FOR MANY, IT’S the kind of thing you’d wake up in a sweat thinking about. Being alone, in public, in just your underwear.

For this American mother, it was just something she felt she had to do. Inspired by The Liberators International in Australia, Amy Pence-Brown felt she needed to spread the self-love in the States.

While the initial experiment featured a slim woman standing in London, Amy wanted to see how people would react to a larger lady. Writing on her blog, she said:

How would it be received if the woman had been less socially acceptable in appearance, like, fat? And, say, a mom who’s nearly 40-years-old?

She founded the Boise Rad Fat Collective, which promotes a healthy body image in a world with often a linear view on beauty.

Pence-Brown took to the streets of Idaho and blindfolded herself, asking strangers to stop and write on her body.

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The sign reads:

I’m standing for anyone who has struggled with a self-esteem issue like me, because all bodies are valuable. To support self-acceptance, draw a <3 on my body.

She admits she was terrified that she might get asked to leave by police, or that nobody would stop or that they’d ‘yell terrible things’.

She didn’t need to worry, as people began to stop almost instantly.

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She wrote:

The hush in the crowd around me was instantaneous and I barely had time to tie on my blindfold, prop up my sign and grab my markers before the first woman rushed up to me, touched my hand with her shaky one, told me I was brave and powerful and asked if she could give me a hug and started to cry.

They scribbled supportive messages on her body and gave her hugs and kisses on the cheek.

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She went on to say that every part of her body was on show, but it’s all as equally beautiful.

And, undoubtedly, like me, you will also see other things in these photos, sweat running down my rolls of back fat, cellulite (on strong legs that have carried me for four decades), a wonky bikini top with sagging breasts (that nourished three babies), stretch marks (that represent my transition from a chubby adolescent to a curvy teenager to a woman who’s been pregnant four times), and darkly tanned skin (from a summer spent at the Boise Public Pools with my friends and my children).

Read more about her experiment here.

Melanie Flitton Folwell / Vimeo

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