On Saturday, I invited myself to celebrate Bubble's first birthday. It was a really lovely party, a gathering of some folks who I already knew and many that I did not, with amazing food and laughter and beautiful children who were quite busy adorning themselves with sparkly things and glittery paint and just the right balloon animal.
At one point, Gwendomama mentioned to someone at the party that I was Nakedjen. As in THE Nakedjen. From the Internet. The one she talks about all the time. The one who just gets naked whenever. The one who got naked at the Mexican restaurant when she was there and she missed the opportunity!
That Nakedjen.
But then it didn't stop there. She loaded this blog. On her very large flat screen monitor that was sitting right on the buffet table. There was a smorgasbord of food and behind it was me, upside down on a bed, naked. Well, I suppose it's not a party until someone gets naked, as I always say, and it was probably a good thing that it was me.
Anyway, everyone was, as you might imagine, quite curious about exactly what it meant to be Nakedjen. Why I did it? What was the purpose? What was it all about?
So I happily explained that I am quite comfortable in my body. That being naked for me is a celebration of my body and of myself. I also explained that I was very tired of the distorted images of women that we are constantly fed by the media that make women feel that they are imperfect. Or not quite good enough. I was upset by a media that was constantly shoving the photo shopped perfected Barbie Doll images at us from the cover of magazines and television and billboards and was doing its best to create a very large population of women who absolutely hated everything about themselves.
I wanted to change that. And I was going to start with me.
So I started writing Nakedjen. It was my very subtle political platform. Because obviously I chose to be naked about my entire life, not just that particular agenda. Once I really started writing Nakedjen, I decided to write completely from my heart and soul. Bare it all. To be truly naked. And raw. And very real.
I also decided that I would post naked pictures of myself. That, I will admit, came more from my job at the time than from anything else. I was the product manager for an on-line sex chat community. Basically I was working in the porn industry. And I didn't like what I was seeing at all. Because the women who were being served up to the men were not REAL. Men were paying lots of money for the fantasy of these women (and there's nothing wrong with fantasy!), but I decided that I would give them a bona-fide, genuine, absolutely 100% real naked woman.
Now, let me reiterate that for me it wasn't about being sexual. That honestly has never been my intention. I'm just me. I realize on an intellectual level that there are plenty of men (and women) out there that find my naked body attractive. Or even, gasp, HOT as they like to tell me. But for me, it honestly was just about saying, "Look, here I am! Nakedjen! This is my body. I love every inch of it and think it's beautiful. And I think your naked body is absolutely perfect and beautiful, too!"
So I shared all of that with the folks who were gathered in that small room on Saturday night while I was lying naked behind the buffet. And the women who were gathered there seemed to really get it. They all launched into their own stories of shame about their bodies. And how they wished they could be brave enough to be naked. That kind of thing.
As I was sitting there one of the men, a grandfather, came over and sat at the table. And he started reading Nakedjen. But then he noticed the naked pictures. (And we know there are quite a lot!) And he started to search for each and every one. I was sitting right next to him as he did this. I could tell that he was getting visibly aroused. Yet he didn't stop. He just kept searching for the next naked photo.
So this is where it got weird for me. And it also surprised me that it got weird for me. As I said, I intellectually know that there are men who find my pictures sexually arousing. For whatever reason. And I'm totally okay with that. But when this man who was sitting right next to me started actually salivating over my pictures, I got a little freaked out. I wanted to say, "Hey, it's just a naked body!" And at the same time I was wondering if I should ask him if he'd like me to take my clothes off so he could see the real thing?! Meanwhile, I was so shocked, I wasn't able to say anything at all. I just sat there watching him watch me with a strange curiosity.
When I shared all of this with DearSweetDave last night, he had some valuable insight for me. He asked me if I could perhaps try to embrace the idea that my pictures are, in fact, erotic. That I am a beautiful woman with a beautiful body that turns men (and some women) on. Could I possibly own that and call it my own?
I believe that I can. Internet, I give you the beautiful and erotic me. In another picture taken yesterday by the wonderful Dave Winer. Who has joined the ranks of "official Nakedjen photographer".
NaBloPoMo links for today:
P.S. If you're curious about my visit yesterday with Dave (and the pictures) he was kind enough to write about it on his blog. So you can go read about it here. Or you can wait for my Film at 11. But if you're a regular reader, we all know how that goes.
