Kim Kardashian Makes Me Want to Post Nude Selfies

With her Forbes cover, it’s officially time to let go of her 2003 sex tape.

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Complex Original

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Kim Kardashian is a mom. She’s a daughter and a sister. She’s an ex-wife and a wife. An entrepreneur, she’s opened multiple locations of her clothing store Dash with her sisters, had multiple fragrances, co-designed the Kardashian Kollection, has her own ecommerce site for affordable shoes, and has her own mobile game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. She released one song and managed an incredibly short stint on Dancing With the Stars. She has producer credits on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, her family’s reality show, that’s been on E! for nearly ten years. And they say women can’t have it all—career, marriage, kids.

"My girl a superstar all from a home movie,” Kim’s husband Kanye West rapped on his verse “Clique.” Where most of you scoff at the objectification and the misogyny of this line, the Kardashian-Wests have embraced it. From being victim of having her sex tape leaked with former boyfriend, washed R&B singer and Brandy’s little brother, Ray J to settling said court case to $5 million, Kardashian has arguably built career off adversity. Further, it leaked 10 years ago but somehow is still an argument used to discredit her success.

In 2007 she covered and posed nude for Playboy. On KUWTK, we saw behind-the-scenes footage and she did seem uncomfortable, even going on to tell Harper’s Bazaar, “I am sorry I did Playboy.  She’s since embraced nudity, posing sans clothes for huge covers for the likes of LOVE, PAPER, and GQ.  She “breaks the internet” at will whenever she posts a nude or provocative selfie to her millions of social media followers. And honestly, she looks great naked, bending stereotypical beauty standards by having the farthest thing from a stick figure body.

Such a tremendous honor to be on the cover of @forbes! I never dreamed this would happen& know my Dad would be proud pic.twitter.com/jxsjXnfVQE

Her latest cover hit the ‘net yesterday. For once, it felt like Kim wasn’t breaking the internet, although it should’ve. Heralded as “The New Mobile Mogul,” Kardashian is on the cover of this month’s Forbes magazine. Grossing over $160 million, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood has over 45 million downloads and has collectively been played for over 30,000 years. Her KIMOJI app made $1 million in one minute on its first day live. She IS a mobile mogul. Accept it. "When people looked at me in a way like, 'Why is she stepping into the tech world? That's not her territory! Stick to reality TV!' I was like, 'No,'" she says. Similar to Kanye’s refusal to be kept in a box and remain a producer, Kim hasn’t let her sex tape or how incredible she looks naked stop her from becoming a wildly successful businesswoman.

When you're like I have nothing to wear LOL pic.twitter.com/UlSLZb1fp1

Slut shame if you must, but last I checked most of you uptight Twitter trolls live at your mom’s house and don’t pay your own phone bill. As a curvy female that’s worked in male-dominated fields for years, I constantly find myself overcompensating to not look too overtly sexual, struggling with pride for the body I work hard to maintain and to be taken seriously for my work.  This is extra annoying because I’m trying to control someone’s (read: trash men) perception of who I am based on my body. And it could potentially be someone responsible for my compensation which although less than my male counterparts, can be influenced by perceived beauty. According to Forbes, their audience is 65% male, 50% are “Key Business Decision Makers,” and collectively have an average household income of $303,152. The Forbes co-sign isn’t what Kim needed, she has the paychecks, the family, the husband, and the (most adorable) kids. It’s what the slut-shamers, conservatives, Forbes readers, and I needed. You don’t have to be unsexy to be smart, successful, and recognized as a mobile mogul on the cover of Forbes. You might not even have to wear clothes all the time. #NotBadForAGirlWithNoTalent

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