I Was a Naked Girl Reading

A few weeks ago, I participated "So You Want To Be a Naked Girl" at Studio Lamour. The event was a spin off of the studio's monthly event Naked Girls Reading, which hosts members of the Chicago Starlets reading pieces based around a theme...naked. September marked the first amatuer night, done in the vein of a reality show. I joined seven other contestants, each of us reading a piece of prose or poetry, followed by a cold reading and then finally being asked a beauty pageant-esque question. At the conclusion, the audience sent in their votes via text message, American Idol style and a winner was crowned...er, boaed; an attractive brunette who read Dr. Seuss' "Oh the Places You'll Go".

I am pretty comfortable speaking in public, but I wasn't so sure how comfortable I would be doing it in my birthday suit. The setting was intimate, with only about fifty people in the audience, the readers sitting on couches and chairs and the audience seated at cafe tables filling the room. At first the nudity seemed out of place, but as the evening wore on it was easy to forget and the focus shifted to the reading. The selections varied between sexy poems to comedic bits to the abovementioned Dr. Seuss.

Of course, the biggest about this is: why naked? Some, including a writer from the Chicago Tribune have postulated that the nudity is just a gimmick. Yes, undressed, attractive women does tend to grab people's attention. But here it is not without context. Women are often placed into the category of "smart" or "pretty", but not both. There is also the Jerry Lewis perpetuated myth that women cannot be funny, or that women are not attractive if they are witty. Naked Girls Reading smashes both of those thoughts, and provides a space where women can safely shed their clothes for their own satisfaction, without fearing agression from the spectators.

With Naked Girls Reading events happening in five other states (and several others announcing that they will be beginning one in the coming months) and an anticipated feature on the Carson Daly show, the phrase "bedtime story" may never be the same!