The Pinoy’s fascination with nudity
November 10, 2002 | 12:00am
Goodbye, Assunta de Rossi, bold star. Hello, Mrs. Ledesma, wife of Congressman Julio "Jules" Ledesma IV.
The wedding of Assunta and Jules on Dec. 14 in Negros Occidental seems to be of greater national interest in terms of tsismis value compared to the President’s tireless efforts to crush troublemaking terrorists. The formalization of the celebrity couple’s current live-in arrangement will certainly become a media and political fiesta hosted by the good congressman to satiate the country’s unquenchable thirst for showbiz entertainment.
This is another classic case of a young beauty marrying into the country’s traditional power elite – the hacienderos of Negros Occidental with their fading economic fortunes and grand memories who continue to have social and political clout in this semi-feudal jueteng republic.
Why do the men in this country consider Assunta’s wedding to Jules a big loss?
Unlike other bold stars, Assunta comes across as demure, classy and elegant. Despite her clumsy acting in her debut film Red Diaries (I attended its premier at the U.P. Film Center), her beauty is refreshing. She is the Philippine version of American pop star Mandy Moore or Chinese actress Zhang Zi Yi. She is not a perfect beauty like Brazilian supermodel Ana Beatrice Barros or American Claudia Schiffer. Her fresh, firm and medium-built physique is just perfect – with just the right curves – not too big either to raise suspicions of cosmetic surgeons or to elicit prurient comments.
Assunta also said she will stop making movies. Beauty connoisseurs, lotharios and cassanovas need not commit suicide or mourn too long. As long as there is an eternal fascination for nude women, there will always be film producers, gay talent managers and tabloid publishers who will discover nubile young stars to titillate men.
One of the most unforgettable bold stars in recent memory is Rosanna Roces, whose guts, honesty, fighting spirit and "rags-to-riches" story I find more sexy than her nude scenes. Unlike many of our political leaders and bureaucrats who tend to be congenital liars and hypocrites, Rosanna admitted that she used to be a sexy dancer at the Pegasus Nightclub, that she used to visit Brunei as an entertainer, and that certain parts of her voluptuous body had been surgically enhanced.
Once while visiting her then humble apartment without a prior appointment and offering her a new house for sale, I was pleasantly surprised that the half-German beauty wore nothing but a long white T-shirt. She called out to her gay alalay to get her underwear, which she slipped on right there and then, without malice or embarrassment.
In God’s creation, there seems to be nothing as sublime as a woman’s body. The nefarious activities of pornographers have provoked the crazed and self-righteous zealots to indiscriminately campaign against all forms of nudity.
Pornography in the movies, the Internet and the tabloids can become the opium of the masses, giving them instant gratification (much like gambling and drugs) so they will forget the country’s numerous socio-political and economic travails. I once read that just before Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, he literally bombarded his target country with pornographic materials, perhaps to weaken the moral character and resolve of its people so they would not be able to mount resistance.
During the economic crises years of the late martial law era, wasn’t there a proliferation of bomba movies, including the infamous sex films shown exclusively at the Manila Film Center?
Pornography is garbage. But not all nude photos, paintings, film scenes and sculptures are pornography.
When I used to host nine young award-winning artists in my former restaurant for some nude painting sessions, I invited beautiful female celebrities to drop by such as Vina Morales (who bought two paintings and agreed to pose nude), Jinky Vidal of Freestyle, Miss Universe first runner-up Miriam Quiambao (who posed, but did not take her clothes off), and Ara Mina (who showed me her nude paintings by top artists). Celebrities or not, I was able to convince beautiful women to pose nude for the nine artists in private sessions by telling them that their beauty should be immortalized in art.
When people asked me why I decided to hold painting sessions, I explained that although I have traditional moral values, I believe in the importance of art. A woman’s nude body is not only a sex object, it is the best work of art in the world. I cited the case of Michaelangelo. Many ultra-conservative Catholics unfairly criticized the artist for his nude paintings in the Sistine Chapel. These zealots even succeeded in draping his nude figures. But since the greatness of Michaelangelo’s work cannot be suppressed, art restorers in the 1990s undraped many of his nude frescoes. Even the nude sculpture of David by Michaelangelo was not spared controversy in modern times.
Sex sells. Sharon Stone achieved celebrity-status after she made the film Basic Instinct. Demi Moore became the highest paid actress in Hollywood after stripping for the film Striptease. Her "nude" photo (she was wearing body paint) on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine was published by almost all newspapers worldwide. Madonna got a lot of media mileage for her sexy music videos and nude pictures for her book on sex.
In the 1950s, when Marilyn Monroe was asked what she wore to bed, she replied, "Chanel No. 5." When Time magazine asked her if she really did pose with nothing on for a 1947 calendar, Marilyn shook her head and said, "I had the radio on."
At least, this late great sex goddess was honest, unlike many of our politicians and bureaucrats who strut across the national stage like pompous emperors with no clothes, and whose misgovernment and other venalities are the worst kinds of obscenity.
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