'I wanted to be free': Muslim model upsets family by posing nude for Playboy cover
By Deborah Arthurs
Last updated at 10:35 PM on 19th April 2011
Strict: Turkish German actress Sila Sahin says her childhood was 'restricting'
A successful actress starring in German television soap opera Good Times, Bad Times, she pleased her many fans and made her Turkish family proud.
But her latest move has shocked some of those fans, and enraged those closest to her.
Posing provocatively on the cover of German Playboy magazine with one breast exposed, Sila Sahin seems to be sending a clear and deliberate message to her conservative Turkish family.
'I did it because I wanted to be free at last,' she said. 'These photographs are a liberation from the restrictions of my childhood.'
Her family have, unsurprisingly, reacted with horror, and her mother has cut off all contact with the actress.
'My mother is still angry. It will be even more difficult with my grandparents, my aunts and my uncles,' she said on the website devoted to her television soap.
She has, however, managed to talk to her actor father, who expressed concern over the pressure she will inevitably face from those not only within the Turkish community in Germany, but from the wider Muslim community as a whole.
Ms Sahin's declared intention was to used the controversial Playboy photoshoot as a call to action for other Turkish girls who suffer the effects of their strict backgrounds, where women's choices are often limited, husbands are chosen for the girls and chastity closely controlled.
Liberating? I did it because I wanted to be free,' said Sila Sahin of the nude Playboy photographs that offended her Turkish family
Her message to these girls? 'For too long I tried to do everything right,' she says. 'I want these photos to show young Turkish women it's okay for you to live however you choose.'
'Many of my countrymen think it's great that I can be so free. With the shoot I hoped to say to them that we do not necessarily have to live under these rules given to us.
Popular: Sila Sahin on the red carpet with actor Joern Schloenvoigt
In what is undeniably a groundbreaking move, Ms Sahin is the first Turkish woman ever to strip for the cover of Playboy.
Indeed, in the 12-page article that accompanies the revealing photographs, Ms Sahin says she feels 'like Che Guevara', adding that the semi-naked photoshoot was a bid to express her freedom.
'My upbringing was conservative,' she told Playboy. 'I was always told, you must not go out, you must not make yourself look so attractive, you mustn't have male friends.
'I have always abided by what men say. As a result I developed an extreme desire for freedom. I feel like Che Guevara. I have to do everything I want, otherwise I feel like I may as well be dead.'
And according to Ms Sahin, her friends have been impressed by the magazine spread. 'They admire my courage,' she says.
But while her friends and some fans may be impressed, Ms Sahin's family have expressed their disappointment.
And despite her outward conviction, Ms Sahin was devastated her actions should be met with such a harsh response.
In an ill-advised move, Ms Sahin only informed her parents of her Playboy spread via an interview on German television channel RTL, just one day before the nude photographs were to be published.
In an impassioned interview, as she displayed the revealing photographs, she pleaded with her mother and father to understand the reasons behind her decision to pose naked.
The emotional actress begged for clemency from her family.
'I hope you can forgive me, she said.
'Please let me come home.'
6 comments:
Wow. What a story. But she should be more ashamed that she cut her chest open and had a silicon plastic sac placed inside, not for posing topless!
Her bravery makes up for her stupidity in altering her natural beauty. I hope she remains safe and sound. This is going to send some shock waves! Oh look here comes a rampage! :)
That young lady's life is now in danger.
The personal freedom she talks about is in abundance here in Western Christendom. Even though no Christian would condone how she celebrates this freedom, we nonetheless affirm her right to do it, and I doubt any Christian would want to stone her or cut her head off over this.
she has shown some seriously unwise bravery.
I fear she sees her family as, "family" as opposed to what the really are, the vanguard of the islamic umma projected into the secular west.
I can gaurantee that the screws of extended family complaints about family honor are getting stronger and harder to resist by the immediate family.
I would not be surprised if they were already planning an honor killing.
dont beleive me? then I refer you to the muslim girl who starred in the harry potter movie and almost got killed by her brother.
and im disturbed by the che reference in that she has only a vacuous knowledge of him, seeing that he was a sociopathic mass murderer, the trigger man for castro in the revolutionary death camps of cuba, it seems to me the one most like che will be the relative who cold bloodedly tries or succeeds in killing her in the future.
Yeah, that bothered me too. But I think you are right about "only a vacous knowledge of him."
I think that girl that is missing in Illinois, supposed runaway, was actually honor killed by her father. I'm just waiting for the body to be found, if he didn't grind it up like the little girl in England was.
Sick people. Sick religion. Sick cultures.
im gonna agree with that, I dont generally give high marks in the brains dept. for muslimatics, but if you know honor killing will get you put away for life the next tactic may be honor killing on the sly. deeds still done, but unlike the co-owner of bridges tv a network "dedicated to dispelling the bad image of islam" who practically cut off his wifes head, or the arizona iraqi who ran over his daughter and fled to england before being hualed back stateside, they can stay out of jail if they stick to the script.
Post a Comment