The celebrity world has come a long way since the days when a nude photo shoot in an A-lister's past could derail her career or otherwise cause major embarrassment.
Nowadays doing a nude photo shoot usually means she already has a huge career.
Céline Dion shocked the Internet this week when Vogue posted a shot of the singer sitting in a chair and fully nude while in between outfit changes—a visual comment on how it's more often the couture wearing Céline rather than the other way around, and this is the real her, without the fancy dress.
Now, Dion has accomplished so much, won so many awards and sold so many albums, as well as opened up so deeply about her personal triumphs and tragedies, perhaps the only thing left for her to do was be physically naked. That was the only image that could say more than she had already said herself.
And perhaps, no matter who the person is, that's the reason lying at the root of almost every high-profile nude photo. "This is me. Any questions?"
The debate still continues over whether voluntarily showing skin is empowering, the ultimate "hear me roar" moment, or whether it's a regressive act that further serves a fantasy cooked up by men, but without a doubt women have been steadily reclaiming the nudity narrative for themselves, critics be damned.
Because, for some of the strongest, most successful women in the world, few things communicate a more inspirational message about self-confidence and pride than showing off the triumphant shape of her own body.
Some women are regular practitioners of the sexy selfie, while others let the professionals work their posing (and lighting) magic at fancy photo shoots. Either way, there aren't too many up-and-coming or established celebs these days who haven't let themselves be artfully arranged for a magazine. The level of criticism waiting on the other side tends to vary depending on who the celebrity is and which medium they've chosen, though online haters can get themselves into just as much of a lather over a slick Vanity Fair spread as they can over a grainy Instagram pic.
And no celeb is immune, be it Kim Kardashian for her full-frontal shoot in Paper magazine and her various selfies or Emma Watson for being almost-topless in VF earlier this year. Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson were the odd women out when they posed nude alongside a fully clothed Tom Ford for the cover of Vanity Fair in March 2006 and critics were most unforgiving of the almost Renaissance-reminiscent artist-and-muse tableaux.
Of course, those critics are usually far outnumbered by the aesthetes who appreciate artistry in its many, sometimes provocative, forms or by the people who couldn't give two figs—which is most people. But the Internet is a loud place, and judgment tends to only grow louder in its echo chamber.
Yet while the motivation for stripping down to one's birthday suit can vary, the result holds true for all: the naked body is a celebration of what nature gave us (or how damn hard a woman worked to get what she has now), and nudity increasingly signifies strength more than vulnerability, choice rather than subjugation, a victory of female perspective over the male gaze.
"I believe in sexuality," Emily Ratajkowski, no stranger to being harshly criticized for flaunting what she's got, says in the August issue of Glamour UK. "I think it's a wonderful thing and, if anything, I want women to understand their own sexuality outside of a patriarchal male gaze. We're the core of sexual beings, and I think that's something that should be celebrated rather than attacked."
The wonder of female physical prowess is once again on display this week with the release of ESPN The Magazine's ninth "Body Issue," featuring as always a selection of world-class athletes, male and female, wearing nothing but their muscles.
While originally crafted as an answer to the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, one of the most popular yet endlessly controversial issues the 63-year-old magazine puts out, there is nothing to be found in the "Body Issue's" pages that should be accused of setting the women's cause back. Rather, it's widely considered one of the most illustrious asks in the sporting world (as is the call to be in the SI Swimsuit Issue if you're a model), a chance for an athlete to show off the well-oiled machine that is her body.
"I always dreamed of being in this issue," WNBA star Nneka Ogwumike said of her inclusion in the 2017 spread.
"My fitness is something I pride myself on," added tennis champ Caroline Wozniacki, also a star of the current issue. "I think that's definitely something that I win quite a few matches on."
Not that it's always an automatic yes. The men have reservations, too, with skier Gus Kenworthy saying he was "definitely nervous" and, speaking of leveling the playing field, was "basically…eating ice cubes" in an effort to look his absolute best in the week leading up to the shoot.
Ronda Rousey famously agreed to the "Body Issue" in 2015 after she caught a boyfriend surreptitiously taking pictures of her, and she wanted to re-take control of the situation and beat him to the punch with an authorized look at her body that would overshadow any shabby leaked nudes.
"The first thing I did was take naked pictures for ESPN," she recalled on SiriuxSM's Opie Radio.
