Tuesday, March 10, 2009

'Live Nude Girl': Earning A Living Unclothed

'Live Nude Girl': Earning A Living Unclothed, article.
"has been modeling for artists for six years. [...] It took Rooney many years to tell her mother about her job. She writes that her parents now find it "embarrassing, best left untalked about.""

Huh? They are embarrassed by their daughter sitting for artists??
I could understand the embarrassment if she was a porn star specializing in anal and golden showers, but this is beyond me.

10 comments:

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

Definitely an uptight home.
Might explain the "compulsion" the girl mentions. The need to liberate herself from that invisible prison.
Nearly all the people testifying on you newsletter mention that trying naturism felt "liberating". Even more so, I expect, when the family is so embarrassed by the mere idea.

Mom and Dad should take some drawing classes. :-)

And hey, it's far less innocent than that 15 year-old moonlighting as a hooker.
I don't get it either: throughout human history, only in Persepolis was the drawing of live human models ever a problem of "exposing the body".
(Seen Persepolis? It's a classic.)

Still, the Lebanese are a bit stuck-up as well. Twice, during my studies, was a volunteer required for a demonstration, and twice, I was the only one to step forward. So much for viewing myself as shy, looks like everything is relative.

Once was during a small group training session as hospital externs. Somebody was needed for demonstrating and practicing abdominal examination. Doing so on a patient was out of question, lebanese patients cannot be shown doctors-in-training who don't yet have full confidence. It's a cultural thing...
Of course, it required unbottoning of the pants. But the only thing that really bothered me, was that I'm ticklish. Given that I myself didn't need much training in examining an abdomen, I viewed it as a trial in self-control, mastering the tickle reflex. Not too unpleasant, except I absolutely couldn't giggle of course. :-)
Only one essential condition for abdominal examination: don't have cold hands.

The other time was in Anaesthesia-Reanimation class, to demonstrate cardiac massage in front of the class. There was a volunteer for DOING it, but none to play the patient. We had no training dummy available, so, yes, I volunteered to be the dummy. ;-)
I should have abstained. My classmate assumed the position, and the professor found it correct. But then my comrade actually performed one massage gesture, for real! OOOOFFFF!
Better keep that gesture for when there's a life to save and the person's unconscious! A sudden pressure to the chest against a hard surface isn't a pleasant sensation.
Today that classmate is a cardiologist. Vocations...

But the Lebanese really surprise me sometimes. One of our Pediatry professors, after giving us the course on the dangers of congenital rubella, told us that one day he'd dedicate time to vaccinate all of the girls in the class. It was strictly a voluntary thing, of course.
What you have to know, is that vaccination is only necessary once in a lifetime, and it's no problem if you receive it after you've gotten immunized by the disease. Ridiculously simple, and very reassuring to be protected for your future foetuses!
That was in our fifth year of studies, we were becoming real doctors in spirit.
On the said day, a free period during a class day, only a quarter of the class girls showed up.

Anonymous said...

I could understand the embarrassment if she was a porn star specializing in anal and golden showers, but this is beyond me.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Yes, I think that might be a bit different.

Just modelling for artists? I don't see what's so morally reprehensible about that!

Hell, we were allowed to draw nude models when I was in high school. (Strangely, no danger of rubbery ones.)

Ray said...

Do all exhibitionists have such agonizingly long justifications for "letting it all hang out"?

Is she re-inventing the wheel?

Too many people these days are trying to make the planet greener by covering it with bullshit!

Anonymous said...

Too many people these days are trying to make the planet greener by covering it with bullshit!

Bullshit is great fertilizer!

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yeah, just see how the noses grow in Washington.

Aniko said...

"What you have to know, is that vaccination is only necessary once in a lifetime, and it's no problem if you receive it after you've gotten immunized by the disease. Ridiculously simple, and very reassuring to be protected for your future foetuses!"

Well, if you already got rubella once, you cannot get it another time, so no need for vaccination ! We get enough vaccines already.

