In June, MOCA DC—the District's most nude-friendly art gallery—was informed it must vacate its Georgetown location after an incident involving nipple pasties. But last week, MOCA DC renegotiated its lease in its Canal Square digs—under the condition that it cover up. "Under terms discussed with RB Properties last Thursday MOCA DC will be staying put for the foreseeable future," gallery owner David Quammen wrote in a statement. There is, of course, a price: "In exchange for a lease in my name and a few improvements that they will make, I will not display nude figurative art in the lobby, make some renovations—which I had in mind anyway—and ensure that events will be contained in the rear portion of the gallery."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

When flurry over a nipple tassel (among other things) forced MOCA DC out of its Georgetown digs, gallery owner David Quammen promised to send the gallery off by replacing his standard eye-patch with the incriminating breast covering. Quammen sent over this photographic evidence as proof. "Wore it all night," he says. MOCA DC's final event at its current location, the "Artists & Models Ball," will by held on July 30 at the gallery space at 1054 31st St. NW.

After a man was arrested on the National Mall for voyeurism after filming up women's skirts on July 4th, some people were like, hey now—that's illegal? It is in D.C.: Voyeurism was made a criminal offense by the Omnibus Public Safety Emergency Act of 2006 [PDF].
Below, the District's rules on putting your "electronic devices" in other people's "private areas":

So: "Electronic device" is defined as "any electronic, mechanical, or digital equipment that captures visual or oral images, including cameras, computers, tape recorders, video recorders, and cellular telephones."

And a "Private area" is defined as "the naked or undergarment-clad genitals, pubic area,
anus, or buttocks, or female breast below the top of the areola."

Here's how not to put those two things together:

It is unlawful for a person to electronically record, without the express and informed consent of the individual being recorded, an individual who is: using a bathroom or rest room; totally or partially undressed or changing clothes; or engaging in sexual activity.

Also, don't do this:

It is unlawful for a person to intentionally capture an image of a private area of an individual, under circumstances in which the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy, without the individual’s express and informed consent.

Breaking those laws is a misdemeanor that can draw up to $1,000 in fines and up to 1 year in jail. If you then go on to distribute or disseminate those images or videotapes, that's a felony that can draw up to $5,000 in fines and up to 5 years in jail.

But what if a person's "private are" is exposed in public—and you use an electronic device to snap a picture for your garden-variety Huffington Post nipple-slip feature? Are you looking at jail time? According to D.C. law, "Express and informed consent is only required when the individual engaged in these activities has a reasonable expectation of privacy."

And what's "reasonable" is up for debate. Does Tara Reid have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when she appears on the red carpet and her breast escapes from her dress? How about a man who deliberately changes his clothes in the middle of the street? How about a woman in the park in a skirt—does she have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when there's a big old hole in the bottom of that traditionally feminine body-covering? What if she wears that skirt, and then raises her leg at too high an angle as she exits a car? With the July 4th arrest, D.C. police are asserting that filming "up-skirts" is illegal in the District. But questions over consent, privacy—and angles—remain.

Photo by Mr. T in DC, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Georgetown has never been known for its eroticism. But in the brick courtyard of Canal Square—an upscale piece of real estate nestled between M Street NW and the C&O Canal—gallery owner David Quammen, 70, has carved out a space for the risqué. Since 2005, Quammen’s MOCA DC has exposed Georgetown passersby to paintings of childbirth, photographs of Playboy Bunnies, and sketches of Quammen’s own nude body, all via the gallery’s 12-foot-long front window.

But next month, the gallery may very well shutter its doors over a pair of nipple pasties. Why now? The modesty-preserving devices appeared on the breasts of a live woman, not in a work of art. “I think that having live nudity at an opening reception is akin to having it on the wall,” Quammen says. “But a lot of people don’t like what I do.”

Quammen has never figured out how to move very many nudes in Georgetown. So over the years, he’s learned to supplement his exhibitions with exhibitionism. Three times a year, the gallery hosts opening receptions for shows of figural art: “Erotica” in March, “The Celebration of the Figure” in July, and “Heads or Tails: Fine Art Portraits and Tasteful Backsides” in November. In the gallery’s front room, Quammen displays works by local artists. In the back, he conducts live erotic events.

MOCA’s rear room has hosted belly dancers, swimsuit competitions, walk-in body painting (one memorable human canvas had the words “Warning: Choking Hazard” painted on his sizable stomach, complete with an arrow pointing to his penis), live nude statues, and even Playboy model Angelina Leigh, who’s posed naked for photos on a MOCA rug. Quammen keeps the party lubricated with six flavors of boxed wine.

Quammen’s openings have survived by keeping the business in the front and the party in the back. But MOCA’s parties—which can draw hundreds—can’t always be contained.

