So when is it the right time in your life to pose nude?

According to Olympic medalist Amanda Beard, the time was now as she explains to ESPN's Sage Steele on a video you can watch from Gene Wojciechowski's column . Wojciechowski also weighs in on Beard's decision to show all in Playboy. So what to make of all this? Is it empowering to women? Or just sad that a woman athlete has to strip down to earn some $$ because the sport she competes in can't support her financially? It's hard to listen to her tell Steele that she feels she is doing a good thing because she is showing how a body can be health and athletic. But who is looking at this naked healthy body? Beard needs to be a bit realistic about the context of Playboy.  It is what it is - don't try to cloak it as something it isn't. Most of the readers are not going to have any epiphanies about the female shape or women athletes as they flip through the pages before she's tossed into the recycling bin.