We're never sure exactly how to feel about Playboy. Do nude photos empower women to take control of their sexuality, or do they unnecessarily sexualize women for a strictly straight male gaze?
While arguments can be made for either side, it's important to know how the women actually posing for Playboy — willingly putting their bodies on display — feel about these images.
The magazine dropped nude photos in March of 2016 because they saw a spike with younger readers after taking nude photos off of the website. After only a year, Playboy brought full-frontal nudity back in the April 2017 issue.
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Nina Daniele, the magazine's first centerfold following their new "Naked Is Normal" campaign bringing back nudity, says posing nude can be powerful.
The playmate shares her feelings on nudity with Refinery29, and in a new video posted to Playboy's YouTube page.
"There are so many reasons why I think posing nude is powerful but first I would like to say, it’s not for everyone," Daniele told Refinery29. "There are so many other ways to express your confidence in your skin and for me this was and is just one of them."
"It’s a way to say 'this is me, this is who I am bare, accept it or don’t,'" she continued.
Daniele also mentioned that posing nude can be powerful no matter a person's shape or size, or whether or not they have had plastic surgery or any other body modifications. And while we'd be all for a plus size Playboy model, there are few instances of larger women in the magazine.
"Bodies are bodies, they are us implicitly," she said.
"I think being comfortable with ourselves nude is important because it is a huge deciding factor with how we view ourselves internally just as well as externally," she said. "Once you look in the mirror and say 'I am happy with myself, I love myself and I am beautiful,' then the world is yours and no one can take that from you."
Hear more about Daniele's views on nudity in the video below: