Colour Challenge Green Thursday In The Bath

Commercial porn and page three push passive and degrading images further into our society. Reactionary religious leaders tell women they have to cover up. In the media, images of naked women are sexualised and socially approved - rarely used to convey anything but sexuality; so when female nudity is taken out of that context, many people are confounded, even shocked. While public female nudity or semi nudity is treated as some kind of moral offence, public cis male nudity or semi nudity is seen as humorous if not normal.

Naked and partially naked women are constantly being objectified and dehumanised, used as props to sell things, assumed to be there only for the approval and titallation of the male population. (This assumption that women are there to be approved of by men is poisonous - on the beach if a man sees a topless older or fatter woman, a woman who doesn't fit society's definition of beautiful, he will say to his mates 'hey look over there' and pull a face. If he sees a topless woman who IS beautiful by society's standards, he will say 'hey look over there' and pull a different face. Either way the woman is sexualised and it is assumed that she is there for his gaze.)

The liberation of my body is nothing in comparison to the liberation of others - I am able, young, white; the censoring and regulation of women and particularly of naked women is patriarchal - sexist, racist, homophobic, ageist, ableist, trans exclusive etc - there are many reasons society will not regulate or censor my body like it would regulate, for example the body of a woman of colour or a disabled woman's body. All the same, I am oppressed: my freedom is limited when it comes to nudity or expression purely because I am a woman. My nipples are censored because I am a woman. My body will be judged twice as harshly because I am a woman as will my sharing it. And it will be seen as an object, (there to be acted upon) rather than a subject, (for its own action) because I am a woman.

My hope is that by sharing my body, you will see that that is all it is - a body... and under your clothes, you actually have one too. So does the person sitting next to you, along with your sister, your teacher, your local mp - it's really not a scary concept and certainly isn't a sexual one. Our bodies are conflated with indecency and sex and it is insisted that they stay in reserve; distributed and consumed according to these patriarchal rules (coughcough*thus promoting the billion dollar porn companies which commodify women's bodies and have so little to do with women's autonomy, feeding the idea that women's bodies are to be exposed only to amuse men for their own profit cough).

So this is me taking my autonomy back. Because it is not society's or my brother's or social media's or the government's or my dad's or my boyfriend's or your right to tell me how much of it I should/should not or can/cannot share with the world. My body is mine to regulate and if anybody has a problem with how I do that, that is their problem not mine and they can very easily look away. And while nudity and sex are not synonymous I will also just add on to that statement that my sexuality is not theirs to regulate either - it is mine to shout about or mine not to shout about. It is mine.

I find being naked liberating and empowering and I am sick of this idea that self love or the promotion of it is vain or ego centric. There's this ridiculous fine line between being a 'slut'/'asking for it'/vain and being a 'prude'/'fishing for compliments'/'no self confidence (not sexy enough)' - either way is completely destructive. It's fucking impossible. I have posted my naked self in a public place - so yes that gives you permission to see it and think of it how you will. But it does not give you permission to degrade it with abuse or negative comments or tell me what I should or should not do with it or to it (especially not if you're eluding to my nakedness equating to or suggesting consent - phrases such at 'asking for it' are victim blaming and harmful and just add to rape culture). Really, what is the point in bringing people down? I want to live in a world where women can have confidence and not be shamed and abused for it - a world where it's cool to make people feel good about themselves. It should be normal to feel unapologetically beautiful. Whether people feel empowered by being totally covered up or by being totally naked - their choices are none of my fucking business and they ain't yours either.