The photo, which the 20-year-old former student first posted on her blog, shows her naked apart from a pair of thigh-high stockings and some red patent leather shoes.
It was later posted on Twitter with the hashtag #nudephotorevolutionary. The tweet was viewed over a million times, while Elmahdy's followers jumped from a few hundred to more than 14,000.
Her actions have received global media coverage and provoked outrage in Egypt, a conservative Muslim country where most women wear the veil. Many liberals fear that Elmahdy's actions will hurt their prospects in the parliamentary election next week.
Elmahdy describes herself as an atheist. She has been living for the past five months with her boyfriend, blogger Kareem Amer, who, in 2006 was sentenced to four years in a maximum security prison for criticizing Islam and defaming former president Hosni Mubarak.
Here she talks exclusively to CNN in Cairo about why she posed nude.
CNN: Why did you post a photo of yourself nude photo on Twitter, and why the red high heels and black stockings?
Elmahdy: After my photo was removed from Facebook, a male friend of mine asked me if he may post it on Twitter. I accepted because I am not shy of being a woman in a society where women are nothing but sex objects harassed on a daily basis by men who know nothing about sex or the importance of a woman.
The photo is an expression of my being and I see the human body as the best artistic representation of that. I took the photo myself using a timer on my personal camera. The powerful colors black and red inspire me. » | Mohamed Fadel Fahmy for CNN | Sunday, November 20, 2011
