Alligators on a Party Barge

I'm probably going to regret posting this, but still

There’s not much you can say when your brother-in-law sends your husband a calendar featuring sepia-tinted photographs of naked women rock climbing as a holiday gift.

p.s. I scoured Google trying to find a picture of said calendar, to no avail. Such scarcity MUST mean it is art and not soft-core porn.

p.p.s. I mean – seriously. Naked rock-climbing chicks? Where exactly should he display this item? Our current calendar where family dental appointments and social outings are recorded is prominently posted next to the phone in our kitchen. Wonderkiller does not possess a garage or woodshed or other man-lair where the Valvoline girlie calendars used to hang. At his office? His state-funded office where the guidelines for what behavior constitutes sexual harassment are prominently displayed in the break room, in case you should forget? Our bedroom? In the magazine rack next to the toilet?

UPDATE: It's called Stone Nudes.

p.p.p.s. Feel free to blather on in the comments about said calendar celebrating the beauty and strength of the female form. Then please tell me where I can find a naked rock-climbing men calendar being marketed to women (not gay men – there's a difference).

FURTHER UPDATE: Apparently the photographer behind naked rock-climbing chicks did a naked rock-climbing dudes calendar in 2002. I'm shocked that it apparently didn't sell well enough to warrant a repeat.

Okay, I've finally figured out what I want to say about this: I'm not debating the merit of a calendar of naked rock-climbing chicks. Stick a plunger on top of your refrigerator and call it art for all I care. I am debating the merit of giving a calendar featuring naked people as a gift.

And the reason I question this is because art is an intensely personal experience. (See – I'm willing to accept that the calendar in question is actually art.) Many years ago, a friend traveled to Egypt and bought a papyrus, which he had framed and gave to me. Upon bestowing the gift, he made the comment that he had taken a grave liberty in doing so: he made a big assumption that I would like the papyrus and the frame that he had chosen. Artistic preferences are extremely personal and often unique to the individual, he went on, and it's never polite to assume that you understand someone's individual tastes or worse, that you have better taste than they do.

So, if the calendar was intended as art, it made a rude assumption about our artistic preferences.

If it was intended as porn . . . well, I gotta go back to the question of where are my naked rock-climbing dudes?

Labels: art vs. porn, gifts, in-laws

posted by Bailey, yo @ Thursday, December 28, 2006