Allure asked five celebrities to bare it all for the camera. Learn what they had to say about self-esteem, their bodies, and stripping down; for more of our revealing interviews with them,...
"Self-esteem, their bodies and stripping down." There are many posts possible in these few lines. But I was drawn to one in particular. Mainly, why would they do this? What is the motivation for a beautiful woman to want to share that gift with the world and what is the difference between this and stripping and frankly, prostitution, because stripped (sorry) to its basic argument isn't that just another form of sharing yourself with others for their amusement?
OK perhaps the last part goes to far and I've actually asked more than one question there but still...
I was reminded of an article that I read many years ago, from feminist writer Naomi Wolf. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to find the article, which in part said this:
I will never forget a visit I made to Ilana, an old friend who had become an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. When I saw her again, she had abandoned her jeans and T-shirts for long skirts and a head scarf. I could not get over it. Ilana has waist-length, wild and curly golden-blonde hair. “Can’t I even see your hair?” I asked, trying to find my old friend in there. “No,” she demurred quietly. “Only my husband,” she said with a calm sexual confidence, “ever gets to see my hair.”
When she showed me her little house in a settlement on a hill, and I saw the bedroom, draped in Middle Eastern embroideries, that she shares only with her husband—the kids are not allowed—the sexual intensity in the air was archaic, overwhelming. It was private. It was a feeling of erotic intensity deeper than any I have ever picked up between secular couples in the liberated West. And I thought: Our husbands see naked women all day—in Times Square if not on the Net. Her husband never even sees another woman’s hair.
She must feel, I thought, so hot.
Compare that steaminess with a conversation I had at Northwestern, after I had talked about the effect of porn on relationships. “Why have sex right away?” a boy with tousled hair and Bambi eyes was explaining. “Things are always a little tense and uncomfortable when you just start seeing someone,” he said. “I prefer to have sex right away just to get it over with. You know it’s going to happen anyway, and it gets rid of the tension.”
“Isn’t the tension kind of fun?” I asked. “Doesn’t that also get rid of the mystery?”
“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sex has no mystery.”(more)
Much the same thing was said in the book "Everyman's Battle". One of the suggestions to men struggling against the lure of pornography and its addictive qualities and consequent detriment to marriages was to "starve their eyes" during the course of the day. Because to do otherwise, particularly with pornography (but in other ways too) cheats our spouses (and future spouses) of full devotion.
Wolf understands this:
The reason to turn off the porn might become, to thoughtful people, not a moral one but, in a way, a physical- and emotional-health one; you might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking. The evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity. (more)
After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.(more)
Yes, I've seen the pictures. They are beautiful and, I might add, tastefully done but something still nags my mind about it all. That these beautiful creations have felt the need to share their charms with many for sake of self-esteem and curiosity rather than with one in favor of chastity and mystery.
10 comments:
Sated with clinical satisfactions of the body, the pornography-gluttoned walk through the ruins of life without imagining what was once there. I can't help but think we've lost something quite valuable in our society with the devaluation and exploitation of women to feed the purposes of bankrupt morals.
Sometimes things that seem harmless on the surface are actually very harmful. I often wonder who the biggest victims are, is it men or women?
Euripides- Tragic truth spoken poetically. thanks
SH- who are the biggest victims? We all are. Including our children and those (few) who've never crossed that line. And it is harmful to degrees we may never be fully aware of. While I was in the midst of such an addiction, thinking I was hurting no one, I began to realize that I was much more short tempered with the wife and kids and that my creativity was stifled. These realizations helped me begin a long journey of what can best be described as recovery. Our sin rarely (if ever) touches only ourselves.
Let me just seize on the self-esteem canard, since I hit on this in Sunday School all the time.
Self-esteem is (excuse me) B***S*** in boldface capital letters. Self-esteem is a social construct, and depends on your social subset. So pimps, prostitutes, assassins, corrupt judges, cheating husbands, you name it, can all have self-esteem. We hear about self-esteem in fatuous contexts all the time. It's virtually meaningless in any moral sense, but the public has been trained to think that it is.
On the other hand, you never hear these two words togther in popular culture: self-respect. That's because self-respect is inextricably associated with morality, which popular culture doesn't want to think about. But while we may not want to be moral, we want to feel moral, so self-esteem functions as an ersatz self-respect.
No pimp, prostitute, assassin, corrupt judge, or cheating husband has self-respect, and neither do these bimbos in this vapid magazine.
KK- you are absolutely correct. Some of the most proficient and brutal criminals have great self esteem. Thanks for that comment.
BTW, I read the Wolf article maybe 5 years ago. When I discuss marriage & chastity with my 6th graders, I use the example of the wife's hidden hair to make the point of exclusivity & faithfulness.
There was another article from that same period written by a Jewish woman who had a very traditional courtship, during which she did not touch her husband-to-be. Following the wedding, but before the reception, she & her new spouse sat quietly in a room alone for a few minutes during which time they held hands, IIRC. I use that story to illustrate self-respect, mutual respect, self-control, and the importance of the marriage covenant.
The kids love these examples, their nimble brains just vacuum it up.
KK - do you think you could point me to that article?
http://www.torah.org/features/wperspective/cosmogirl.html
Wow! Eight comments so far, Eutychus! You certainly wrote a provocative piece.
And you were right on the money.
I love the story about the hair and will file that one away for many future references.
Not that long ago...25-30 years...it took some effort to find pictures of nude women. One had to find a National Geographic or the lingerie ads of a department store, for the really racy stuff was not readily available to underage viewers. Now, as I walk with my children through Target and see gigantic, full-color, salacious displays for underwear and swimsuits, when I walk with them through the grocery store and see cover after cover of magazines at the ends of the check-out lanes that we cannot possibly avoid advertising what to do while naked and how to do it better, I cringe. My son and daughter are children now, but they are human. They will have the weaknesses of all of us. How will they survive in this culture we have built?
MC-
Well I figured out that if I respond to everyone I can just about double my comments. Phsh- I catch on pretty quick.
Seriously, though thanks for the kind words. I know about the challenges you speak of and with my two boys (the oldest fast on 14) I know them well. I am blessed that he and I can still talk on such things. I reason that this is due to many years in scouts together. I only pray that in the face of such overwhelming odds that a walk through the stores only underscores, some of it takes hold.
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