Love, Simon’s Keiynan Lonsdale gets naked in selfie and he isn’t ashamed to bare all
Actor and songwriter Keiynan Lonsdale has published nude selfies on Twitter, sending his followers wild.
The Love, Simon star used the barely-there picture opportunity to discuss the place of nudity in society.
Lonsdale, who also appears on The Flash, counts 172,000 followers on Twitter and the thought of losing a few doesn’t scare him.
Lonsdale uploaded two revealing pictures to the platform, along with the caption: “Dance naked, lose followers, gain leaders.”
No word whether Lonsdale lost followers because of the uploads, but his fans were quick to share their thoughts about the pictures—the majority being complimentary so far.
Lonsdale bared it all in two revealing selfies (Twitter/@KeiynanLonsdale)
Lonsdale took the opportunity to question society’s perception of nudity in subsequent tweets.
“We’ve been taught poorly, groomed to hold shame for ourselves, our human bodies,” he wrote.
“No matter what we look like, each of us is made to feel wrong inside our own physical form, told that in order to survive & be a functioning, liked & respected person in society.. we should hide it from the world.
“I ain’t at the confidence level to be naked in public yet lol, but I’m sure as hell working on sharing & showing off my body to me.. at least. “
Lonsdale shared some fully clothed pictures of himsefl on Twitter before. (twitter/@KeiynanLonsdale)
While it could be dismissed as an attempt at self-promotion, as Kim Kardashian West is often accused, going naked has been used as a means of protest in modern history.
For example, Andrew Martinez, a Berkeley student, more commonly known as the Naked Guy, gained notoriety for his protest nudity.
Martinez started going to class and walking on campus (sometimes jogging) naked to object what he perceived as repression.
When Martinez was eventually arrested for jogging in the nude, the county prosecutor refused to prosecute on the grounds that nudity without lewd behaviour was not illegal.
In a tribune for the Oakland Tribune in 1992, Martinez wrote: “When I walk around nude, I am acting how I think it is reasonable to act, not how middle-class values tell me I should act. I am refusing to hide my dissent in normalcy even though it is very easy to do so.”
Lonsdale’s post somewhat reflects the logic behind campaigns such as Free the Nipple, which advocate for women’s rights to their bodies.
The main point Free the Nipple makes is that women are judged for appearing topless in public where men are not held to the same standards.
Femen activists raise their fists as they arrive at the courthouse to attend their trial for showing their breasts during a protest at a rally against gay marriage and a gathering to ask for the release of Jacqueline Sauvage, a woman sentenced to ten years in prison for murdering her violent husband, on May 31, 2017 in Paris. (PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/Getty)
Across Europe, another feminist movement uses the female body as a weapon: The Femen have long been criticised and attacked for their choice of protesting topless.
The Femen were captured in their most intimate moments in Benoît Goetz’s film Naked War.
According to the filmmaker, the activists’ nudity highlights the violence of the assault women suffer everyday. “It’s a trap for idiots,” he said in 2017.
“The Femen’s actions are a form of pop feminism, which uses today’s media by building powerful images, and that’s their strength, “A German Femen activist said upon the film’s release.
