She Hadn't Planned On Getting Naked; She Just Started Taking Her Clothes Off

It's hard to shoot rubber bullets at a naked woman sitting in the middle of a street with her legs spread.

I'm nude quite often, so it wasn't a big deal for me..

• Rooney Mara

I don't go, like, 'Oooh, I can't wait to rip off my clothes and jump around in front of everybody.' … And I was certainly not comfortable when I had to depict murdering someone — violently killing someone. I am infinitely less comfortable with the fact that the public is more concerned with whether or not I was nude or gay than whether or not I was a f*cking serial killer. Excuse me very much, but where are your priorities, people?

• Sharon Stone

It was the wee, small hours of July 21, 2020, and the familiar acrid smell of tear gas intermingled with the stink of smoke grenades filtered through the battered streets of downtown Portland. That odor, and the accompanying inability to breathe clearly, was most intense around the federal courthouse, where federal law enforcement personnel sent to Portland by The Former Guy stood nervously in formation.

Dressed in combat-style fatigues with no name, rank, or other identifying features, the feds had been pulling civilians off the street in what appeared to be a purely random fashion. No explanation was provided, no reason given, and no Miranda warning- a van would pull up, a civilian would be seized and put into the van, and off it would go. No one knew where, why, or under what authority the seizures took place; they just happened.

As might be imagined, the mutual suspicion between the two sides could hardly have been higher. The feds had been told they were protecting Portland from “anarchists” and “socialists,” while the protestors resented anything and everything concerning The Former Guy.

The warrantless and warning-less seizures were part of a practice that had been taking place for days. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had compared the feds to “unidentified stormtroopers.” Predictably, The Former Guy defended the extralegal actions as necessary to “defend” Portland.

Except that no one- federal troops, protestors, Portlanders, or the press- knew from what “threat” the Rose City was being “protected.”

The night of July 20, 2020, had begun like many before it- angry confrontations around the federal courthouse, followed by smoke grenades and tear gas canisters. Then the federal troops would venture aggressively out from the courthouse, sometimes chasing down protestors and beating them. Some would be pulled off the street.

As had been the case for several nights, these clashes would go on for hours, eventually dying out sometime before sunrise. The streets would then be cleaned up or not in anticipation of the next evening’s festivities, which would be a rough re-run of the night before.

There were no “winners,” but there were plenty of losers- most notably, downtown Portland, which looked like a war zone. Businesses couldn’t open, many having suffered broken windows and then been looted. Others had boarded up their windows and decided to wait out the riots. It’s not like there was much foot traffic downtown during the pandemic. City Hall, the Multnomah County Courthouse, the Federal Courthouse, and other government buildings became frequent targets and suffered considerable damage.

Nothing was settled by the clashes, of course. Nothing ever was. And things had been calming down…until the federal troops arrived, which only served to ratchet up the anger to about 11 on a scale of 1-10. While The Former Guy was determined to use Portland to burnish his “Law and Order” bona fides, Portland’s protestors were even more determined to push back and embarrass him.

And ultimately, they would embarrass him, primarily because he was too stupid to understand what he was getting himself into. Where The Former Guy saw anarchy and mob rule, protestors saw people organized to speak out against tyranny and in support of Black Lives Matters.

As July 20 faded into the early hours of July 21, the nightly conflict devolved into the usual standoff. Tired but determined not to give up, protestors continued facing down the feds, who’d been armed with riot gear and ordered by The Former Guy to bust heads if necessary.

The usual bruises, sprains, and broken bones were being dished out, but the night was about to take a different turn.

The woman was wearing a face mask and stocking cap, and "walked out to the intersection in front of where police were standing," according to The Oregonian's Ryan Nguyen. "She paced the area near the crosswalk. She laid down, kicking up her feet. She did ballet poses."

Photos and video of her quickly went viral on social media….

Dave Killen, a photographer for The Oregonian, said he saw "Naked Athena," as she's being called, in the street around 1:45 a.m. after a "huge police response" to a protest.

A woman wearing only a beanie and a face mask walked out into an intersection in front of a line of federal troops. She then sat down, spread her legs, and raised her arms.

[Ed. note: When I was in college in Minnesota, the World Junior Hockey Championship was held there in 1981. I attended the US-USSR game (a year after 1980’s “Miracle on Ice”). During the anthems, four teenage female skaters held each country’s flag before the Russian skaters. It was difficult to miss the looks on the faces of the Russian boys. It was like someone had thrown raw meat before a pack of starving dogs. I think of that moment when “Naked Athena” comes to mind.]

The feds must have been dumbfounded. With all their training, I suspect they’d never faced that scenario: What do I do when I encounter a naked woman sitting in the street?

"Jen" didn't plan to get naked. She just did.

After a long day of protesting in Portland, Oregon—where federal officers have been dispatched to crack down on Black Lives Matter demonstrations—the sex-worker stripped down and positioned herself on the pavement facing a line of police.

An Oregonian staff photographer snapped a shot of the performative activist, who quickly went viral on Twitter as the "Naked Athena," after the goddess of war.

Speaking out for the first time on the podcast Unrefined Sophisticates, "Jen," as she wants to be known, said she acted on impulse—and anger—in a heated moment.

"There was a very deep feminine place in myself that felt provoked," she said. "I'm notoriously naked. I just have been that way for several years now and there's not anywhere that you can't find me naked... I'm a sex worker and my nakedness is political. It's my expression."

More than anything, it was a case of one person deciding enough was too much. She likely understood that an individual could only do so much under normal circumstances and that what she saw before her wasn’t normal. And so extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures; it was time to use the weapons she had at her disposal.

Being a sex worker, she was intimately familiar with the power she could wield…and so she did.

It was just before 2 a.m. and Jen had been demonstrating all day. She was "getting gassed and chased around all night," as she recalled on Unrefined Sophisticates, before coming face-to-face with the wall of police. The officers stood in what she described as a "warrior stance," with their feet planted, chests puffed out, heads high, and arms at their sides.

"It's a co-opted stance and it's not earned," she said. "This fury arose in me... I said, 'I want to be naked. I want to confront them.'"

Shortly after confronting the wall of officers, she got up, slipped back into the crowd, and disappeared. To this day, so far as anyone knows, “Jen” has never identified herself. Perhaps for her, that’s as it should be. I suspect it was never about exhibitionism, but merely doing something to stop the madness, even if only for one night.

The next night, things picked up where they’d left off. Shortly after that, things began to unravel for The Former Guy. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and then-Oregon Governor Kate Brown demanded that the federal presence be withdrawn from downtown. They hadn’t been requested, weren’t welcome, and only made things worse. And so The Former Guy acceded, claiming the mission had been accomplished.

What had begun as protests supporting the Black Lives Matter movement had devolved into nightly clashes between Antifa and the Patriot Front continued for a few more weeks. Eventually, an Antifa protestor shot and killed a Patriot Front hell-raiser, and that was enough to convince both sides to back off and keep their powder dry.

Looking back on July 21, 2020, it was probably the sort of thing that could only have happened in Portland, given the circumstances, time, emotions, and personalities involved. It was one of those “WTF?” moments that shut everyone up for long enough to make them think about their actions. It didn’t make anyone stop, but it did pause hostilities, if only briefly.

And what did “Jen” get out of it all? Who knows? Maybe she wasn’t looking for personal satisfaction. It may have been about bringing the emotions and violence to a halt, even if for only a brief pause. She did what she could, made her contribution to history, and exited stage left.

At least she didn’t have to fuss over her wardrobe.