The Naked Truth...Pt 2: Body Image And Our Inner Critic

Sometimes simple stories bring up themes that go far beyond the simple details of the story itself and last weeks feature on Tom Ford was no exception. To refresh our memories...Tom Ford, the famous fashion designer and film director was featured in an issue of Interview magazine and in that article he discusses societies discomfort with showing naked men and his own penchant for not wearing any clothes while at home. Which lead me to ask my blog readers why it is that Americans are o.k. seeing a woman completely naked yet we censor a similarly naked man.

But as with most good topics, there is so much more to talk about than just what lies on the surface. I don't know about anyone else, but when I read that Mr. Ford hangs around his house in the nude, my first thought was how confident he must be with his own body to be comfortable doing that. That is simply something that I would not be comfortable doing for obvious reasons...like my families horrified looks...as well as those reasons I will explain below.

But first a disclaimer....Last week I got accused of parading around my house naked in front of my children simply because I posted about Mr. Ford doing it and probably because it was a rather frank discussion about an adult topic. So let me be clear....I am not advocating any such thing. This topic is meant to address the attitudes we carry in our most private selves as adults navigating an adult world. This is not meant to address how to appropriately teach kids about the human body...that said...Let's move on...