -- the way many North
American
girls and women vilify their own bodies, and turn to radical diets and
invasive cosmetic surgery in a never-ending quest for some physical
norm.
 For
15 years, the American photographer Frank
Cordelle has been photographing
nude women and girls for a magnificent project he calls "Century". One
of his subjects, Katie, who was an anorectic at age 16, later said
being
photographed by Mr. Cordelle was the most important thing she ever did.
She's now 19 and of normal weight. Another subject, Christina, who at
age
44 was a secret bulimic, is now free of that affliction. Both women
have
credited Mr. Cordelle for giving them a more positive body image.
Most Canadian
newspapers don't understand this.
Their infrequent photos
of nudes follow the typical tendency to hide. But there are signs of
change:
Shortly after Ms. Thompson's photo appeared, the Globe and Mail
published
a photo of a nude woman on a horse. Nothing was hidden, including her
breasts
and pubic hair. The Globe got almost no complaints, and you didn't have
to be 18 to buy the paper.
 While there's no need to turn newspapers
into skin
magazines, we do
need an attitude toward bodies of both sexes that would better reflect
reality -- and help convince people to respect others' bodies and
accept
their own. Many North American magazines are now using nude photos as
the
latest fashion. But nudity can mean more. When it entails accepting the
unclothed body in all its shapes, sizes, ages, and conditions, society
will be closer to achieving not only gender equality, but a more
profound
affirmation of human life.
============
Dr. Rapoport is the
Editor of Going Natural, the
magazine of the FCN
(see below), and the President of the Topfree Equal Rights Association
(also see below). He is on the faculty of the School of the Arts,
McMaster
University, Hamilton Ontario Canada.
Federation
of Canadian Naturists.
Topfree Equal Rights
Association.
Copyright © 2001
Paul Rapoport
|
