Paper and Oil

Paper and oil broke the Internet.
That was the intention anyway. Until last week, most of the world, including myself, had probably never heard of Paper. The magazine, anyway. No idea what kind of content it offered, and still do only vaguely.
Everything changed however when Kim Kardashian had a picture of her naked behind, all oily, go on its cover and around the world. Paper might not have been famous, but Kim Kardashian certainly is. Celebrities used to be singers or actors, people who had become famous because they had a certain talent that helped them sell records and movies. Kim K. does have TV shows, though I never saw any of them, not just because I don't live in the US, but because it's probably not the kind of show I would want to watch.
Anyway, Kim is world famous for being a celebrity, for having married hiphop star Kanye West, and now for having posed naked for Paper, the magazine.
After the picture where the champagne lands in a glass put on her behind, and after the picture with the full behind as it were bursting out of her dress, she also did a nude picture full-frontal.
And it's that addition which landed her on this blog. Many stars, models, entertainers, singers have posed in various stages of nudity, but most have preferred to put their hands or other objects in the way of their strategic places, the 'three points' as the Chinese call them.
Kim Kardashian did not. For that, she deserves our praise. I am not so naive as to believe that Kim K. is interested in promoting the naturist lifestyle, she's not, she's mostly interested in promoting herself, the brand Kim Kardashian. But putting up the courage to have herself pictured fully/frontally naked in a magazine, that's what I call a positive step. It doesn't need to push other celebrities to do the same, but it can persuade more women to value their body and to accept all body types.
As to the pictures themselves, I would have preferred something more natural. A walk along the beach, sitting by the swimming pool. The pictures in Paper are too obviously posed, and she has more oil dripping off her than a naturist would put suntan lotion on the beach.
Sorry, Kim. But for posing naked at all, thank you, Kim.
I shall be picking my Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2014 at the end of December. Let's see if Kim Kardashian will be one of the contenders.

Chelsea Handler vs. Instagram

The end of the year is almost upon us, which means I'll have to start thinking about whom to name Real Naturist of the Year and Celebrity Naturist of the Year.
In the latter category, US media personality and TV presenter Chelsea Handler is one of my previous winners. Not because she is a naturist - I don't know if she is or not - but because I felt her nude bathroom appearance with Sandra Bullock pushed the cause of natural nudity forward. Since then we've had lots of nudity on other TV shows, most notably on a series of reality shows both in the US and abroad.
Chelsea Handler's latest push for the acceptance of non-sexual nudity has brought her into a collision course with Instagram. Posting a picture of herself topless on horseback in a pose similar to that famous picture of Russia's President Vladimir Putin has brought out old-style censorship at what is supposed to be very much a 21st-century new world company.
The problem with topless pictures does not just exist at Instagram, but also at Facebook. While I would agree that there is need for vetting pictures and for taking offensive ones offline, the problem is here what you call offensive. If you were to take into account the sensitivities of each culture and each person in the world, you might end up with a blind Internet where not a single picture is allowed.
Over the past several decades, the acceptance of the nude or topless female form has grown enormously across the world. It would therefore be more than logical that online firms hire staff who are in tune with that evolution and who can tell the difference between acceptable nudity and pornography. Naked and topless pictures can be beautiful and totally inoffensive - like Chelsea Handler's. Anyone can tell that closeups of genitals and provocative poses would not be suitable, but again, Miss Handler's picture is not like that at all.
Come on, Instagram, Facebook, upgrade your picture-spotting talent and let in a fresh outlook on the world. An outlook which allows to see the beauty of the human body away from sexual innuendo.