Nude Blogger Claps Back at Instagram Guidelines

Photo credit: Jessa O'Brien, @thenudeblogger
Photo credit: Jessa O'Brien, @thenudeblogger

From Cosmopolitan

This is me, Jessa, and I am the creatress of The Nude Blogger. Now, as some of you may know, this account was abruptly, and without any warning whatsoever, deactivated over 3 weeks ago 😤 So apologies I've been a little quiet on this account. #linkinbio for full story 👆🏼 In the midst off all of this, I also set up a secondary account @thenudeblogger_ in the event that this one was not reactivated and just in case something similar happens again. It will be my secondary/backup account, so please do follow this account also 🙏🏽 I will continue to use this account as my MAIN and primary account. Since the deactivation of this account, I have embarked on a tireless crusade against the social media giants to raise awareness about body positivity and expose the contradictory nature of Instagram's blurred guidelines that only exacerbate appalling double standards 🙅🏽The deactivation of my account actually proved to be one of the best things to happen for my message about body-positivity 👊🏼What success we've had! It's been an absolute whirlwind…making headlines all around the world! A win for body-positivity and a win against Instagram ✊🏽 To those of you who have stood united with me, to those of you who believed in me, to those of you who helped me, to each and every one of you who either shared or posted something on my behalf, to the individuals within the media who gave my story a chance and a way to gain traction and spread even further, to the people who didn't just sit back on the issue, to the people who fought for something bigger than a following or popularity on Instagram, to the people who judged me, to the people who tried to tear me down…..THANK YOU 🙏🏽YOU have given body-positivity an even louder voice and a place well-deserved at the forefront of many more people's minds 💖 And to the person, people, robot or reptilian who clicked the button to reactivate my account…YOU have also just made more of a difference than you will ever know…so thank you. You've just helped to show the world that body-positivity and non-sexual nudity are ok. So yes, thank you too Instagram…it's been good ✌🏼And as I always say, LET'S START A DAMN REVOLUTION! ✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽

A post shared by The Nude Blogger (@thenudeblogger) on Aug 23, 2017 at 4:29am PDT

After Instagram deactivated her account, @TheNudeBlogger, for three weeks, body positivity blogger Jessa O'Brien got her page back - and proceeded to send a strong message to the social media site.

"The deactivation of my account actually proved to be one of the best things to happen for my message about body-positivity," she wrote. "What success we've had! It's been an absolute whirlwind ... making headlines all around the world! A win for body-positivity and a win against Instagram."

O'Brien also thanked both her fans and critics for bringing awareness to her story. "YOU have given body-positivity an even louder voice and a place well-deserved at the forefront of many more people's minds," she wrote.

This is not the first time O'Brien used the picture to send a message to Instagram. The blogger posted the picture to a backup account she created when her original Instagram page was first disabled. It was O'Brien's first time showing her face in the 10 months since she created her blog. She captioned the shot:

F*ck you @instagram And your double standards And your blurred guidelines And your lack of transparency And your unaccountability And your censorship And your inconsistent policing And your dictatorship F*ck you @instagram 🖕🏼 Just so you know, there is a real person behind this account. My name is Jessa.

According to O'Brien's blog, her Instagram account was deactivated in late July "without any warning whatsoever" from Instagram. When notifying the blogger her account had been deactivated, Instagram said O'Brien had violated their terms.

Photo credit: Jessa O'Brien, thenudeblogger.com
Photo credit: Jessa O'Brien, thenudeblogger.com

According to Instagram's community guidelines, photos and videos that include "sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks" are not allowed on the site. "Some photos of female nipples" are banned on the site, with the exception of photos of breastfeeding and mastectomy scarring. While waiting for Instagram to get back to her about reactivating her account, O'Brien created a second Instagram account, posting pictures from her first account on the page, like this one:

Let's talk BODY POSITIVITY ❤️ For me, it means accepting, embracing and honouring our body, the sacred vessel in which our Soul resides 💖 It is about empowering ourselves and breaking free of the shackles of society's 'beauty standards'. Reaching a point where we no longer allow corporations or industries to tell us what is considered 'desirable' or 'beautiful'. To me, body positivity is so much more than just the physical aspect of it all. It is also about a state of mind. It is a matter of perception. It is about taking back our power and redefining, for ourselves, what is considered beautiful. It is about recognising the beauty that is already within. The beauty that wants to shine, regardless of your appearance or physical attributes. For me, practicing body positivity means seeing 'beauty' as something that cannot be attained, but as something that is already within. It means developing a healthy relationship between the mind and body. It means being kind to yourself. By ACCEPTING our bodies, we cease resisting what is and begin to work with what we have. By EMBRACING our bodies, we celebrate its unique and miraculous nature. We stop striving to look a certain way for a surface-level form of societal acceptance. By HONOURING the body, we understand that this is our temple, and so we treat is as such. We cultivate gratitude toward it 🙏🏽 Body acceptance is an act of self-love. By cultivating kindness toward ourselves, we do not allow others' judgements to define our view of self, because we begin to realise that their judgements are only a reflection of their own state of mind. We begin to break down and break through society's insidious and warped view of the human body, and we start caring less about fitting a certain mold. Being body positive, for me, means being at one with my body, but not being defined by it. It means nurturing it in a way that also nurtures inner-growth. It means letting go of strict standards and ideals about what we should look like. I'm not saying that all of this is easy, no…it's challenging. We're talking about changing a mindset here... but it is possible 💖 #body #positivity #acceptance #freedom #naked #nude #self #love

A post shared by The Nude Blogger (@thenudeblogger_) on Aug 14, 2017 at 10:35pm PDT

"Let's talk BODY POSITIVITY ❤️ ," the blogger captioned it. "For me, it means accepting, embracing and honouring our body, the sacred vessel in which our Soul resides 💖 It is about empowering ourselves and breaking free of the shackles of society's 'beauty standards'."

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