Aussie basketballer Liz Cambage poses topless in Playboy

Australian basketball icon Liz Cambage stepped out of her clothes and into a brave new world to celebrate her body in an issue of Playboy.

Australian basketballer Liz Cambage has accomplished plenty in her 29 years, but posing for Playboy calls for a different kind of celebration.

“I’ve never embraced my sexuality in public,” the WNBA star recently told the publication. “Me doing Playboy is me celebrating my sexuality like, ‘Yeah, I am a straight six-foot-eight (203cm) woman who likes to have sex’. I’m a human; it’s what we do.

“As a female athlete, I feel like I’m not allowed to be sexy and I’m not allowed to be that person. All society wants from me is to sit down, shut up, go to training and play my sport.”

The Aussie sensation, who was drafted second overall by the Tulsa Shock in 2011, received a medical exemption for the 2020 WNBA season, in which her Las Vegas Aces will face the Seattle Storm in the finals.

Cambage added that “being a female and in sports” she “felt a lot of pressure” in regard to sexual identification.

“I’ve spent a lot of years confused. Am I straight? Am I bi? Is there something wrong with me that I’m not attracted to girls?” Cambage said.

“Everyone’s always expecting me to be gay. I’m like, ‘No, I love men’.

“I remember when I shaved half my head at 18 or 19 and my mum sat me down. She thought that was me coming out. I was like, ‘No, I just look good with a shaved head’.”

Cambage thinks fans will be “surprised” when they see the final Playboy prints.

“I wanted it to be super girly and feminine, which I think I am but never really get to portray as an athlete,” she said. “We don’t really get a platform to portray the other sides of ourselves.

“My whole life, I have been told to focus on my sport. But at the end of the day, I’m a human and I’m fighting for things bigger than just my sport.”

Cambage has long considered her body to be “powerful”, noting the feedback she received after posing in ESPN the Magazine’s annual “Body Issue” — where he stripped off all her clothes in front of the camera — was “very interesting”.

“People saw it as a very sexual thing, but to me, my body is powerful. We bring life into this world with our bodies yet we cover them up, when we’re such powerful beings,” Cambage said.

“I’m so proud of my skin. I’m so proud of my six-foot-eight body and everything I can do with it.

“Nudity has never really been a sexual thing to me. It’s always just been who I am and the skin I was in.”