EGYPTIAN TEEN BARES ALL to protest arab ways

Let me be quick to say that she’s very attractive, and that I’d be less interested were she not so!

And before I move along, I must also commend the young woman’s thoughfulness in adding bright red shoes and a bright red bow in her hair. Those have the accidental effect of helping the western eye to understand that we’re seeing a full color photo of the now-20-year-old feminist from Cairo, Egypt.

Here is a mainstream media article on the subject:

(another story about aliaa, this time from CNN.com)

If you go to arebelsdiary.blogspot.com you can find the full photo of young Aliaa in all of her glory. (a Google search of her full name may unearth the desired results if for some reason that website is ever shut down). It seems that Aliaa has effectively spread her image around the web to be preserved in the event of any tragic ending she may know.

A couple of other photos which tend to emphasize Aliaa’s attractive face can be found here and here.

Still more g-rated photos of Aliaa:

And here is a YouTube video she created, with a handful of pictures included.

First of all, I can’t help but to wonder whether "Aliaa Magda Elmahdy" even understands the full of her physical beauty. It is an interesting twist on feminism when a woman that attractive is still inspired to stand-up for womens’ rights. 

I just learned of this controversy a couple of days ago but from what I can understand, Aliaa, who turned twenty this week, recently posted the full frontal nude picture of herself on one or more of her personal blogs, on Facebook (where I first saw it, so I know it was there – even though it seems to be gone now), and on Twitter. Once discovered by a popular online personality the picture and the subject went viral.

No matter her impressive beauty, the perhaps-too-strong statement flies directly in the face of all things Islamic and middle eastern. There are many around her region anticipating the young woman’s imminent death, and it remains possible that she could be jailed by the government (or what little remains of it) for defaming Islam.

These people exist in a rather absurd culture dominated by religion in which the next big thing might be to mandate that "women with attractive eyes may be forced to cover (even) them up".

I’ve been trying to measure my own personal feelings about the underlying issues (I already know how I feel about Aliaa’s natural beauty and I find myself strongly opinionated on that aspect). As much as I want to nod my head in "approval" of the statement she wanted to make and the means through which she made that statement, I still can’t bring myself to approve (even in a way which would possibly be a mere award for her beauty as much as for any other reason).

Personally I am not driven to offend Egyptians in large numbers or their culture for no meaningful reason, and I just don’t know that the woman’s exercise did much more than that aside from granting men who admire women a very unique visual. Some might argue that to not be allowed to chew gum in Singapore is a much more far-out denial of human rights than is the denial of the right to bare your body in mainstream social media. Consider that in the U.S. and Canada it is perfectly legal to chew gum almost anywhere and that most social media sites in the two places probably wouldn’t allow a 20-year-old woman to prominently post a full frontal nude picture of herself.

Of greater importance in this example is that I can think of no circumstances under which I would be inspired to go to Singapore and chew gum in the way of a protest of some sort. If I did so I might be criminally lashed or something of that nature. But why would I decide to offend the locals for no special reason?

As far as the religion-dominated cultures of the middle east are concerned – I just won’t ever go there – that’s the extent of any protesting I might do of the third-world ways so prevalent in many of the countries in that region. Were I to ever visit such far-away locations, I would certainly remain fully respectful to the locals, no matter the issues or customs in question.

Had Aliaa Elmahdy done something similar in the U.S., she would have had to determine which mainstream social media avenues would allow her to make what would be a far more mild statement with her fully nude photo. I guess that, someday, Aliaa could seek political asylum in the west in fear for her life, and know that the overwhelming approval of her appearance itself might pave the way toward personal successes as is so typical of western culture. Outside of that I am interested to know what shall be the aftermath of such a human experiment. Surely the dress code for Egypt won’t be altered a bit, and surely the future personal path known to Aliaa will be made more difficult by her recent move. Perhaps she may evolve to have to live the life of a Salman Rushdie, in seclusion, for a long time to follow.

I’m sure she’d tell you that she doesn’t fear for her life, but perhaps the young adult has yet to grasp the full impact of what she did. I don’t think I would have even considered such a move had I been a similarly attractive Egyptian woman, but let me emphasize yet again how impressively attractive her human canvas itself seems to be. (tiz possible that the canvas alone will somehow land her a softer scorn than might otherwise had been her destiny)

Some of Aliaa’s beauty lies in her bold and straight-forward offering of her intimate self for review by anyone so inclined, but a great deal of her appeal to the western eye is the product of natural colors which just aren’t very prevalent in western society. I couldn’t envision Playboy or Hustler presenting the young woman’s body more effectively or attractively as she managed to do herself there in her father’s home in Cairo. The picture’s lack of clutter brings the focus right onto her own physical beauty and the bright red does wonders in providing contrast for the strong black-and-white-ish effect of her natural appeal.

I’m reminded of two of my OD faves by the sple

ndid nude photo of Aliaa Elmahdy:

The first is an American OD’er of Lebanese descent who brings her own uniquely dark hues to an American society which eagerly drinks-up the contrasts offered by those skin tones against the backdrop that is the fairer norm around these parts. I have so often admired the mentioned OD woman and have been following her diary since she was about the same age at Aliaa. I don’t dare to let my mind imagine my OD friend having dreamy areolas such as those dolloped in crafty fashion on Aliaa, but I’m hoping the skin coloring everywhere else wouldn’t be too far off.

The other OD’er I’m inspired to think of while contemplating Aliaa’s beauty is someone else whose would-be color nude photo might trick the mind’s eye into seeing only black-n-white as well. This is somebody with considerably different genetics to Aliaa’s but who still benefits from a distinct dark-on-light element to her beauty. Sadly, this young OD woman has written volumes on having known great difficulty even understanding, let alone accepting, her own beauty. In ways I’ve never encountered another woman on OD whose mind has been so far "off" where it relates to her physical appeal.

It is unfortunate that human (female?) minds are trained by media and their surroundings to look around at what everybody else has, appearance-wise, before thinking they should have a little bit of hers, a little bit of hers, and a little bit of hers, while never seeing themselves as being good enough.

Something written in this ‘other’ ODer’s diary left me gasping for air, as well as understanding, when it came to female self-image. The young woman told of having been so displeased by mother nature or genetics that she went so far as to attempt a significant genital alteration on herself. This struck me exceptionally hard based on my perception that her natural wonders would likely be akin to those which would greatly pique my interest in their untouched state. (lets just saaaaaaaaaaay/assume that this diarist would identify (what she might believe is) ‘perfection’ in Aliaa’s nude genitalia, and leave it at that) { I, of course, beg to differ…}

Suffice to say that the end result was a bloody mess, and enough so to warrant an immediate trip to the emergency room. I’m very hopeful that the before and after (after-healing) differences are minimal, but I’m afraid to ask the answer.

This makes me wonder if some of Aliaa’s nude appeal lies in her apparent ability to feel comfortable enough about her body to present it for her controversial cause. Perhaps the direct and uninterrupted self-portrait photo shoot lends further appeal to Aliaa’s provocative photo.

I don’t mind natural breasts larger than Aliaa’s but I sure can’t stand even the thought of women believing that they or anybody neeeeeeds to have surgery to attain larger breasts than pretty Aliaa is sporting.

That beauty is largely in Aliaa’s boldness and in her confidence, and I’m captivated!