Natalia Vodianova Is On Fire, Lensed by Elizaveta Porodina for Vogue Russia

Supermodel Natalia Vodianova lights up the pages of Vogue Russia with her cover story ‘Natalya on Fire’. Katerina Zolototrubova styles Natalia in distinctive, trademark, art-inspired, symbolism-rich images by Elizaveta Porodina. [IG] / Hair by Yann Turchi; makeup by Cecile Paravina

Natalia Vodianova Joins UNFPA

The United Nations announced today February 24, that Natalia Vodianova has become the newest Goodwill Ambassador for the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA. Vodianova’s primary focus will be fighting the stigma surrounding menstruation.

“On any given day, more than 800 million women and girls aged 15 to 49 are actively menstruating. In many countries, taboos surrounding the cycle leaves girls vulnerable and can even be life-threatening, says UNFPA, as they are excluded from public life, denied opportunities, sanitation and basic health needs.”

In this critical new role with UNFPA, officially known as the UN Population Fund, Natalia Vodianova (daughter-in-law of Bernard Arnault) will seek to help culturally redefine menstruation, as a normal bodily function.

Tackling the Menstruation Taboo

AOC was truly angered by former model Halima Aden’s attack on the UN’s incredibly-important work in areas critical to women. Aden apparently carries a profound anti-UN and anti-imperialist countries resentment over posing for pictures in the Kakuma refugee camp, where she lived before moving to America and after fleeing Somalia.

Aden was born four years after my psychic partner and muse Dan Eldon was stoned to death in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993. I’m sure Dan, the global peace ambassador, will make an appearance shortly, as my attitude about Halima Aden will not be okay with him. I know, Dan: “peace and love; peace and love; peace and love.”

AOC will reach out immediately to the UNFPA’s media department to be certain that we support Natalia in her critical new assignment. Undoing the taboos around menstruation — embedded in wide-ranging religious ‘truths’ that women are unclean, toxic, harmful to men creatures who should be hidden away from society while menstruating — is a mission AOC gladly takes on.

On a separate note, AOC would love to see a set of prints by Elizaveta Porodina dealing with this topic. With her background in clinical psychology, Porodina has worked extensively in women’s issues like eating disorders connected to self-image, sensuality, body functions and the larger arena of human relationships. In her work as a psychologist and as a photographer, the artists expresses an abundance of empathy and understanding of the human spirit.