When my grandma's and mum's generation were at primary school, if a child got rubella, then he / she was asked to come to school if not feeling too bad. So when reaching puberty, all the girls had had it, and got the immunity.

Now, they want to give vaccine to children. The problem is that it makes them more resistant to the sickness, so they usually don't get it when children, but they still have a chance to get it, because it does not give 100% immunity.

As the sickness itself is really not dangerous when you re a kid, and if you got it once, you are really immunized, I think it is really stupid to give vaccination for that...

Anonymous said...

What the--?!

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

"(Strangely, no danger of rubbery ones.)"
Why? You weren't allowed erasers? ;-)

"Bullshit is great fertilizer!"
Can't argue with that. :-D

"Well, if you already got rubella once, you cannot get it another time, so no need for vaccination !"
The thing is, you can't always be sure. The symptoms could be due to another virus.
It was all explained in our course: to be sure, you need to make a serology test. Which costs as much as a vaccination. And if the serology is negative, you need to get vaccinated anyway.
Most cost-effective and simple solution then... Getting re-vaccinated is harmless anyway. Said the seasoned pediatrician.

I asked a few girls, taking the risk to sound indiscrete, as to why they didn't go. Several said "I just... don't want to, okay?" Now that's plain sad. Especially for almost-doctors!
No other plausible explanation than the irrational lebanese fear of "getting even close to something related to my fear". The mere thought of severe illness is not unlike a taboo, and practically no patient ever hears the diagnosis "cancer". That's my country... :-(

Or it could've been phobia of injections. HUGELY widespread over here.
I got myself quite a reputation, over the years, with anxious patients in need of a tetanus serum shot, for "having a gentle hand". :-)

"Now, they want to give vaccine to children. The problem is that [...] they still have a chance to get it"
I'd have to check on that, but remember, I was talking about adult girls here. Many of whom soon to get married. (Social habits, right after college...)

The problem with rubella, if you check again what I wrote, is if you catch it while pregnant. There's just no excuse for refusing a maximal decrease of congenital malformation risks in your children.
At the time of my studies, rubella was one of the three contagious diseases formally proven to cause congenital malformations. Can you imagine the feeling, giving birth to a child with a heart defect, or perfectly normal-looking, but who will later turn out to be deaf... and knowing that you could have avoided it with a simple gesture?
Knowing all that, 75% of my girl comrades didn't go to get a vaccination...
Incidentally, a foetus isn't sure at all to heal from rubella, might become evolutive, even fatal, because of their immature immune system. It only really gets ready at three months age.

The first three months are the most dangerous part of a human's life. After birth.
"Remember: a newborn baby has already been alive for nine months. And has a medical history."

Abortion is a separate ethical debate. But the protection of a child to be born, desired and loved? I consider it sacred. Any knowing neglect is unforgivable.
Yes, I do have a somehow mystical view of pregnancy. Life blossoming in its Matrix. To me it's a holy moment.
And one which makes a woman so much more beautiful. Even more moving than pyjamas. :-)

Aniko said...

"The problem with rubella, if you check again what I wrote, is if you catch it while pregnant."

I know! That's where the discussion started from.

My problem with the vaccination is exactly that: it seems that you can get rubella despite the vaccination. I got this information when that vaccination appeared in my country.

And that's really dangerous! Endangering your child's if it's already there inside. So it is more secure to make sure the girls get it when they are kids, because that gives a better immunity. In my family we have this "tradition" to make sure girls get it when small.

If it is so, as it seems to be, that the vaccination is not perfect, then it is really annoying and dangerous. Probably making good profit for some pharmacological company, but not the best for the people. That's what I understood when it was introduced in Hungary. But I don't know how the situation involved since then.

I can understand your reaction to your going-to-be doctor colleagues, who did not bother at all about the problem.

Anonymous said...

"(Strangely, no danger of rubbery ones.)"
Why? You weren't allowed erasers? ;-)


Speaking of drawing dicks...