The Naked Truth About Modeling

Did you tell your parents?
No, absolutely not. It was something I had never talked about until recently, even with the people closest to me. For the most part, people on these shoots are completely professional, so no girl who has one or two bad experiences—which she's bound to have—is going to call home and say, "Mom, Dad, I just got molested." Because she knows she's going to be on the next bus back to Kansas.

So how did you cope?
It's raised a lot of issues I've probably tried not to address, but I'm 27 now, and I've had enough time to think about these things. But at the time it happens, it's a little bit like an aftershock. You think, "My God, how did that happen? Why did that have to happen and why are there no measures to protect these young girls?"

And does the industry just turn a blind eye?
The agents are supposed to act as surrogate parents for these girls, but oftentimes, what's in the agency's best interest is not in the best interest of the girl. The average age of a model [starting out] is something like 14. So you've got really young girls being put in these potentially compromising situations in a totally unregulated industry. A lot of the time they're underage and working with predatory men. But the problem is the models are disposable, so they're not in a position to complain.

Were any of the women you speak to in the film hesitant to go on camera?
Absolutely. The [16-year-old model] who shared [her] story about being sexually assaulted on a photo shoot called me the day before the premiere and asked us to take her story out [which we did]. She had never told anyone before she confessed this on camera, and she wasn't ready for the world to see it.

What do you think about the media focus on the extreme thinness of models? Are there bigger issues in the industry?
You can't talk about body image without talking about the extreme youth of models. Fourteen- and 15-year-old girls can be thin in a way that's impossible for a 30-year-old; they are young and gangly, and that's natural. What's not natural is for a full-grown woman to aspire to that.

In the film you talk about struggling to reconcile art with exploitation. Can you describe that?
Fashion is this kind of perfect blend of art and commerce, and I think when you're the model … for me anyway, I'd think, "Well, what's the difference between posing in my underwear for a Calvin Klein ad—which I've done—and being a stripper?" And I think what can be confusing is thinking, "Am I some sort of commodified body? Am I prostituting myself? Or am I part of some artistic creative collaborative project?" And I think when you're working as a model, especially in the higher end of the business, you're sort of straddling those two.