Depressingly, The Kim Kardashian Bum Fallout Proves We Still Seem To Be Threatened By Female Nudity

The reality star's been berated for going nude because she's a mum, once said nudity was exploitative - and perhaps most depressingly of all, because her body doesn't fit the norm

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by Sophie Wilkinson |
Published on

A day after Kim Kardashian’s bum broke the internet, her front has broken the internet. Yep, we’ve seen her boobs and a bit of her fanny in a picture which features inside Paper magazine’s winter issue. But people are still debating her butt.

Of course, the magazine has been pretty cheeky (ha ha) in its promotion of their ’Kim Kardashian: #BreakTheInternet’ meme-cover. They wanted Kim’s bum to cause controversy, and it has.

READ MORE: This Photo Of Kim Kardashian’s Bum Has Broken The Internet

Unfortunately, there has been a bum-load of criticism aimed at Kim, and all the anger seems to be based on value systems that, well, defy logic as much as Kim’s posterior itself.

The strongest motivation for taking Kim down seems to be the sense that she’s faking something. People unaware of the way the photographer Jean-Paul Goude cuts and pastes and re-touches all the time were quick to cry: ‘That bum isn’t real! That’s been Photoshopped!’

Well, yes, it probably has. Chelsea Handler put a photo of her bum alongside Kim’s on Instagram with the caption: ‘Guess which one’s real. Yout move, instagram’. All of which seems to be missing the point that Photoshopping doesn’t make Kim Kardashian the woman, any less real. It just makes her the star of a visibly stylised photoshoot.

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The next accusation of lying comes from The Daily Beast, where researchers have ‘uncovered’ a video of her filmed circa 2011 in which she complains about a nude shoot in W magazine. So you don’t have to watch the video, it basically shows that Kim thought the final photos would feature her very covered up. They don’t, she’s sad, and claims: ‘I feel so taken advantage of... I’ve definitely learned my lesson… I’m never taking my clothes off again, even if it’s for Vogue.’

Then, in what the website refers to as ‘the kicker’, she continues: ‘I don’t want people to be like, “All she’s good for is, you know, being naked.”’

The implication is that Kim’s sold out by getting naked for Paper or, that she was lying back then. ‘Watch the video of the (fake?) meltdown here’ they implore. Oh, come on. As Mickey Boardman, *Paper’*s editorial director, has pointed out,the decision to go naked was Kim and Kim’s alone.

‘We hadn’t planned for her to take her clothes off,’ he told The Cut. ‘She wanted to and it kind of fit with the thing, and Jean-Paul was super-excited about her attitude and Kim was super-excited.’ All of which proves what shouldn’t need to be said but which seems to anyway: that it’s Kim’s prerogative to change her mind about nudity. Just as it’s anyone else’s.

Then there are the criticisms that mums aren’t meant to do this stuff. Just search ‘Kim Kardashian mom/mum’ on Twitter, or take a look at these headlines: ‘If Babies Could Talk: North West Reacts To Mom Kim Kardashian’s Latest Nude Pic’ or ‘Kim Kardashian Ass-Shamed By Naya Rivera: “You’re Someone’s Mother.”’

That’s something that Mickey Boardman finds equally distateful: ‘People who were negatively commenting things like, “Oh, you’re a bad mom,”… it’s like, How could you say that to her?’

Once Kim became a mum, it’s like she’s not allowed to be sexualised; as if her body’s served its evolutionary purpose and is never hers to enjoy again

Could it be so simple as we live in a society where we let women be so few things that, once one becomes a mum, she’s not allowed to be sexualised; as if her body’s served its evolutionary purpose and is never hers to enjoy again?

We’re OK with people calling her a ‘milf’ but not OK with her choice to get naked?

But perhaps, most depressingly, the obvious threat of Kim Kardashian’s body is not her choices with it, but something she can’t even control – she’s a woman with a body that we’re not used to.

Lara Stone, a new mother, posed for Juergen Teller naked recently. But the shoot attracted little furore. Not only because it never intended to ‘break the internet’, but because Lara is a slight model with big boobs, fitting a stereotype we’re comfortable with. Kim, however? Her body isn’t the ‘norm’, so we’ve got to question it.

Vogue declared 2014 the ‘era of the big booty’, but really, it’s not an era, or a phase – a lot of women spend their whole lives with big bums. Some have tiny, flat, pert or wonky ones. We see different bodies in real life all the time, but when it comes to a woman doing a nude shoot, we’re apparently only comfortable with certain body types.

As Boardman put it: ‘I just personally think that anything making fun of someone’s appearance, to me, is not funny. Especially if it’s a woman. Women get enough shit. Either they’re too skinny or too fat.’

Women get enough shit. Either they’re too skinny or too fat

We get that loads of people want to have an opinion on her nudity. It’s out there on social media, and we’ve all has become accustomed to being airing our opinion on whatever we see online. But really, if you’re hating on a woman’s morals and body because of her decision to go naked in a fashion magazine that isn’t even on newsstands, you’re the butt of this joke.

Like this? Then you might be interested in:

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Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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