Why She Posts Nude Photos

This intensely personal essay from Penny describes her evolution towards the emotional freedom to post her own nude photos on her blog. It’s a good read and in the end, a manifesto of self-ownership. Excerpt from the middle:

My true sexual revolution didn’t happen until I started working at a sex shop during my senior year at UT. During the three years I worked there, I read and learned more about sex and met sex positive women who I could talk to. I finally got to the point where I was truly proud of my body and my sexuality again.

While working at the shop I started modeling (sometimes nude), but at that point I only showed the photos to Jake and certain friends who I knew would appreciate them. Eventually I started my blog because I loved talking about sex with people at work, and I wanted a bigger outlet for sexual discussion and exploration.

Since I already had sexy and nude photos, I wondered if I should post some on my blog when I started it. I’d always wanted to share my images with a wider audience, but at the same time I was also afraid to. My main fears had to do with family members seeing them or with the possibility of my real identity getting out and the repercussions or lost career opportunities that could come with that. The exhibitionist in me won though, and I began posting photos, although at first only ones that didn’t reveal my face and didn’t show any actual nudity.

After blogging for a while, I realized that I was tired of hiding my face from my photos. I admired women who had the courage to post nude images that showed everything, including their faces, boldly and with pride. I gradually became less concerned with hiding my face.

Posting nude photos as well as sex blogging in general has been an extremely liberating experience for me. Finally, I don’t feel like my body is something I need to hide. I’ve come a long way from my scared and ashamed 13 year old self, and I’m extremely proud of that, especially considering I was raised to believe that my body is obscene and sex is sinful.

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Candid Photography In The Digital Age

The age of digital flash photography with easy internet uploading has created a whole universe of candid unexpected nude photos. “Hey Sis, look here!” *FLASH* “You’re on the internetz, ha ha!”

I rarely post these, for reasons having to do with the personal rights of the people in the pictures. Not only is it The Wrong Thing To Do, it’s stupid, for the same reason that making enemies pointlessly is the undoing of many an evil overlord. There’s already enough people who hate what I do here, without me needing to antagonize specific individuals who might turn out to be the daughter of some muck-raking senator somewhere.

But sometimes, I can make exceptions. In this one, for instance, the lady got enough warning to get her towel in front of her face. It makes for a nice pose and leaves her safely anonymous:

Found here.

Nude Women, Skin Color, Huh?

Although I linked early to Ethnorotica because of its general high style and because it’s the not-so-secret project of Lex from the excellent Naked Loft Party, I’m not fundamentally sympathetic to its “shine a light on the best in ethnic erotica” mission. I guess I’m still old-fashioned enough to dream of a world where a pretty naked woman is judged not by the color of her skin, but by the contents of her birthday suit. When it comes to ethnicity in porn, I myself am frequently oblivious; I’ve posted pretty pictures on this blog and been taken aback by comments that mentioned the color of the models, because that was not one of the features I noticed. Frankly, people who do notice make me a little nervous; I have a hard time imagining benign reasons for categorizing people by color in any context.

All of which is by way of lengthy introduction to this vintage postcard beauty, which may not be exactly the sort of ethnorotica Lex has in mind:

This postcard (which is probably pre-1970s, judging from the scalloped edges) appears to be a fairly late entry in the 120-year-old category of “ethnic nude” postcard photography. I’m not generally inclined to post these vintage postcard pictures, because their focus on “ethnic” identity strikes me as a poor reason to take or display nude photos. But beauty is beauty, and sometimes good art (or good porn) happens for bad reasons. I find this young woman’s picture just too pretty not to share.

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