"How Do They Judge Us?" she asked.

Mpho Tsila is South Africa Playmate of the Month of August 2011. Her long term goal is to be South Africa's finest fashion designer.

 Mpho Tsila


I am not complete in my understanding of Western men's concept of seeing nudity as a viable option and a step in the direction of women's professional pursuits in the arts and entertainment fields. On the one hand, there is an insistence that women are loose, almost lewd displaying their bodies for public consumption, and there is on the other hand an acceptance of nudity and sex tapes as business proposals, and there is the cultural assumption we all are suppose to accept and understand: 'business is business' (whatever that means). 

Pornography is gaining legitimacy because of the amount of money it generates into economies. But, in the myopic thinking about definitions the sex trade is not considered a part of the pornography business in the United States, for example, if it is given the veneer of legitimacy in the spirit of Hugh Hefer's Playboy empire. I don't want to take from Hugh Hefner's social contributions to the progress of our times because he was bold where others feared to tread in the Civil Rights movement, and women's issues on several fronts. His legacy is important because this discussion he raised from as far back as the 1950's with a level of simplicity and sophistication that should be, and was taken very serious. If judgment is to be placed place it where it is supposed to be placed within ourselves to allow the how and why we see and perceive the world(s) revolving around and within us all. 

Morality, I learned the long way from the Euro-Americans, is based upon value to the market place. This sense of morality has, and will continue to hinder the evolution of sexuality into the divinity it is sprung from in the First Place of Creation, and war against the reconciliation process between the races of men because business is an intangible reality, therefore distant from the spheres of one's being somehow in the lexicon of Western thought! 

Deep within the hinterlands of what we believe as American citizens, and hold dear as self-evident truths are the intricate weaving's of an unexamined structure that formed slavery into a legitimate business, and legitimized prostitution within said business plan as good business practices. This legacy lingers in new, but old forms. This is our story. This is our song, as the old hymn goes. 

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories (1.20.14)

Marianne Gravatte nude 1982