posted the same photo<\/a> alongside another from the same photoshoot, and a poem: \u201cWe can sit like this \/ You and me \/ My baby boy \/ For a few seconds longer \/ Because what else is more \/ Important to do?\u201d This post has not been removed.<\/p>\nO\u2019Connor said she had complained to Meta that its decision to ban the beautiful photograph of her pregnant body this year, while women were \u201chypersexualised on a daily basis\u201d, was an example of double standards.<\/p>\n
Speaking to an audience at the National Gallery in London, who had gathered to hear her being interviewed by the BBC Radio 4 presenter John Wilson for the gallery\u2019s monthly Picture This series, she added: \u201cIt feels inconceivable that a heavily pregnant naked woman could be perceived as offensive, when she stands in her full power, her body at its most extraordinary, embodying its innate ability to grow, birth and sustain new life.\u201d<\/p>\n
She described Instagram\u2019s ban as \u201cso annoying\u201d, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s such a shame that that would be offensive in the 21st century, and yet in galleries everywhere you have these very sensual and erotic images of women.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor was eight and a half months pregnant when she posed for the photo 12 years ago and it was the first time she had ever allowed herself to be photographed naked.<\/p>\n
\u201c[My son] Albert arrived a couple of weeks later and I did the interview to accompany these pictures when I was in labour in the hospital bed. It was a lovely distraction, I\u2019m not going to lie,\u201d she said. \u201cIt really wasn\u2019t about nudes, it was about expectation \u2026 That abundance of life being right there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The model recently celebrated her 30th year in the industry and revealed she was going through perimenopause. She was once described by Karl Lagerfeld as \u201cone of the best models in the world\u201d but she told the audience at the National Gallery she had spent most of her career feeling uncomfortable in her body.<\/p>\n
It had only been in the past three years that she had come to accept herself, she said: \u201cIt took 45 years. I\u2019ve had three years of living well and truthfully, and it\u2019s the most wonderful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meta and O\u2019Connor have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n