NUDITY SELLS

Nudity sells, but… does it create consciousness?

We say this a propos some news that appeared recently.

The first of them talks about Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, a 20 year old Egyptian girl who appears naked outside the Egyptian Embassy in Stockholm protesting over the constitution, painting on her body: “Sharia (Islamic legislation) is not a constitution”.

This news was the second most read in the Spanish newspaper “El Mundo” on December 21^st of 2012.

Aliaa made the headlines on November of 2011 when an image posted on her blog spread quickly around the Internet unleashing a storm of criticism and support. In a matter of hours, the image got the attention of everyone. Her webpage received more than 1.5 million visitors, and she received around 4 new messages per second in twitter.

The Ukrainian feminist group “Femen”, founded in 2008, has made many acts protesting the female sexual utilization, politics or religion.

Since 2009 they have adopted the topless strategy, and since that date they have international effect.

 There is no doubt that today women have the decision and the courage to protest against ideas that have enslaved us throughout thousands of years. At least there is enough culture in some women that enables them to say that Sharia is not a constitution.

We say that nudity sells because of the great number of people who have read this news, and because we see that this Ukrainian feminist group becomes famous, and begins to have an international effect since they started appearing naked.

In relation to this news, we ask ourselves: Are people that read the news interested in the situation of women in Egypt? Or what attracts about this news is the sensationalism of the full feminine attributes?

After reading the news, where there a lot of people interested in Islam and in women’s situation inside this religious movement? Do the readers know what is the general policy of Mursi?

Maybe a lot of people who have read the news did it because of morbid curiosity, but if there is one who was really interested and did listen, then we can consider it a success.

When nobody listens, we sometimes resort to desperate acts. These women appeared naked, but others need to burn themselves alive, or throw themselves out of the window to be listened.

The naked female body has been used throughout history for various purposes.

To be naked is an event that unties, that takes off and removes knots, obstacles and obstructions. On the other hand, it is an element of concealing, of keeping in secret, which is extremely important.

Also, nakedness is giving these knots a meaning and keeping the mystery.

In today’s society, which is very materialistic, it is necessary that these events should happen, in order to clarify and change things.

We have to take into account that nakedness helps us untie things because it creates a vacuum, and takes the masks off. In this way, nudity is quite a discovery, it is to know how to keep a secret, it is to open yourself to emptiness.

We find these women are brave, committed, idealist, they even put their lives in danger. But we hope that, someday our society changes so that these actions are no longer necessary, and we could be listened because of our ideas, our thoughts, our projects, our words.