Monday, November 21, 2011

Nude activism continues to take over the internet

First PETA. Then FEMEN. Then, last month, Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy posted naked pictures of herself online to protest sexist oppression.

Now it's Chinese supporters of dissident artist Ai Weiwei who are dropping trou for a cause.



According to Shanghaiist,  Ai Weiwei announced Friday that Beijing police were now investigating his assistant Zhao Zhao for "spreading pornography online" for posting a picture of the artist with four female models, all nude. (Link)

The site, "Listen, Chinese Government: Nudity is not Pornography" is packed with homemade nudes from both well-known outspoken Chinese cewebrities and well-wishers.

What I really love are the group shots censored with AWW faces:


There is no doubt that this will get attention. Naked people always seem to, no matter how many billions of artistic, scientific and erotic nude pictures are available at the stroke of a Google. But as the shock value diminishes with the increasing ordinariness of seeing other humans in their altogether, will the efficacy of the tactic also fade?

I guess we'll just have to see. But as long as places like Egypt and China (not to mention many Western democracies) continue to harshly fight the normalization of naked displays of the human body, there will still be someone to scandalize.

(Thanks to FEMEN for the tip)

6 comments:

  1. For now, I love nude activism, mostly because it upsets so many people with strangely puritanical views of the human body. I particularly love FEMEN, LOL. Good for them all. I am not a nudist myself, but i sort of admire those who are, and because, like you said, people are fascinated by it despite the copious and largely tasteless nudity on the internet (including porn), I am sort of fascinated by those who choose to take their clothes off for WHICH causes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. hi...i like this movement...

    ReplyDelete
  3. nudity is not the right choice for any protest, whether its male or female...nude post wont bring the image for what they fighting for...it will only bring the image of sex and prostitution...99% of the viewers are simply enjoying by seeing the cute dolls...nothing more than that...:-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. wow. that is ridiculous.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That's the easiest way for them to get an attention.

    ReplyDelete