Scoop

Allure's Nude Issue

Why do these "models" think seeing THEM nude makes the rest of us feel good about ourselves?

-Betty Editors

If you've ever wondered if the business of women's magazines is making women feel like s**t, the May issue of Allure should leave no doubt. It's Allure's nude issue, and the editors asked five celebrities to bare it all for the camera.

So we get to see Padma Lakshmi, Chelsea Handler, Eliza Dushku, Lynn Collins, and Sharon Leal air-brushed, Photoshopped and buck-nekkid.

Just what you want from a magazine that says its mission is to try to help you look and feel better.

Oh, but these photos don't make you feel so good? You mean you don't feel really great after being shown women who look maybe a thousand times better than you have ever looked? In fact, you feel, maybe, just a tiny bit suicidal staring at all that smooth skin, cellulite-free thighs and perky boobs?

So why did the magazine, which calls itself "The Beauty Expert," ask these women to bare it all? Why do you think? Oh, we're sure they would say something about how posing this way builds a woman's self-confidence and self-esteem or some such b.s. (Yes, we're being ladies, here, and maybe being ladies is part of the point we're making. And what the hell is wrong with that?)

Allure may try to go on about all the high-minded reasons they asked these women to take it all off. But it is obvious that Allure's morphing into Hustler has absolutely nothing to do with female empowerment. Just the opposite.

Why would celebs want to do this? Well, because nowadays C- and D-list celebrities will do practically anything. Come to think of it, A-list celebs aren't immune. Remember Jennifer Aniston, turning forty and appearing almost nude in GQ? But stripping for a men's magazine makes some sense, doesn't it? Especially when you want to show up your ex-husband's new squeeze. We get that. What we don't get is soft-core porn in a magazine that's only supposed to tell you what the best brand of drugstore mascara is.

A couple of the celebs involved in the Allure shoot echoed those same hard-to-believe self-empowerment, self-esteem, self-confidence lines. Lynn Collins, whoever she is, says, "Women with confidence in their bodies are the sexiest thing, so I put on my cape of courage and did it. It was quite liberating!" Yeah, sure. While Sharon Leal, whoever she is, found being full-frontal behind a lace curtain "liberating," too. Wonder who wrote their quotes.

Chelsea Handler, never a shrinking violet, just goes for plain unabashed narcissism and tells the readers how much she admires her own boobs. She declares, "They're real and perky... the important thing is that I know about them, and the guys I've slept with know about them." But why exactly does Allure think it is important for us to know about them?

Padma Lakshmi, who is lying on her side, with her butt jutting out--a salute to a million Playboy and Penthouse photo spreads--just can't help telling us how darn sexy she is. She says, "I tend to sleep in the nude. I'm an innately tactile person and a very sensual-leaning woman. You have to use the word 'leaning' or it sounds like I'm boasting!" Guess what, Padma, it still sounds like your boasting.

Oh, we know you want to see  more of the photos. So here they are.

And they make you feel as lousy as they made us feel. Right?

These photos are all over the web with hundreds of comments. Not one that we've seen says anything remotely about women's empowerment.

Allure, it's a really cheap shot. Allure, you ought to be ashamed.