Gymnophobia: The Fear of Nudity

The fashion world is abuzz with the latest nude "scandal" featuring fashion darling Karlie Kloss. At only 19-years-old, people are "uncomfortable" with her implied nudes in the October issue of Allure, as shot by Mario Testino.


First off, she's a legal adult and has every right to pose however she wants. Second, there are racier images of women all over the internet, all over Hollywood blockbusters, and French and Italian Vogue are stuffed with images of lithe naked bodies and nipples galore. In a culture where 14 year old girls are prone to posting sexually suggestive photos in barely-there dresses and skirts on Facebook, the photos of Kloss hardly qualify as a scandal.


To be frank, John at Fashion Copious said it best: "...Testino is a lazy photographer that lacks a point of view at this stage of his life. And hence am surprised that he’s being hired and paid handsomely for his [currently] shitty work. That’s the only things i’m outraged at. I could care less if Karlie poses nude; she’s 19 and can do whatever she wants.” 

The issue with these images, if any, is not at all that Karlie is essentially nude. The issue is that they're sub-par and not what one would expect from the collaboration of a caliber model and famed photographer. The issue is the same issue that haunts sites for amateur photographers like Model Mayhem - a photographer without a vision just gets a gorgeous girl naked and assumes it'll make magic. These images are forgettable and depend entirely on Kloss's beauty, completely lacking any artistic vision. 


The real question this controversy begs, though, is why North America has such a phobia towards nudity. Women have breasts. Karlie Kloss, as a 19-year-old woman, has breasts. Personally I don't see how a nipple differentiates between nude and not-nude, but apparently in North America showing a woman's full breast is cause for concern. The less you see of something, the more you want it, and the more tantalizing it becomes - so by restricting sexuality and the female body in apparatuses of creativity, we in turn add to the problem. Perhaps if we accepted the female body for the beautiful thing that it is, and allowed nudity in innocent and artistic forms like this to flourish without making such a fuss (is it shameful to be nude? Wrong? Are we not sending all the wrong messages by restricting it?), we would begin to eliminate the hypersexualization of women and appreciate natural bodies of all shapes and sizes. When a teacher in Sex Ed. says the word "penis", we're told to stop giggling and be mature. Shouldn't we likewise be mature about a half exposed breast in a fashion magazine?