Instagram may be awash in impromptu risqué photo shoots, but a nude photo shoot for a leading publication is still an event—and Rousey was fully aware of that.
But just wanting to flaunt your assets is as good a reason as any, too.
In defense of her 2014 Paper shoot, Kim Kardashian said, "I'm never one to preach, but I felt really positive and really good about myself. I love the photos, I did it for me, I hope other people like them."
And plenty of people did, though others cried "inappropriate!" because she's a mom, or "just stop!" because she's ubiquitous.
But it really comes down to choice, and if that's what she wanted to do…then more power to her.
Of course not every famous woman in history who posed for a nude photo did it because she was proud of her body or counts the moment as a career highlight. Marilyn Monroe jokingly cited "hunger" as the reason she stripped for a calendar in the late 1940s. The photos were later immortalized when Hugh Hefner purchased the pics from the calendar company for the first-ever issue of Playboy in 1953.
(It should be able to go without saying, meanwhile, that the publication of a nude photo is only OK when the woman agrees to be in that photo for public consumption. Pointing to a woman's past magazine shoot as an excuse when an illegally obtained nude pic of her leaks online is a nonstarter, as is the inane claim that women shouldn't be taking photos like that in the first place. That's a shamefully sexist, empty argument.)
Monroe, the living embodiment of the ultimate male fantasy in her day, of course playfully and confidently traded on her sexuality over the course of her tragically short life, a useful complement to her considerable but often overshadowed acting talent. But though she owned it, indeed was the very picture of owning it, she existed in a time when women were objectified to no end—and more often than not, they went with the flow, the male gaze inescapable.
Pamela Anderson, who posed for Playboy multiple times, lamented in 2010, "When you pose, you are not thinking that one day you'll have children who will see it." Wheel of Fortune icon Vanna White said in a Fox News interview earlier this year that she only posed for Playboy in 1987 because she was "too embarrassed to ask [her father] for rent money."
And who knows if Ronda Rousey would have ever said yes to ESPN if she didn't have pre-venge as a motivating factor. (Though she didn't hate it, because in 2016 she posed in only elaborate body paint for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.)
But more and more, the image of a naked female celebrity has come to represent strength, confidence and self-acceptance, as well as a certain power that comes with consenting to putting it all out there.
Despite what she said about her kids, in 2015 Pam Anderson appeared on the cover of what was to be the final issue of Playboy featuring fully nude photos (before they scrapped that plan). And Joanna Krupa, whose Instagram is peppered with naked photos of herself, has defended her own—and all women's—decision to pose for Playboy as being one of the most empowering things she's ever done, arguing that the "so-called 'feminists'" who are quick to judge "suffer from lack of knowledge and tunnel vision."
Emma Watson somewhat echoed that sentiment when she defended her 2017 VF shoot, saying, "Feminism is about giving women choice. Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with. It's about freedom, it's about liberation, it's about equality. I really don't know what my tits have to do with it."
And though the judgment is very much alive and judgy, whether it's directed at Kardashian, Watson, Ratajkowski, Rihanna, Chrissy Teigen, Miley Cyrus or anyone else who at times posts a racy photo just because she can, because she's feeling fierce and wants to show the world…
At least these women know they're hardly alone. And while there will always be people who just can't handle progress or women being proud of themselves, it's gotten better out there.
Sixteen years after Demi Moore, Annie Leibovitz and Vanity Fair pretty much created the entire nude-and-pregnant-celebrity genre of photography, it's become almost pedestrian to be NWP (naked while pregnant)—but that 1991 cover really would've broken the Internet, if there had been an Internet.
"It was a popular picture and it broke ground, but I don't think it's a good photograph per se. It's a magazine cover," Leibovitz modestly recalled Demi's cover in a 2008 essay, not dwelling on the veritable cultural earthquake it caused at the time. "If it were a great portrait, she wouldn't be covering her breasts. She wouldn't necessarily be looking at the camera."
Perhaps that's why, on the current cover of Vanity Fair, a nude and pregnant Serena Williams also shot by Leibovitz is looking away from the lens. Otherwise, the pose is strikingly similar.
Serena, of course, couldn't be a better example of a force to be reckoned with. The 23-time Grand Slam champion covered ESPN The Magazine's inaugural "Body Issue" in 2009, so her reputation for being comfortable in her own skin—and only her skin—precedes her.
As Céline, Serena and so many others continue to prove, it isn't clothes that make the woman.