Our editor-in-chief bares it all in a direct confrontation with body shame.
My body is a testament to high testosterone. I have a body type one sees a lot: male pattern baldness, plenty of body hair, builds both muscle and fat very easily. You see guys like me all the time, with our wide shoulders and wider beer guts. Burly sonsabitches, often rocking the shaved-head-and-beard combo. It is not, it’s fair to say, a body type that is highly lauded by media culture.
I didn’t always look like this. When I was a teenager, I was so skinny I won awards for dressing as Jack Skellington, which sounds like a joke and isn’t. When I was twenty, I dressed as Nightwing for a costume contest, and the woman MCing the show called me “the reason spandex was invented.”
That was a long time ago.
Nowadays, I’m technically considered obese.
Click to continue…NSFW images ahead
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About Noah Brand
You look great, Noah.
It’s really brave of you to post these pictures up here for everyone to see, and I hope they show some people what real, non-Photoshopped people look like naked.
Very well done, Noah. Amazing pictures along with a fantastic read. Thank you for sharing your lovely body.
I took my first nude ‘selfies’ about twelve years ago. It really revolutionized my self-image. Good going, dude.
But what if you’re allergic to kitties?
I’m a fair bit bigger than you, but I do love the feel of being nekid. That said, I don’t think I’m ready for your level of commitment to punching away the body image issues. I sorta wish I was. Very commendable.
can’t get enough of these pics. your sexiness is palpable, noah. and i think you answered your own question as to how to solve these issues. honest acceptance, starting with yourself.
Kudos to you Noah. Very brave act and honest words to go along with your pics. I didn’t realize you actually be literally stark naked.
As I only post headless pics, I am another who applauds your bravery in posting these pics on the web.
The photos labelled, “Im done being ashamed” and “…hey look, a kitty”, I feel captured your body and your essence the best
I feel captured your body
what i mean by that is, because photography is 2D medium. A pose that looks okay to the eyes, often needs to be adjusted so that it photos well
Admire the courage. It’s quite tough being an overweight person in society, and I don’t think people just how tough it can be for overweight MEN. Not much is actually said on it, and I myself suffer a lot of body image issues because of my weight.
Bravo
You are a man after my heart. Viva Noah!!
Now that you are stark naked…what do you want to say?
Thank you for this!
Fantastic! There are only two logical choices with body image: change it or accept your own beauty. The middle is mostly just harmful to your self esteem. I’m 5’10″ and 300#. I choose to eat the way I do and not exercise, therefore I’ve chosen this body. After I accepted myself the way I am I never had trouble getting a date. Let’s face it, there is nothing sexier than a person who is secure and confident!
I am a small, dancer-style woman and have been a fitness trainer for over 12 years. Previously I have dated other fitness trainers. Now I am in the best relationship of my life with a man whose build is very much like yours. He is sexy and wonderful—I crave and adore him. Not sure if he reads posts on this website…guess we will find out.
Best wishes to you and all of us who want to enjoy and celebrate ourselves as we really are…
You’ll be glad to hear I was able to contain my lust. And they say there are no Good Men any more!
Well we certainly don’t say that, here!
The first that came to my mind when I saw your pictures was, “Man, that guys got balls!”
You do. We have photographic proof.
I think you are very, vey brave person. Good job.
You should be an inspiration to men everywhere. You are strong and solid and steady and beautiful and GOOD ON YOU FOR THESE PICTURES!!!! And good on you for coming to a sense of self peace with your body. Your lovers have good taste. I wonder if I could talk my man (very similar body type) into letting me take some of him like this….
Noah, have you heard of Aliaa Elmahdy and the #nudephotorevolutionary?
I had not. Wow, that is badass. Thanks for the pointer.
Hi Noah,
Bonnie Gayle
I want to THANK YOU for being SO OPEN. I work with people who have body image issues and I’m so happy to see someone really open up. I am running this campaign called “Bath Talk” where women are getting into the bathtub and talking about how they feel about themselves so that we can expose what’s really going on. I help people learn to love themselves from where they are at today. If they want to make changes that’s totally understandable however I teach them to do things in loving healthy ways and to appreciate their body for all it does for them. Thank you so much and if you ever want to see the Bath Talk videos (bodyliberator on YouTube) or may be open to doing one I would be honored!
I support having a healthy body image, including the acceptance of one’s own body as it is, not just how you want it to be. I think people who struggle with that and find a way to reject shame can be an inspiration to others, and praise that comes their way is well-deserved. I don’t consider myself especially prudish when it comes to nude bodies. Having seen the photos of Noah, I’m neither disgusted, nor inclined to insult or mock anything he revealed. Despite all this, something about this doesn’t feel quite right. I still feel like I can’t quite put my finger on it (teed up an easy one for anyone who wants to take a whack — oops, there’s another) but here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
* These photos didn’t run on a personal blog. They ran on a multi-author business blog (meaning it’s a business, not that it’s about business), for which the subject of the photos is the Editor in Chief. The CEO and quite a few of the staff/volunteers for said blog are women. I don’t think any of them are likely to follow suit (follow birthday suit?), but if they did, I have a feeling the comments would be less unanimously of the “How brave” variety. What would the hit on Lisa’s credibility be if she did the exact same thing, posting a series of tasteful, non-erotic nudes themed around the CEO’s journey to body acceptance?
* The photos weren’t anonymous. I’ve seen other sites where everyday people anonymously share nude photos of themselves, and appreciate how heartening it can be for everyday people to see what other everyday people look like naked. When such photos are attached not only to names, but a leadership position of a community other people are part of (or know about), it seems at least a little exhibitionistic, regardless of the personal journey involved. “GMP? Is that the site with the naked Editor in Chief?”
* I don’t think there was anything sexual about the pics, and I thought they were tastefully done as such things go, but something is weird or off to me that the compliments and kudos for bravery that he has received seem more or less conditioned on the photos being completely asexual. That is, if even one picture showed him erect or semi-erect, that probably would have been enough to lump him in with the Brett Favres and Anthony Weiners of the world. I’m not saying I missed such a picture (please, Noah, don’t fill in that gap), but this mass acceptance and celebration of his body in the comments seems predicated on presenting himself as completely sexless. I think anything overtly sexy about it, like if he’d had an athletic build, or included a partial erection shot, or the captions had been flirty instead of about rejecting shame, would have been roundly condemned. The message I therefore take as a man is less about body acceptance, and more like the best way to earn the affection and admiration of women is to desexualize my body.
So I don’t know. I’m still trying to make up my mind about this one. I’m sure Noah shouldn’t be shamed for his body, but I’m not sure posting nude photos in the workplace is a necessary step on the path to self-acceptance. For sure it took balls (the metaphorical kind) to do, so I can’t knock the courage aspect of it. I just wish I had seen it this morning instead of being one of the last things I saw before I went to bed last night, since it kept showing up in my dreams. Damn you, Noah.
Nudity does not necessarily have to be sexual, as I’m sure you’re aware. That it so often is assumed to be is one of the societal assumptions that bugs me. That said, what I was trying to do with these shots was walk a fine line; not really desexualized, but not phony soft-focus flattering-angle suck-in-the-gut sexualized, either. The idea is that this is what my body really looks like to my lovers, one of whom was the lady with the camera. No more attractive than it is in real life, but no less so, either. I notice there have been a few comments on this post from women who evidently dig the sort of thing I’ve got going on, for whatever that’s worth.