My friend Sarah Bennett posted this beautiful photo to her Facebook page. This photo demonstrating motherly love has been shared over 75,000 times. Yet, as was the case when Sarah posted it, the photo has been taken down numerous times for “offensive content.” How is this offensive, especially when photos of pornified bodies are permitted? What is inspiring about this story, however, is that people are  persistently reposting it.

Sarah had this to say about the photo being taken down:

“An image which I posted earlier of a group of beautiful nude mamas holding their babies has been taken off of my page as being offensive content. Think about that. What goes on in someone’s mind as they take offense to a bare human body? Our bodies are magnificent works of creation, evolution, divinity, whatever- within any ideology or perspective- how can that magnificence possibly be denied? Our bodies give solidity to the mysterious truth that we are HERE. We are here.
To view the nude human form only as a sexual object, to associate it with all of the confusing shame and pain stigma around sexuality that so many of us have been inundated with, is an absolutely unnecessary pain. What has warped our thinking into believing that sexuality is so wrong that it must be hidden and denied, while at the same time casting it constantly upon everything we see?

What has twisted us into thinking that only certain bodies are worthy of calling themselves beautiful, worthy of being seen?

To cast shame upon our very vessels of existence as we know it implies a heartbreaking denial of self. Every single body is beautiful. Miraculously beautiful. Every one of us has the right to live within our bodies free of shame, stigma, and fear.

We have choice in our thinking. Your body is proof, proof at least that you are here. Here in this life with all of its confusion, pain, pleasure, freedom, love, and joy. What could ever be more beautiful?”