Nude Coed Girls

Nude Coed Girls
Credit: Courtesy Serge Sorokko Gallery/Glitterati Editions
Unseen photos provide a sensitive look at America's early 'working girls'
Dita Von Teese is a burlesque performer, model and author. This is an edited extract from her foreword to "Working Girls: An American Brothel, Circa 1892" by Robert Flynn Johnson.
Women in sexual professions have always distinguished themselves from other women, from the mores of the time, by pushing the boundaries of style. The most celebrated concubines and courtesans in history set the trends in their respective courts. The great dames of burlesque -- Sally Rand, Gypsy Rose Lee -- boasted a signature style on- and offstage, reflecting broader-than-life personalities.
Dita von Teese on the eternal allure of a well-dressed gentleman
Given that photography was still an emerging technology, an emerging creative medium, when these "working girls" posed for William Goldman in the 1890s at a Reading, Pennsylvania brothel, the entire exercise transcends their initial business liaison. The instantaneous concept of click-and-shoot was still decades away. To be photographed required sitting very still. The women featured in Goldman's collection obviously caught his eye. Not just anyone is asked to be the subject of artistic documentation.
Courtesy Serge Sorokko Gallery/Glitterati Editions
The local photographer and his anonymous muses appear to straddle an artful titillation, at times striving toward Degas nudes and at another, more in the spirit of a strip and tease. There is a beauty in even the most mundane moments.
Among Goldman's models, my own gaze zeroed in on the striped stockings and darker shades of their risqué brassieres. These ladies of Reading, Pennsylvania, might not have had the wealth of Madame du Barry, celebrated mistress of Louis XV of France, or the fame and freedom of a silver-screen sex goddess such as Mae West. But they sought to elevate their circumstances, to feel lovelier and more fashionable, with a daring pair of knickers.
Courtesy Serge Sorokko Gallery/Glitterati Editions
To feel special is fundamental to the human condition. Few opportunities outshine a sense of specialness than when an artist asks to record your looks, your beauty. Under the right circumstances, to be the object of admiration -- of desire -- to be what is essentially objectified is not only flattering. It can also provide a shot of confidence and a sense of strength and power and even liberation, however lasting or fleeting.
Courtesy Serge Sorokko Gallery/Glitterati Editions
For these working girls who were already going against the drudgery of toiling in a factory or as a domestic, who were surviving in a patriarchal world by their wits and sexuality, the opportunity to sit for Goldman was very likely not only thrilling. It was also empowering.
One can only imagine the mutual giddiness prevailing among them all, too, at the possible outcome from all these lost afternoon shoots. In a singular image from this collection appears Goldman striking a pose as proud as a peacock. It's one of stock masculinity in the canons of classic portraiture (though usually in military uniform), and like his muses, presented in all his naked glory. By sharing in the objectivity of the process, Goldman basks in the specialness his models must have felt. By stepping around the lens, he becomes a true confidante.
Courtesy Serge Sorokko Gallery/Glitterati Editions
It suggests a balance of power between artist and muse, man and woman -- at least behind closed doors. Their collective decision to strip and strut for the camera reveals a shared lack of shame for the body beautiful and, in that, a shared, albeit secret, defiance of cultural mores.
Courtesy Serge Sorokko Gallery/Glitterati Editions
By all accounts from curator Robert Flynn Johnson's devoted research on this once-lost collection, Goldman seems to have kept his treasured collection as a personal trove. As a successful photographer of weddings and social events, it was most certainly not in his interest for the public to know about his private creative pursuits.
Courtesy Serge Sorokko Gallery/Glitterati Editions
The brothel was a necessary evil in town, where men with certain desires visited women who would oblige. In this case, it was the desire of a man to capture the beauty and sensuality of the women he befriended. There is much to learn and (most of all!) take pleasure in with this discovery.
As these lost photographs illustrate more than a century later, one period's "social problem" is another's cultural revelation.
"Working Girls: An American Brothel, Circa 1892" by Robert Flynn Johnson, with a foreword by Dita Von Teese, is out now.
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Mark Bradford: 'We are at the edge of another precipice'
As he unveils his latest work at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the American artist explains why he doesn't want to be still right now.
Fiona Sinclair Scott and Ana Rosado, CNN
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By David Scholefield Updated: 10:29 BST, 12 September 2011
New Zealand's naked rugby team, the Dunedin-based Nude Blacks, lost for the first time in its nine-year existence on Saturday, beaten 25-20 by a clothed women's team from Spain.
