Is Nudity Okay?

I've been contacted by several photographers lately due to my sites at One Model Place and Model Mayhem.  I've gotten some wonderful offers and I'm doing one and I'm considering a couple of others.  What is bothering me is I know one offer will require nudity.  I've looked at this photographer's work and I would have to say that I don't find his work offensive.  It is art but really, can't any photographer say his or her work is art?  I'm not a prude by a long shot but I am a mother.  Would I want my daughter considering this?  In the end, my photo's won't be posted on a sleazy web site, they wouldn't be sent to a magazine and they won't be hung on every street corner in the midwest.  But they will be in a gallery.  The image will belong to this photographer and once they are taken I loose control over them.  I admit there is a part of me that would love to do this.  I have never thought of myself as a sensual person.  For what ever reason, I lost that a while ago and I wonder if I do this, will I get that back?  Will I finally begin to see myself as someone who can be really proud and happy about their physical side?  Truth be told, if I do this I will have to work out for at least a month to gain some tone.  I grant you, I have no body fat but I also have no tone.  I tend to keep this one little secret far away from the people I work with or for, but I have lupus.  I'm in remission for the most part but it has taken it's toll.  I've had multiple surgeries and due to the level of exhaustion I've felt over the last six months or so, working out became really unimportant to me.  When I see my self naked, I see a woman who has been ill. I see a body that has been ravaged by child birth, by time, and by my own body turing against me.  I have never regretted what childbirth did but seeing what time has done and what illness has done makes my mortality so much closer.  What I don't see is a beautiful woman.  I think that's one of the reasons I have loved clothing so much.  No one can see what I've been through if I am dressed. I create an illusion that what you see when I'm dressed is just a prelude to what you see when I'm not.  I also worry about my kids finding my pictures? Would I be embarrassed?  Would it humiliate them?   In the end, I don't think I can do it.  But honestly, knowing that doesn't make me feel good or proud.  It makes me feel like a chicken, like a person who is too ashamed to see themselves as a beautiful woman....like I am still hiding.   I can't ever say to my kids that I chose not to do it because I didn't want to embarrass them or do something I didn't find moral.  I would have to be honest with them and myself and tell them that I was just too ashamed of my body.  That's the truth and I guess part of why I began blogging was to help me sort things out.  Wow,  I'm ashamed of my body.  Now what?  Well, I am so angry at myself right now....I didn't understand that until just this minute.  Why would anyone want to look at my cellulite, my stretch marks, my sagging ass and boobs, and my scars?  I don't want to look at them.  I was told that this photographer always touches his images up and I must say, he'd have to do so much touch up work that it would no longer be me in the picture.  You know, I could live with it being a true moral choice not to do this but knowing that I am choosing not to because I am ashamed of my body.....that means I have work to do.  First, I need to decide why I hate my body..is it really all about cellulite, flab and illness or is there more?   Once I have that figured out then I  need to decide what I can fix  and how it's best fixed.  First of all, I know sitting on my butt is doing nothing to improve anything so it's time to work out again.  And then I need to decide how far I want to carry fixing my body or at least fixing how it looks.  There's not much I can do about the lupus other than really take care of myself - which includes working out- but could I have surgery to improve the chest area?  I never want bigger boobs...never, never. But I would like them "lifted".  And if you are wondering whether my priorities are completely screwed up, the idea of one of my children hating themselves in anyway seems much worse to me and far more dangerous than one of my children considering whether or not posing nude publicly is something they could or even should do.  Naked pictures have a potential of being seen by everyone in the world and used anyway the owner wants...a hated body gets abused, under fed, over fed, cut, taught to throw up after eating everything in sight,  and used by people who search out those who hate themselves.  When I began my quest for a better life, I knew my daughter had been taught all of the things I didn't want her to learn from me by watching me.  Both of my children are still watching me and I want them to see me change what I don't like and accept what I can't change with grace.  But most of all, I want them to learn, from me, that liking  yourself, living the life you really want and having the confidence to know what that is and what that means is why we have been put here and can be achieved even if you have spent most of your life doing just the opposite.  It's never too late to change your life and live with confidence, love and happiness.