On March 5, Quammen celebrated the opening of his “Erotica 2010” exhibit by staging a burlesque competition hosted by local strip-tease star Kitty Victorian. During the performance, participants and gawkers were confined to the gallery’s modest rear room, where their activities were shielded from unsuspecting Georgetown bar-goers. But at some point in the evening, one of the amateur competitors managed to wander out into the open-air courtyard wearing little more than a pair of strategically-placed tassels.

Soon, Quammen got wind of some corporate backlash from the courtyard display. Beyond MOCA DC, Canal Square also hosts a few more traditional art galleries, Sea Catch restaurant, and the offices for R B Properties Inc., the real estate management company which rents Quammen his gallery. On March 10, Quammen drafted a letter to Ted Vogel, vice president of real estate for R B Properties, in an attempt to preempt any pastie-based concern. “I understand...that there was a complaint about one of the performers last Friday night going outside without proper clothing,” Quammen wrote. “While she was not nude, her attire was improper and not authorized to be anywhere but the rear portion of the gallery.” Quammen promised to rectify the situation by installing a guard at the gallery’s front entrance to help herd scantily clad attendees toward the rear.

On April 7, R B Properties replied to Quammen’s letter with a list of administrative complaints. “While you recognized the inappropriate attire worn by MOCA participants on March 5th, there were other issues that we find unacceptable that were not addressed in your letter,” the response read. Beyond the pasties, the MOCA party represented an “unauthorized use of the plaza area.” Some MOCA patrons had also utilized the Sea Catch restrooms, which proved “very disruptive to the restaurant’s business” that night.

“We look forward to many well-managed events by MOCA...and appreciate your cooperation and attention for years to come,” the letter finished.

That was before R B Properties discovered it wasn’t stuck with MOCA for the long haul. This summer, Quammen learned that MOCA’s lease with R B Properties—which Quammen had overseen for the gallery’s former director, painter Michael Clark, since 2005—had been a month-to-month arrangement all along. So Quammen approached the company to negotiate a long-term lease in his own name. He got his reply last month, when Vogel arrived at the gallery to tour the space with a new potential renter. On June 24, R B Properties gave Quammen a notice to vacate the premises by July 31. Calls to R B Properties were not returned.

Quammen is convinced that prudishness is to blame: “For being a liberal city, there’s a lot of conservatism here,” he says. After all, R B Properties hasn’t always been leasing to an “adult” gallery. For more than a decade, Clark had run MOCA DC with a focus on contemporary art, with the occasional phallic piece. The nudity began in earnest in 2002, when Quammen established his Figure Models Guild to connect local artists with nude models. Since assuming director duties in 2005, Quammen has heard plenty of snide dismissals of the gallery’s increasingly disrobed offerings. Of the Canal Square galleries, “MOCA is the pig of the bunch,” says Quammen. But for nearly six years, he scraped up enough rent to make sure it stays that way. “Eroticism is the carrot that God gave us for going ahead with this thing, having some children, and raising them,” he says.

So when Quammen received his notice to leave the space, he sent out a call to the gallery’s 1,400 member contact list, asking them to help the gallery keep doling out carrots. Last week, Quammen held a meeting in the gallery to discuss MOCA’s future. Unlike his erotic displays, the administrative event was “short on attendance,” Quammen says; one friend stopped by the space, and a few more participated via live-streaming Internet video.

Meanwhile, Quammen’s own body threatens to fail him. He wears a black eye patch over his right eye to mitigate a childhood injury; recently, his left started going, too. Over the past two years, he’s fought both prostate and colon cancer into remission. After two heart surgeries, walking a block leaves him winded. “Even with that, I have managed to do more than many half my age,” Quammen wrote in a letter to R B Properties. He’s now seeking out more expensive locations in Arlington and Dupont Circle. He hopes to supplement the price hike with a PBS-style pledge drive. How many are willing to pay a monthly fee for Quammen’s previously gratis events remains to be seen.

The July 31 quit date will, at least, provide Quammen an excuse to throw a party. “As far as the artwork is concerned, I’ll make a statement. I’m going to put the most brazen things out front I can find,” Quammen says. But he remains dedicated to keeping the live demonstration under wraps. “I’m going to respect the right of people, who are coming into the courtyard for other reasons, not to have somebody shove nudity in their face,” says Quammen. He will, instead, use his own face as the scene of the protest: In place of the eye patch, Quammen plans to affix a nipple tassel over his right eye.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Munn details the event in her book Suck It, Wonder Woman!: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek. After signing a comprehensive contract specifying which specific areas of Munn were on-limits and off for the photographer—side boob and underboob, yes; nipple, butt crack and vagina no—Munn describes all the ways Playboy attempted to convince her to show what she didn't want to show. Munn presents this as a lighthearted story, but it's actually a pretty frightening account of how manipulators attempt to coerce their targets into consent:

STAGE 1: Control. Prior to the shoot, Munn requests her "normal glam team—makeup artist, hair stylist and wardrobe stylist," but the Playboy photographer insisting on using his own stylist for the shoot. The photographer "was really pushing his stylist on me," Munn writes.

