It's pronounced "Lee Lee"! - Updated
Meet Lili
"Is not nakedness the indecent? No, not inherently. It is your thought, your sophistication, your fear, your respectability, that is indecent. There come moods when these clothes of ours are not only too irksome to wear, but are themselves indecent. Perhaps indeed he or she to whom the free exhilarating ecstasy of nakedness in Nature has never been eligible (and how many thousands there are!) has not really known what purity is---nor what faith or art or health really is." ---Walt Whitman
I met Lili through theater. If you know me, you'll know that's how most of the folks in my current life have entered my orbit. She's fun and funny, a great stage presence as an actress, singer and dancer and a budding director, too. I've known her about a year but it's only been rather recently that we've actually conversed and I was struck by her bluntness in both word and manner. She uses it as both a hammer to break forth into (or break up awkward) social encounters and as a shield to keep her softer side intact. Not an uncommon personality quirk but still striking and sometimes off-putting ..... but I think that's the goal.
Naturally, I couldn't NOT notice her attractiveness but I didn't think to ask her to sit for me until I read a comment that she wrote. I paraphrase but it was, in essence, "Just because you see a person naked doesn't mean that you see the person." She's absolutely correct. I have long felt that nudity can be as much of a shield or barrier as layers of clothing or armor. Our American society still clings to many Puritan ideals about baring skin yet we have such great issues concerning the sexualization of everything and we lambast natural, healthy sexuality. At times, posing nude can be merely submitting to the desire or attention of others. Or, it can be a way to claim your natural self, your "self".
Regardless, I'm happy to have met her and I'm grateful for the chance to get to know better. Thank you, Lili.
"The main hangup in the world today is hypocrisy and insecurity. If people can't face up to the fact of other people being naked, or whatever they want to do, then we're never going to get anywhere. People have got to become aware that it's none of their business and that being nude is not obscene. Being ourselves is what's important. If everyone practised being themselves instead of pretending to be what they aren't, there would be peace." ---John Lennon
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Update
Lili did such wonderful job at being open and present in the photo shoot and we created so many beautiful images! When I originally released the post and the first images, I knew that we had more to show.
