The New York Times recently ran an article about an Egyptian blogger named Aliaa Magda Elmahdy who posted a naked photo of herself on her blog, to the distress and disgust of her fellow Egyptians (liberals and conservatives alike). What follows is a love letter to Elmahdy and to her tantalizing courage.
To read it, click the image, then zoom toward the text at the center of the graphic.
Click image to download and enlarge:
4 responses
Tim Peters me he enamorado. Beautiful!
And you love this woman . . . why? Because she is naked? How revolutionary.
It’s hard to believe there is still a place in this pornified world where a woman’s naked body can cause such outrage. And perfect that the image Elmahdy chose seems so retro, so 50s. It’s the most innocent thing in the world, so peaceful, so beautiful, and–for her world, and our sex, at least–a truly revolutionary gesture. During the Egyptian revolution of 1919, many of the women who marched also removed their veils as a display of dissent. Almost a century later, it’s effectively the same gesture, only more extreme and on a far more global platform. Amazing, really. Tim your ode to Elmahdy sparkles. Thank you.
You know I didn’t catch this til the other day – but it’s really incredible if you set this picture of Aliaa Magda Elmahdy next to a picture of Michelangelo’s “David.” Their poses are almost perfect mirror images! And the David statue was this sexy thing Florence put up in public to show what a liberated and tough and confident city it was. I don’t think there’ll be a statue of A.M.E. put up in Cairo anytime soon…but it’s like what Emerson said in “History” – “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man.” – it’s like all that Renaissance spirit is unfolding again on the southern side of the Mediterranean and A.M.E. let some of it come out through her with this photograph and that giant-killer look in her eyes…While the nihilist in me thinks all this sexy revolutionary vigor will be dumped on and extinguished by frightened men and fearful women and a lack of wealth with which to sustain such liberal self-expressive behavior, the optimist in me can only dream, dream, dream…and pine and peer for that Pharos from Alexandria to sweep around again and light up from the night an orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.
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