Self

This Model Got Naked On The Subway For A VERY Important Reason

Photo: Ovidiu Hrubaru/ Shutterstock
model in bikini

Every supermodel has a pet cause that they support.

For some, it's heart health, others are passionate about rescuing animals.

But model Iskra Lawrence's cause is pretty unusual for someone in the fashion industry: she's an advocate for promoting positive body image. 

SWOON. 

This model got naked on the subway for a very important reason 

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Nothing makes me clap my chubby hands together with more fervor than a model who embraces stuff like learning how to love her body, bolstering her self-esteem, and being positive about their body image while still eating all the pizza she wants. 

But Iskra isn't content just believing this stuff, she's putting her money where her mouth is. 

The model got onto a subway car and proceed to strip off her clothes until she was basically naked. 

But this wasn't your average strip tease. Iskra wasn't doing it to give folks on the trains some cheap thrills courtesy of her naked body.

Instead, she talked about her body, the way it is seen, and the value it has to her versus the value it has to society. 

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"I grew up hating what I saw in the mirror because society told me I was not good enough. I thought there was something wrong because I didn't have a thigh gap, that I had cellulite, that I wasn't skinny enough. That is the media; that is society making a small standard of beauty when we are so much more than that. This body is not just something to be objectified, to be grabbed, to be looked at. This is my vessel, this is my home. I respect it...Every single one of us has so much value and so much worth that is more than just skin. We are all brothers and sisters, we are all equal. This is just our vessel."

This is an exceptionally powerful message all on its own ... but paired with the fact that Iskra stripped in such a public space, it means so much more 

In our society, body image is all about packaging, it's about how "good" we look, it's about how thin we are, it's about how strong we are.

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We lose sight of the fact that without our clothes on, we all look pretty much the same (minus the breasts and vagina and penis and what have you).

Our bodies shouldn't have to be viewed as strictly sexual just because they have sexual components. 

Iskra is right, our bodies are the vessels that transport us every day, they are the home we have on this earth, and they keep us safe and warm.

They shouldn't have to look a certain way, they should be accepted just as they are. And instead of finding new and interesting ways to tear them down (thigh gap, anyone?) we should be celebrating and elevating the way we relate to our bodies daily. 

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Rebecca Jane Stokes is an editor, freelance writer, former Senior Staff Writer for YourTango, and the former Senior Editor of Pop Culture at Newsweek. Her bylines have appeared in Fatherly, Gizmodo, Yahoo Life, Jezebel, Apartment Therapy, Bustle, Cosmopolitan, SheKnows, and many others.