Making Some Sense Of A Topless, Underage Kate Moss

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

The December 2012 Vanity Fair piece on Kate Moss is worth a read just for these words from John Galliano, when she asked him on her wedding day to give her a character:

"You have a secret—you are the last of the English roses. Hide under that veil. When he lifts it, he’s going to see your wanton past!’”

While I thought that would be the most significant tidbit, a little further down she goes into her early years of work, including her posing topless at age 16. I'm only going to explore this very delicate topic because Four Pins promised me the finest pro bono legal defense if this lands me in hot water for whatever reason. [Editor's Note: That would be Jon Moy, so James is fucked.]

Now, if you haven't seen Kate Moss topless by now, then you are Mitt Romney. But if you have seen 16 year old Kate Moss topless, then what the fuck! This raises so many questions! Is this child pornography? Is this art? Is it...both? Does one disqualify the other? If I looked up these photos, would I be committing a crime by seeking them out, or would I simply be traveling down a Kate Moss rabbit hole? Am I even allowed to say "Kate Moss rabbit hole" when 16 year old Kate Moss is part of the conversation? If I looked at the photos, would I get a shame boner? Would that shame boner turn into a fear boner at the prospect of committing a horrendous crime? Would I be very lightheaded from all this one-directional blood flow? Would it be cool if four-year-old me was looking at these photos when they came out in 1990? Wait, is it illegal to now think of the 16-year-old boobs (okay, boob) that I saw when I was 16? Christ, I'm going to jail. And do you know what they do to accidental possibly grey area child porno enthusiasts in jail? They fuck them. They fuck them with a lot of different things in a lot of different places.

Okay, enough with the questions. Let's just break down what Kate Moss had to say about the whole experience, so that we don't make Jon Moy's job any more difficult than it already will be, since a significant part of my defense will include defining and defending "shame boners" in a court of law.

“I see a 16-year-old now, and to ask her to take her clothes off would feel really weird."

No shit. But trick please, like you ain't have a roster of buff and oiled 16-year-old Cypriote boy-men service your lecherous, yet still very fine, self. Seriously, your perceived evilness makes you really hot, which says more about me than it does about you.

"But they were like, If you don’t do it, then we’re not going to book you again.

Shit is fucked up! Fashion is evil! These horror stories abound and are finally being addressed in a tangible and meaningful manner—sort of.

"So I’d lock myself in the toilet and cry and then come out and do it."

Also, was this the event that started a pattern of Kate Moss heading to the bathroom to work up the courage for a difficult task? #CocaineJoke.

"I never felt very comfortable about it." 

Now you know how I feel!

"There’s a lot of boobs." 

More than 2?

"I hated my boobs!" 

This is where I don't make a comment on your underage boobs.

"Because I was flat-chested." 

Oh.

"And I had a big mole on one." 

We know. And you still do, FYI.

"That picture of me running down the beach—I’ll never forget doing that, because I made the hairdresser, who was the only man on the shoot, turn his back.” 

Yeah, I'm sure the male fashion hairdresser really wanted to see a semi-nude woman.

I decided to not Google those photos because, despite the conversations that could continue about the fetishization of youth, aesthetics of sexuality, the political implications of art, I realized that, like most complex and entwined issues that force us to explore and parse out our personal and societal mores, this could easily be concluded by quoting 2 Chainz. "Yuck!"

Latest in Style