Get Naked
Britney is free, fabulous, and frolicking naked in French Polynesia. Naturally, people won't stop commenting on her going au naturel.
Since the dawn of her pop career, Britney’s body has been free reign for media scrutiny. There was speculation that she got a boob job as a teenager, questions about her virginity, constant comparisons of her pre and post-baby.
She’s too big, now she’s too thin.
By age 21, Britney was accused of being a horrific role model. In the now-infamous Diane Sawyer interview, she was shown quotes from “concerned mother” Kendall Ehrlich who said, “Really, if I had an opportunity to shoot Britney Spears, I think I would.”
Diane didn’t pull any punching either, asking ruthless questions like “What happened to your clothes?”
To her credit, Britney defended herself when she could. She told Diane she wasn’t there to babysit other people’s children. On nudity, she said “I feel comfortable in my skin. I think it's an okay thing to express yourself.”
In other words:
Britney has never been shy in her body, despite it being fodder for public discourse. Eventually, that opinion soured so much that her father was given full guardianship of her estate and person.
Now that she’s been released from 13 years of that restrictive conservatorship, I suppose it was too optimistic to think she had carte blanche to live her life.
Under her conservatorship, Britney was forced to have an IUD inserted into her body, given large doses of lithium, and made to perform with a 104-degree fever. Never mind the stress, trauma, isolation, and fear imparted over the last decade.
Free from her enslavement, Britney wants to show her body on her terms. And she hasn’t been shy about why. She wrote on Instagram:
I bet you’re wondering why I’d expose my body NOW … well it’s because I was born into this world naked and I honestly feel like the weight of the [world] has been on my shoulders and it’s made me view myself that way. I wanted to see myself in a lighter way … naked … like the way I was born.
She is reclaiming what has been commented on, exploited, and profited on for her entire life. She is feeling what life is like as a fully free woman, and that comes with experimentation.
When we advocated for Britney’s freedom, we also advocated for her mistakes.
And STILL, commenters make her out to be unhinged. Apparently, they liked it better when her body was making money for family and executives. Specifically, they liked it better when she was young and worshipped for her abs. Now that Britney is posting for herself, people are calling her embarrassing, crazy, disturbing… Harsh critiques of someone who, frankly, is recovering from being trafficked.
It’s also an interesting collection of words. When young pop stars post nude photos, we don’t think of it as “embarrassing” and “disturbing.” So, is this a story about nudes, or ageism?
Not Yet a Girl… A Grown-Ass Woman
And just like that, I found myself scrolling through hundreds of Instagram comments on a Friday night. I saw people siding with her abusers, urging her to seek help, telling her how she should be coping with her trauma. I read dozens of comments saying that they now understood why she was held captive.
Clearly rolling around naked in the sand is justification for stripping away someone’s legal rights.
Many more focused on how her teenage sons will react to the photos. Like they can’t already Google much worse images of her. Naked or not, Britney is already a much better parent than her own. For one, she hasn’t enslaved her children into “business hybrid” conservatorships.
Are moms not allowed to ever be nude? Does parenthood somehow preclude you from enjoying your body?
It’s like we’ve forgotten that Britney’s whole life - or at least a version of it - is already plastered on the internet for anyone to see. Why can’t she do it for herself now that she has a direct line to the internet and her fans? She has had eyes on her forever, and this is her first chance to completely direct the narrative.
People have always wanted her to stay the same. Specifically, they want the Mickey Mouse Club version of Britney to grace their screens. There have always been critiques claiming that Britney is ruining her status as a role model. For every one of those, ten more were scrambling to see any glimpse of skin she would grace us with. When she posed topless for Rolling Stone, we lost our damn minds.
Looking back, I’m conflicted about how we viewed her sexuality in the media. Not just the gross coverage of her body, virginity, and sex life, but the use of those details to make money for executives that would come to control her entire estate before she turned thirty.
There are layers upon layers of disgust.
Britney rolling around on the beach with her fiancé snapping pictures is a way cleaner story for me. This is a grown woman with her own social media account. This is her choice, and the only one who stands to gain (or lose), is Britney. What is it about her posting her own nudes that is so challenging for people to reconcile?
I’ve written at length about how we sexualize children. In porn, we’ve learnt to celebrate the young.“Barely legal” is a full category dedicated to women as young as you can have them before it becomes a crime. “Teen” has been one of the most popular Pornhub searches for over five years.
Generally, we accept this as normal. Porn is a fantasy world where rules are bent.
On the flipside, mature women are often cast out of the narrative completely. Adult films treat older performers like novelty acts, if they showcase them at all. “MILF”, in contemporary porn, has been dissected down to a body type and attitude more than an indicator of age. Many MILFS are as young as 25.
No wonder we can’t reconcile the idea that forty-year-old women is naked on our screens.
Of course, this doesn’t exist for men. Women are always playing a different game with their sexuality. Would a naked Brad Pitt have the same backlash on social media, for example? Are we not all waiting with bated breath for the day George Clooney decides to drop a nude?