But there may be a clue as to how the visitors did so well. In the spirit of friendly competition, the ladies promised that for each try they scored they would remove an item of clothing.
Asked if they had let the visiting Conquistadoras score a few easy tries, Brad Henderson, a 23-year-old student, replied: 'Of course.'
Cheeky move: A naked rugby player from the Nude Blacks catches the ball during a line-out in their match against the Spanish team Las Conquistadoras
The all-amateur Nude Blacks - named for the country's elite All Blacks side - played the exhibition game hours ahead of Saturday's match between Argentina and England
The World Cup contest took place at the city's 30,000-seat Otago Stadium.
But a more modest crowd of about 1,500 gathered at the rather less glamorous Kettle Park ground to watch the all-male team get outclassed by the visiting Conquistadoras, who count a pole dancer, a teacher and a student among their team members.
Scarey: Naked rugby players from the Nude Blacks perform the Haka before their match against a Spanish ladies' side
Line-up: Las Conquistadoras perform a Haka before their game against the Nude Blacks
Catch of the day: A Spanish player is tackled by naked rugby players from the Nude Blacks during their match
The all-girl side started out in blue shirts and black shorts, luckily their underwear was in co-ordinated pink layers, so even if they couldn't guess, they could still tell what team they were on.
Founder Ralph Davies told news service AFP: ' It started as a joke as part of a backpackers' festival. Here students are known to run across the streets naked in winter, so we decided to go further by playing rugby in the nude
' Our first game was in 2002 in the middle of a dunes on a beach. We were frozen.'
Mind me tackle: A Nude Black rugby player is grabbed by a Conquistadora
But the offbeat game became more popular every year and now the Nude Blacks play an invitational side before every international rugby game in Dunedin.
The Conquistadoras visit came about after they won a competition to travel to New Zealand for a rugby tournament on ice after posting a video of themselves playing on the beach in Barcelona.
Breathless: A Conquistadora is tackled by two of New Zealand's Nude Blacks
In the spirit of friendly competition, for each try the ladies scored they removed an item of clothing.
They gave no quarter to the 'defenceless' opposition, winning 25-20.
The Conquistadores' Vanessa Pleguezuelos, 31, said: 'It could have been a distraction but we played the match like any other.'
Best side: The Nude Blacks and Las Conquistadoras pose for a group photograph after their match
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Britney Spears has shared full-frontal naked mirror selfies saying being a free woman has never felt better.
In the spirit of being a free woman, Britney Spears has shared full-frontal naked mirror selfies with her 38 million Instagram followers.
Spears captioned the two photos of her in nothing but knee-high white socks and a lace choker: “Free woman energy has never felt better”.
The strategic placement of two emojis allowed her to bypass the platform’s no nudity rule, and the post was one of four posts by the singer in the last 24 hours that have had comments turned off.
Spears’ long-running conservatorship finally came to end after more than 13 years in November last year.
Spears celebrated the news on Instagram, saying it was the “best day ever” and expressing her love for fans behind the Free Britney movement.
“Good God I love my fans so much it’s crazy️! I think I’m gonna cry the rest of the day! Best day ever. Praise the Lord. Can I get an Amen?” she wrote.
The conservatorship had been in place since 2008 with Spears’ dad Jamie Spears at its core until late September.
During a blistering 24-minute testimony in June, Spears called her dad an “abusive” conservator and accused him of forcing her to go on tour in 2018 and sending her to a mental health facility against her will in 2019.
The naked pictures on Thursday were not the first shared by Spears on the platform.
Following the win against her father in late September, she shared a series of images posing naked (again, with emojis) while on holiday with fiance Sam Ashgari on October 1.
“Playing in the Pacific never hurt anybody,” she wrote.
On October 15, Spears posted a topless photo, with her hands covering her breasts, with a message that appeared to be about cosmetic surgery and body image.
“What is it with consultations for body improvements???? Is it me or anybody else offended by these experiences … maybe I’m extremely sensitive … either way I would rather fall off a cliff than have a doctor tell me what he thinks is wrong with my body image … lesson learned. Psss kiss my white ass,” she wrote.
Whoopi Goldberg was forced to appeal for help from The View’s live audience when she completely blanked on an important detail recently.
The BBC staffer who persuaded Prince Andrew to sit down for his infamous trainwreck interview has revealed stunning new details from behind the scenes.
Kim Kardashian is reportedly reducing the size of her derrière, with a source close to her revealing how she’s been keeping it plump all these years.

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