Hers is an extraordinary act of courage and vulnerability. To expose a naked body so dramatically out of sync with standards of perfection takes considerable self-possession. She makes public what is most private. By this risky act she transgresses familiar images of representation of the human body and replaces stereotypes with images of self-definition. She reclaims her body for herself.
Art becomes a means of personal transformation.
That said, it is only because her body is at the extreme end of a continuum that we give these photographs a second glance. Were the figures merely plump or portly they would refer directly to a long tradition of the Nude in Nature where artists of all persuasions have photographed and painted themselves or models romping naked and nude, only much more interestingly, and to better effect. For instance, with regard to attitudes toward the robust female body, contemporary artists from Becky Singleton, Lynn Bianchi, Lisette Model, Les Krims, and Botero, on through Rubens, and Titian inspire considerably more penetrating reflections. Minus the literal and figurative weight of Aguilars body, and lesbian-Chicana identified subtext, these images fall flat.