My friend Denise Jolly is one of my favoritest people. I haven’t gotten to see her in person in a few years and this saddens me, as she is one of the most loving, most sincere, most community-driven and supportive individuals I’ve ever had the good fortune of meeting. What I love about Denise is that her light, her being, makes me want to love her and to continue increasing my capacity to love others. One of the things that I can now add to the list of reasons why I love Denise Jolly is her courage.

Last month, Ms. Jolly set out to fall in love with herself. I’ll let her do the talking because it’s her project to talk about, and because she already has so eloquently over at The Body Is Not An Apology, a revolution of body empowerment started by the inimitable Sonya Renee, which was reposted and shared today at The Huffington Post. But to sum up, she spent 30 days taking pictures of her nearly naked self and posting them on the internet. As approximately 15 percent of the internet is comprised of nearly naked pictures, with the remaining 85 percent being fully naked pictures, this may not seem like a big deal. But when the world equates the naked body with sexuality and then provides a very narrow definition as to what sexiness means and thus what is desirable and thus what is beautiful, generally women who weigh 300 pounds do not fit into that definition. Hell, most women don’t feel like they fall into whatever imaginary definition of beauty the world thinks it believes in. But thankfully Ms. Jolly is what she is, amazing. And because Ms Jolly should love the amazingness that is herself at least as much as she loves the world around her, and she’s amazing enough to know this herself, she proceeded to strip down to various levels of undress, write the word “BEAUTIFUL” across parts of her body, and document this action, however not only in the privacy of her home but taking it into the outside world as well.

O the boldness, the bravery, the beauty that is Denise Jolly. But I’ll say no more on it. Go read of her journey for yourself.



BE BEAUTIFUL