Why I posed naked and natural

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/16/why-i-posed-naked-and-natural-women-sex

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An image of a naked female body is nothing but controversial, as I well know. The (more delicately named) "female nude" can provoke a range of reactions, going as far as embarrassment, shame and even sin. In modern society a naked woman is associated with one thing alone: sex.

This single-minded way of looking at nudity isn't healthy – certainly not for women. The cause is simple. In the public domain, nudity is more often than not depicted in an overtly sexualised manner. It is, therefore, no surprise if men come to view women as sex objects, and it runs the risk that women start to see themselves in the same light.

My portrait, painted by Anthony Connolly and currently on show at the Mall Galleries as part of the annual exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, hopes to raise questions about the depiction of women and to challenge the blinkered association between the body and sex; to show that the female figure is something that a woman walks around with every moment in her life – that it is not, therefore, purely sexual.

While the portrait was taken in the nude, it is unlike the images of naked women with which we are more familiar. Rather than a sexualised pose, the artist and I worked together to identify a stance that was natural and comfortable. In fact, the pose we decided upon was inherently unflattering: I was standing on a box, with the artist looking up towards me. The natural result is that the lower part of the body is closest to Connolly's line of vision, meaning that it looks slightly out of proportion with the head and upper body. In fact, it is as if I am stood on a soap box with a hidden message to deliver to onlookers.

The first response of the viewer may be to notice that the portrait is different to most contemporary images of nude women: there are no fake implants, false nails, fake tan, or other types of aesthetic treatments. This is, instead, an image of a real woman – not one that has been added to, worked on or Photoshopped, with the aim of satisfying sexual desire. Their second reaction may come when they read the name plaque and find "Dr Victoria N Bateman, Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge". As I have seen myself in the gallery, people are often shocked when they realise that the naked image stood before them is an intelligent woman. Perhaps what this reveals is that people simply do not imagine that behind each nude is a thinking and breathing human being. It is a mistake that I hope they won't make again.

At the age of 34, I am comfortable in my own body. Reaching a certain age and realising that life is not infinite, I wanted to capture a moment in time. Initially this snapshot was going to be conventional. But, the more I thought about it, the more I could see the value in creating a work that was both "honest" – that showed me comfortable in my own skin – and that, as in my academic work, was not afraid to break through pre-existing barriers and to raise important questions.

My view is that we will never eradicate the overtly sexualised images of women. They will always be profitable to produce, as I well understand as an economist. Instead, I feel that the best way of providing an antidote to this societal disease is to make sure that we show women as they truly are – and that behind each nude is a human being who is not purely sexual.