Heidi Klum Poses Nude? Boring!

Thank you Jenni Maier at Crushable for telling it like it is when it comes to naked celebrities: Heidi Klum’s Nude Photo Shoot Makes UsWonder If Going Naked Is The New Wearing Clothes.

Heidi Klum recently posed nude for the new beauty brand Astor, wearing nothing but confidence and colorful body paint. A few years ago this photo would have shocked the country, caused us to loosen our apron strings and exclaim, “good gracious, the supermodel’s not wearing any clothes.”

But now everyone from Jessica Simpson to a woman known best as Octomom’s stripping down to get more media coverage. If everyone’s taking off their clothes to get attention, it kind of defeats the point of posing nude. Cool, you have a body. It’s not that shocking. Even if you’re pregnant, it’s not that shocking.

It’s so true that the whole shock value of posing nude has passed. Actually, I think the excitement of nude women has long vanished. I remember my days posing nude for photographers outside in New York City. There were many times I’d be standing there buff as a naked mole rat and most people would walk right by without batting an eyelash.

True, it was New York, but still…

I guess now that just about everyone poses nude it’s just not that exciting anymore. I’m not sure what the next celebrity trend will be to get attention. Perhaps doing something of value?

Nah—let’s not get crazy!

Women Who Love Themselves Will Conquer the World

I love this blog post, Fatkini2012, on Gabifresh.

 

This is what I’m talking about when I say women need to love the bodies they have and just be bold and beautiful.

 

As always, I truly encourage you guys to get to the beach (or a pool) this summer--don't let body shame keep you from having a good time! I don't expect everyone to feel comfortable in a two piece, but hopefully I can inspire some of you to take the plunge. I can't tell you how freeing it is to just have fun without worrying about what other people think.

 

How amazing would this world be if all women felt free enough to wear whatever they wanted and love their bodies as is.

 

Do you think that effect would spill over into other areas of life? The freer and more physically okay we feel about ourselves might spill over into us feeling awesome about all our talents?

 

Fatkinis for all! Grey hairs take pride! Wrinkles be damned!

Watch out boardrooms and schools and financial empires…we are coming for you with all our awesomeness in all its various forms!

Let’s just love ourselves, ladies! And conquer the world!

Pink Fish Press Reflects on Writing and Publishing

The publisher of Stripping Down, Pink Fish Press, is highlighted on Elena Hartwell's blog Arc of a Writer today.

Check out what my publisher Renda Dodge and my editor Sarah Martinez have to say about writing and publishing.

And tune back in on May 1st for an interview with me in Arc of a Writer!

Teacher/Former Porn Actress Fired

Here we go again.

The latest teacher to be fired for having a past—Stacie Halas.

According to the Huffington Post, “A Southern California science teacher was fired Wednesday night for performing in a pornographic video, school district officials said.”

Halas had performed as a porn actress before becoming a teacher, so I find it difficult o understand legally how this can impact her career as a teacher now.

The problem apparently stems from the fact that some students became aware of a video available online. 

Perhaps the problem lies with the students and the parents who were not more aware of what their children were doing on the Internet.

It seems we slide into dangerous territory when we begin deciding that a woman’s past occupation should determine her present situation. All accounts are that she was a good teacher.

Just because women were once employed in the adult entertainment business doesn’t mean they can’t go on to pursue other work.

You’d think that people would be happy to see that porn actresses and strippers can make something of themselves with their clothes on.

There should be no disgrace in our pasts.

And there should be no discrimination just because some of that past “work” can be found on the Internet.

Man and Woman Strip Down at Airport: One Gets Arrested; One Must be Mad

Thank you, Gothamist, for sharing the latest person willing to strip down in the name of, well, stripping down: Man Protests TSA Screening By Stripping Naked, Gets Arrested.

John Brennan took a stand against the TSA’s screening process by making it easier for the agents to see he meant no harm. Unfortunately for Brennan, his performance ended in his arrest for indecent exposure and disorderly conduct.

I find it interesting, as does Gothamist, that when a woman did the exact same thing last week at Denver International Airport, she was taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.

Brennan allegedly refused repeated orders to put his clothes on, and later told authorities he is a frequent flier who "disrobed as a form of protest against TSA screeners who he felt were harassing him." According to the Portland law enforcement report, "Mr. Brennan's actions caused two screening lanes to be closed and while some passengers covered their eyes and their children's eyes and moved away from the screening area, others stepped out of the screening lanes to look, laugh and take photos." 

So I’m just kind of curious what the differences were in these two strippers’ circumstances. Is it simply that a woman stripping down in public as a form of protest must be mad while a man doing the same must be a pervert?

And for all the hubbub about parents covering their children’s eyes I must ask—why? Haven’t kids seen plenty of naked humans before? It’s not like the naked people were involved in sexual acts. I would much rather my children see some naked protesters in real-life situations than airbrushed bikini models on magazine covers at the grocery store.

Weight Loss Extreme: The Nose Tube Diet Hits America

This article and video on Yahoo’s Shine answers the question—when will women go too far to lose weight? Brides’Extreme Wedding Preparations: The Nose Tube Diet.

Sarah B. Weir writes about what I seriously hope is not a coming trend.

Want to lose twenty pounds fast? Like in ten days fast? Just have a tube stuck down your nose and be fed through a bag and surprise, surprise! You’ll lose the weight.

