It's skin-baiting 101 all over again.

This time a 23-year-old female, Ashley Harkleroad, ranked 61 in the world in women's professional tennis but not exactly a house-hold name, will bare all in an upcoming sleaze mag.

Here's the shop-worn, braindead rationale: "I'm proud of my body."

Utter nonsense.

Does "proud" entail public display?

No.

For example, the human heart is a beautiful thing, but if a pretty girl pulls her heart out and shows it to a nice photographer, she's dead.

Even if her mom approves. Or Leno. Or Oprah.

Did you know that many beautiful things, many wonderful things of which one holds in high esteem, can be kept private -- and rightfully, fulfillingly so?

A confidence among best-friends. A loving glance between husband and wife. A good work done in secret so that PR machines and legacy-building do not take over to twist, finesse, and deceive.

Human creativity, too. As Camus said, "There is no true creation without secrecy."

Many, many private things of which we may all be proud and are quite beautiful are nevertheless destroyed when removed from their proper context.

Not just human hearts are destroyed. But we also lose that hidden place, shaped by the Creator, that all humans need if we are to unfold who we are as persons.

But the huckster comes and says, "Be proud. Show me everything!" Cha-ching!

Next!

An individual with no sense of privacy is functionally a nonperson. And that hurts because we are persons -- more than meat plus instincts -- and to destroy all boundaries, all limits, is to attack the center of who we are.

You can be No. 1 in the world and utterly dead inside. You died on the way to the top.

The best things in life aren't just free, they're hidden in secret places where respect is earned, not sold, revealed to the few, not to the many.

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