"It's very refreshing to meet a woman over 40 who has real tits." ~ a.s.
Yesterday was my blogiversary (if we're all keeping track of such things, which, well, I suppose I am since I mentioned it) and I attempted to write words and more words about the meaning of Nakedjen to me, but I got all verklempt and somehow my words actually failed me. Words failing me. I know, you all just fell off your chairs. I'm sorry if you didn't have a very soft landing.
Anyway, I wanted to write about how I started this blog because I truly wanted to empower women to embrace the bodies that they had, right here, right now and not the bodies that our media is constantly throwing their way and telling them they should have instead. I also wanted everyone to know that this, this right here, is what a real naked woman on the Internet looks like and you don't have to pay for it to see it.
Six years ago, when I started this blog, it was rather rare to see normal people actually posting naked photos of themselves on the Internet for anyone to see. Now, well, that has all changed and you just type "naked" in google and can waste your entire workday looking at gobs and gobs of amazingly beautiful bodies of all sizes and shapes and colors.
We also now have a major women's magazine, Glamour, using models more representative of real women in their magazine. Women who look like us, instead of a photoshopped Barbie. Dove has started a program aimed at our teens to encourage them to love their bodies and embrace them. The movements are small, but they're happening. It's truly encouraging and makes me smile.
I'd like to think, in some small way, I helped to foster these bold moves. I probably did not, but there's that small little part of me that wants to think that because I encouraged all of you to celebrate your bodies, to get naked, to say, I love me, that you did. That your love spread to our media which then responded in kind.
Whether you did or you did not publicly, I will share that legions of you did share yourselves with me privately and I thank you for that. It is your bold nakedness that you've shared, over the last six years, the secrets, the joy, the awakenings that have kept me writing in so many ways. I don't thank those of you who truly share yourselves with me nearly enough. I have never shared your stories on nakedjen as a conscious choice because they're your stories, not mine, to share and it feels like I shouldn't expose you. I choose to be naked on the Internet. Obviously, you know your stories are safe with me and I just wanted to say, again, how grateful I am to all of you for taking the time and being brave enough to share them all with me.
I considered, truthfully, calling it a day with Nakedjen recently. That perhaps I had said all that needed to be said. That I had bared enough. That it was time to put my clothes back on and shut up. However, I know that even if I do choose to put my clothes back on, I still have a lot that I want to share, that I want to say, that I need to say.
I am a natural born blogger. I am also a born activist. For body, mind and dogs. And for so very much more. So I will keep blogging. I hope that all of you will keep reading. And perhaps, occasionally, be brave enough to also get naked.