Oh baby, baby.
Even without the factor of age, men get an easier ride. Headlines have recently been aflame with the controversy surrounding Pam & Tommy, a limited series focused on the history of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s stolen sex tape. According to creators, the show was made to highlight the differences in how both victims were treated after the video was leaked. What they failed to do, however, was get consent from the very victims they planned to vindicate. In the process, they left Pamela Anderson feeling even more violated.
Years later, the trauma of being showcased to the world still stings.
We like to think time heals all wounds, but healing also requires space. How, I ask, were Pam and Britney expected to reconcile their exploitation in the media while it was ongoing? When we marked their identities with their most embarrassing moments, we made it harder for them to move on.
Similarly, how could we have allowed Britney Spears to be put under the guardianship of her abusive father and still have expected her to mature into a typical forty-year-old woman? How anyone can feel entitled enough to tell her she’s doing it wrong is beyond me.
She was never given the space to do anything, so now she’s taking it.
You Can Look, But Don’t Touch
Over the years, many pictures of Britney have been shared without her consent. Upskirt photos, shaved heads, cellulite gotchas on the beach – the paparazzi made a living on hunting Britney at her worst.
What strikes me most about Britney’s Instagram content, is that it isn’t in the least bit sexual. Sure, she’s nude, but the posing isn’t suggestive. She’s not doing this to be seen as sexy.
Britney has been clear that her nudity is to double down on her sense of freedom. These images are, quite simply, for her. You can see it in how she’s laying in the water or holding her breasts and looking into the sky. These are portraits of someone playing without clothes – a far cry from the suggestive dance moves and magazine covers of her past.
Britney is luxuriating in not having anyone tell her what to do, who to be, or how to act. She is celebrating freedom, not sex, and we aren’t used to that. It’s an intimate kind of nudity that not many of us get to see.
Nudes can be demeaning or empowering depending on how they are shared. The female form has been glorified for millennia, and there is joy in recognizing its beauty. Nudes are common in statue, sketch, and brush stroke. Only recently have we deemed it too sexual for public consumption. Instagram continues its war on nipples as we speak.
Whether taking naked pictures is a good or a bad thing comes down to how it makes you feel. For Britney, I think these images are deeply personal. I also think she’s beating the paparazzi to the punch. Being seen on her own terms is a new, novel experience for someone who has been hunted for as long as Britney has been. She is giving us a glimpse of what it means for her to be unshackled, and what I see is someone who likes to feel the sun, ocean, and sand on every inch of skin.
I think that’s beautiful.
To see yourself, as she put it, without the weight of the world must be a transformative experience. Britney has carried so many opinions, expectations, and paychecks for her entire life. Getting rid of it all definitely warrants frolicking naked on the beach.
Not That Innocent
Through these nudes, Britney has also graced us with reflection on her past. Lengthy Instagram captions sporadically pop up to clapback at her abusers and haters. She’s referred to her nudity specifically as an act of rebellion.
In a now-deleted post, Britney addressed Diane Sawyer directly.
…they forced me to talk !!! I was a baby …I was almost 22 and didn’t understand …but I fucking know now !!! She said “a woman or a girl” … I would like to say now “Ma’am I’m a catholic slut !!!”… and she can kiss my white ass.
How appropriate for the person who rose to fame in a school uniform to claim herself as a catholic slut. What sweet justice it is for her to double down on how the world saw her. To take the petty commentary and throw it back in Diane’s face.
You wanted a slut, and here I am.
I’ve long shared my critiques of catholic school uniforms. As a student, I was made to feel shame for having breasts that weren’t easily concealed in polyester blouses. Outside of school, men sexualized my uniform on the street.
I never knew what to do with those mixed messages. Britney always seemed to handle it so gracefully.
Shey was the most body-confident person I saw as a child. dances were charged with raw, sexual energy. Britney lit up on stage. In interviews, however, she was shy and goofy. She never said a bad word about anyone, even when the entire world seemed to be laughing at her. At the lowest points, Britney fought back with ridiculous graphic shirts, and pointed pop songs (that are still some of the best in her catalogue).
People used her as an example of how not to be, and all I saw was a woman in charge of herself.
Until, of course, she wasn’t anymore.
When I see Britney naked in my newsfeed, at least I know it’s of her own volition. What I see is a woman having fun and revelling in a body she’s been forced to maintain for the entertainment of others. I see someone who is free – not just of her conservatorship, but of societal pressures. She no longer needs to prove that she’s the perfect mom, the pure teenage idol, or Miss American Dream. She is simply being, and that is more than we deserve.
Most people don’t get out of their conservatorships. Most people also aren’t Britney Spears.
In honour of my queen, I made this sweater:
I wear it whenever I feel the need to be a little catholic slut. Or, in kinder terms, whenever I want to shed an expectation I’m carrying on my shoulders.
And, if you don’t like it, you can kiss my white ass.
