Turkish-German Actress Poses In Playboy As “Act of Liberation”

April 25, 2011 By 5 Comments

Sila Sahin’s appearance in the German version of Playboy has symbolic connotations:

the 25-year-old Sahin, who plays Ayala in the RTL German soap opera Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten (Good Times, Bad Times), managed to link her public exposure to the debate over a central sociopolitical issue: that young Muslim — in this case, Turkish — women are not allowed to make the same kind of decisions over their own lives and bodies that the daughters of the sexually revealing majority have been able to make for some time.

“For me, these pictures are an act of liberation from the cultural constraints of my childhood,” says Sahin. “I have tried to please everybody for too long. With these images I want to show young Turkish women that it is O.K. to live the way they are, that it is not cheap to show skin, that you should pursue your goals instead of bowing down to others.”

Your Thoughts?

Filed Under: Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Islam, Islam, News, Religion, Religion, World Affairs, World Affairs 5 Comments
  • andrea

    Good for her!!!
    I hope she got paid well. I think there are a million one other ways to show that you are an independent woman, to show that you want to detached yourself from a culture..or to demonstrate the need for change in a culture..posing nude would not be my first choice, nor second, nor third..

  • Nabil

    She is free to show her ass wherever she wants for a pay or for free, that is her call. She is also free to give it to whomever she wants, for a price or for free, that is also her call. But please do not tell me that is liberation …

  • Nabil

    She is free to show her ass or to give it away for a pay or for free, that is her call. But when she says that is liberation, she is revealing the emptiness of her mind.

  • Stevarious

    It IS a liberation, for her, to revel in her sexuality, when all her childhood she was taught that the level of a woman’s sexuality is equal to the level of their inherent evilness.

    I really don’t understand this whole feminist thing that sexuality is bad. If she’s doing it because she wants to, who are you to tell her it’s wrong?

  • Karleigh

    “I really don’t understand this whole feminist thing that sexuality is bad.”

    Exactly. I often think similar things if I hear a Lady Gaga song. Whatever else their flaws, they are generally very sexualised. However, it’s sexuality on the terms of the female. None of this – “I need you, don’t leave me” stuff. Especially the song ‘Telephone’ which is about a woman out, having fun, ignoring the man who wants her to be perpetually available to him.

    Feminism shouldn’t be about denying sexuality. I consider myself a feminist. Does that mean I should be ashamed to say I really enjoy sex? No way! A woman has the right to enjoy sex just as much as a male. And if this woman wants to show her body off, it’s her right. I bet conservatives would complain whether she was naked, or covered in a burqa. Loosen up a bit and enjoy the female form for what it is ;)