Does this scare the living bajeezus out of anyone else? And it’s not cheap either—$1,500 for the ten-day program.

"People think I'm sick, I'm dying," Jessica Schnaider, 41, of Surfside Florida, told the Times referring to people's reaction to seeing her wearing a nasogastric feeding tube attached to a portable plastic bag of low-cal liquid nourishment. During the program, she skipped picking up her daughters at school because she didn't want to scare the other children.

But this does not deter her from her weight-loss plan.

What does she say to her children about why she has a tube down her nose? For vanity’s sake? Which is kind of humorous when you think about it; you have to look like you’re a seriously ill person to get to the desired end.

And, of course, as most people know by now, the weight loss will most likely be temporary and one might even gain back extra weight afterwards.

I was going to say—what will be next? Surgery to reduce body weight that is merely cosmetic? And then I was like, oh…yeah.

We’re already living in this beautiful new world.

NBC CT News Interview

I had a great interview Wednesday on NBC CT 11am news.

I was afraid I wouldn't make it that morning because I'd been so sick for days, but I somehow held it all together.

I have to admit, I really enjoyed being on camera again...

My Children Have More Troops

Happy Grilled Cheese Day!

I get so frustrated with myself when I lose my patience with my kids.

I remind myself that Cole is only three. Three. When I think about how short a time that is to be alive and to have soaked up the cultural mores of human beings I feel guilty.

He’s only trying to have fun and be with Mommy.

But, oh my goodness, when he just seems to have cotton balls in his ears and I have to repeat myself like twenty times, I want to run down the stairs, open the back door and run outside.

Then there’s Thomas screaming, I mean—SCREAMING—at the top of his lungs. 

And then Genny will turn and snap when I say no about something: Oh! Fine! What-EVER!

And I’m standing there asking myself, oh my goodness, why is this so tough? They are only three little children and I am one big, smart, strong adult.

And then there is my answer staring me in the face: they are a much larger army than I.

Stripper Baby Photo Seems Inevitable But Wrong

I opened this photo sent by a friend not knowing what I would find.


I’d like to say I was shocked, but rather I felt more of a sense of, yeah, I can see someone’s mind putting the pieces together and taking a photo of a baby on a lamp post as a stripper pole.

Perhaps the inevitability of this photo began back when stage mothers started dressing their young pageant daughters as strippers and fan dancers for the talent portion of beauty competitions.

The idea, the thought, of young girls dressed as strippers surrounds us in our culture. Until we then get a photo of a mother taking it just one step further. A mother completely sexualizing her baby in a stripper outfit with a pole to swing on.

Awkward moment to explain one day to this girl?

Is it funny? Cute? To me, no. To most mothers, I would think not.

Maybe some would say it’s no worse than dressing up one’s baby in a cheerleader outfit or a sports jersey with one’s favorite team. I mean, the baby doesn’t choose that either.

I’ll even admit I was guilty when my daughter was a baby when I dressed her in a pink bikini style bathing suit.

But for me, this photo just seems wrong on another level as it purposefully uses a child in a hyper-sexualized fashion.

I’m an ex-stripper and believe in the rights of women to make their own choices when it comes to their occupations. But I’m also a mother and just don’t see the humor in dressing a baby up as a stripper.

Were you surprised by this photo?

Guest Blog at Sassy Lapdancer

Check out my guest blog post about strippers uniting in their mission to tell their stories at Sassy Lapdancer.

Selling a Stripper Story

Most people assume that nowadays the way to make a splash with a memoir must be to have been a stripper.

But in my latest Huffington Post blog, Sarah Tressler: Marketing Genius or One Lucky Stripper? I discuss how difficult it actually is to be taken notice of if you were a stripper.

"Stripper stories" have been told a few times already, so, you know...they must be all alike.

Sarah Tressler Chases Tornados

Well played, Stripper/Reporter Woman, well played.

Sarah Tressler, the stripper/journalist fired by her Texas paper last week for moonlighting as a stripper, may not have to worry about peeling off her clothes anymore.

She’s landed herself a gig with Good Morning America covering the tornados in Texas.

Yes, you read that right.

At the moment, most are still unsure of the connection of being a high society reporter and a weather reporter, but hey—we all switch careers numerous times in our lives.

Pastor Mike Scruggs Appeals to the Stripper Inside of You

The UK’s Daily Mail reports on Pastor Mike Scuggs of White Oak, Ohio, who has some controversial ideas when it comes to preaching, like installing a stripper pole at the altar.

Religious people from all times and places have used theatrical approaches to get people into service and that’s what this preacher seems to be trying.

He’s not asking anyone to come up and try out the pole, rather he’s making a statement about what some men’s fantasies look like and what some women’s look like, too (hence the bed with roses and romantic thingies sprinkled across on the other side of the stage).

Of course, there are some people who have problems with Scruggs approach, but he did have a packed room last Friday night.

Oh, and he’s asking his flock to have sex every night for a week, too.

I like his direct approach about real life:

“We push the envelope, that's true,” he told WLWT.com. “Don't take it out of context. Some people say, "He's going to hell. He's wrong." We want to talk about it. We don't want them to guess at it, assume it's wrong. It's right. We want to talk about it.”

“We talk about sex. We talk about drugs. We talk about faith. We talk about relationships… things that people are dealing with on a day-to-day basis.”

It seems like bringing real life problems into the context of one’s religion makes sense.

What do you think about Scruggs’ controversial theatrics?