If you haven’t seen or heard about Kim Kardashian’s latest adventure, you may be living under a rock. The buxom beauty showed off her famous derriere on the cover of PAPER Magazine, prompting much criticism and debate.
There are a few arguments that get recycled. “She’s a mother,” people cry. “She just wants attention.” She’s trashy and doesn’t respect herself.
The mother argument irks me the most. Just because she gave birth to a child does not mean that she should give up what makes her uniquely her. Posing nude is nothing new for Kardashian. It’s not as though she abandons her baby to go out and party every night. She doesn’t seem to have a drug habit. She doesn’t pull a Michael Jackson and dangle her baby out of the window of a building. As far as parents go, there are millions of people I would criticize before I would call out Kardashian.
I don’t know why everyone thought because Kardashian has a child she?would turn into a cookie-baking, sweater-set-wearing, stay-at-home soccer mom. She has always been an attention-seeker, and she always will be. This fact is completely separate from her parenting skills.
If North West is going to be embarrassed by her mom in fifteen years, she has a long list of things to choose from, and this magazine cover doesn’t even crack the top ten of the most ridiculous things Kardashian has done for publicity.
For those of you saying Kardashian is devaluing herself, I don’t think that’s true at all. She was paid well for this cover. She knows exactly how valuable her assets are, and she is getting every dollar she can get out of them.
Kardashian has been known for years as a sex symbol. She gets ogled on a daily basis. She can’t even post a simple Instagram photo of her 2-year-old daughter without getting dozens of lewd comments about her own body on it.
This picture represents Kardashian taking control over the situation. She is perfectly happy being a sex symbol. She has no qualms about bearing it all, being the person that everybody already makes her into.
Kardashian is not the only person who had control over this cover. Maybe it’s not the brilliant art that PAPER Magazine usually has, but it’s not supposed to be.
This cover serves to get attention — attention for Kardashian and attention for the magazine. I know that I hadn’t even heard of this magazine until Kardashian was on the cover. Their website went from a paltry 500,000 unique views per month to 16 million hits in the past week.
Even if you hate it, chances are you’ve still seen the cover, and therefore you’re giving Kardashian and PAPER what they want. You know the old saying, “Any publicity is good publicity?” Well, it’s true.
A lot of people who claim to be feminists say Kardashian is setting feminism back. She’s degrading herself as a woman. But shouldn’t feminism be about defining someone for their brains and their minds, not their bodies?
Kardashian may come off as a greased-up femme fatale, but she is also a shrewd businesswoman, a devoted wife and mother. She has thicker skin than anyone who is trying to tear her down.
I’d like to see a single person who has made rude comments about Kardashian be in her shoes for one hour. The woman gets more hate in five minutes on any given social media platform than most of us get in a lifetime.
I keep hearing that Kardashian is “not classy.” A quick Google search revealed that classy means “stylish and sophisticated.” Kardashian has got style. There is no denying that. She has become a fashion icon.
As for sophisticated, the definition?of that word is “having, revealing, or proceeding from a great deal of worldly experience and knowledge of fashion and culture,” and Kardashian is a world-traveler. There is nothing in the definition that says a woman can’t pose nude and still be considered classy.
If Kardashian wants to flaunt her naked body for the world to see, I don’t really care. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to look at it. It’s as simple as that. But you shouldn’t demonize a woman you don’t know, just because her job is some- thing you would never do. She has made millions from showcasing her body and will continue to make millions more. It’s her body, and if she wants to do it, more power to her.
I personally would never want to air my entire body for the world to see, but it’s not because I have a higher respect for myself than Kardashian does for herself.
If you’re offended by nudity or feel uncomfortable, that’s a valid feeling. But there is a huge jump from “This displeases me,” to “She’s a stupid, classless tramp.”