"Jen" didn't plan to get naked. She just did.
After a long day of protesting in Portland, Oregon—where federal officers have been dispatched to crack down on Black Lives Matter demonstrations—the sex-worker stripped down and positioned herself on the pavement facing a line of police.
An Oregonian staff photographer snapped a shot of the performative activist, who quickly went viral on Twitter as the "Naked Athena," after the goddess of war.
Speaking out for the first time on the podcast Unrefined Sophisticates, "Jen," as she wants to be known, said she acted on impulse—and anger—in a heated moment.
"There was a very deep feminine place in myself that felt provoked," she said. "I'm notoriously naked. I just have been that way for several years now and there's not anywhere that you can't find me naked... I'm a sex worker and my nakedness is political. It's my expression."
It was just before 2 a.m. and Jen had been demonstrating all day. She was "getting gassed and chased around all night," as she recalled on Unrefined Sophisticates, before coming face-to-face with the wall of police. The officers stood in what she described as a "warrior stance," with their feet planted, chests puffed out, heads high, and arms at their sides.
"It's a co-opted stance and it's not earned," she said. "This fury arose in me... I said, 'I want to be naked. I want to confront them.'"
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