STAGE 2: Denial. Once Munn meets the stylist, a "tall, heavyset, bald man from Scandinavia with a very heavy accent," the attire was "nothing like we discussed." He "quite horrifyingly" offers up "a black, fishnet, one-piece bathing suit where you can see everything going on" for Munn to wear. On top, the stylist explains, "you would be wearing nothing under here and then your boobs just hang right over ze pink part." Writes Munn: "Here we are, contracts decided, conversations spanning weeks about this day, and everyone has a different agenda."

STAGE 3: Social pressure. When Munn insisted that this was a "non-nude shoot," the stylist told her that in Playboy, "you show everything!" Munn says she felt "woozy" explaining her contract and "tried to understand what the hell was happening." The stylist then told her that the photographer "says all nude today for Playboy. It's Playboy!"

STAGE 4: Appeal to her sense of trust. After Munn calls her publicist to come advocate for her on the set, the photographer offers this compromise: "Oh, yeah, you'll be nude but we'll just Photoshop everything out."

STAGE 5: "Accidental" exposure. The photographer continues to insist on poses that aren't in Munn's contract: "The photographer isn't doing much to help ease the tension. He wants me to pose nude, while strategically placing my arms and legs; my  publicist of course doesn't. He wants to do a shower scene nude with strategically placed bubbles and steam on the glass; my publicist of course doesn't. It's exhausting. All the while I'm trying to pose flirty, fun, summery with about five dudes—strangers working the set—watching my every move. One of the shots has me without a top and my long, thick hair covering my breasts. The whole time I'm worried about the wind blowing, exposing a nipple, the filthy five and the photographer snapping away because that's the shot he wants." (Playboy ended up publishing shots of Munn with only her hair or limbs covering her breasts).

* STAGE 6: Downplaying her concerns. The photographer and stylist "insist they've shot more revealing stuff for Esquire and GQ."

* STAGE 6: Silencing. Munn feels "afraid to speak up and yell at everyone because it would ruin the shoot," she writes. "I'm the one who sets the tone and energy on the shoot. If I show everyone I'm upset, the shoot will spiral downward faster than it already has."

* STAGE 7: Anger. Late in the shoot, the stylist throws a fit. "I am a great stylist," he announced. "And this is not all about Olivia okay? It iz about me, too! I have my own motivations with this shoot and I'm going to get what I want out of it! Zis iz Playboy!!! She haz to be naked!"

* STAGE 8: Condescension. The stylist indignantly informs Munn's publicist that she could pick out the panties, if she thinks she knows so much.

* STAGE 8: Abandonment.The stylist storms out.

Munn finishes the shoot, writing that she had "managed to bury my feelings deep, deep inside". After the shoot, she says, "I wanted to break down crying." When she woke up the next day, she got an email from the photographer telling her they didn't get an adequate  cover shot, and they needed her to come in again the following week.

Hip-hop moguls have a long tradition of multitasking: Over the years, rappers have doubled as actors, restaurateurs, clothing designers, videographers, and snack promoters. But local rapper Imani the Misfit is pretty sure he's charting new territory, as far as side-projects go: He bills himself as “Maryland’s First Bisexual Porn Star Rapper.”

Sure, there are bisexual rappers—Nicki Minaj comes to mind. There are porn star rappers—porn performer Pinky recently entered the rap game. There could even be another bisexual porn star rapper somewhere out there. But Imani thinks he's the first to accomplish the feat in the state of Maryland. "It's basically a title I've never heard anyone claim before," Imani says. "I don't know if I am the world’s first, but I wouldn’t doubt it." And even if he were, he'd still hold on to the local flavor. "I want people to know that I’m from Maryland," he says. "It’s just kind of a rapper’s thing to want to put your area on the map."

Of all of Imani's qualifications, the "rapper" part was the first to emerge. "I was a musician first," Imani says. Growing up in Maryland and then New Jersey, he learned drums, keyboard, and vocals in his church's gospel choir. He started rapping at age 13, but focused on playing keyboards in friends' go-go bands before he starting rapping in earnest in 2004. Last Friday, Imani released his latest single, "My Definition of a Drug," on Amazon and iTunes; he's still at work on his upcoming full-length effort, "The Gold Pill."

After coming out two years ago, Imani started thinking of himself as a "bisexual rapper," he says. "But then I realized that just saying 'bisexual rapper' didn’t fully describe what I do. I also pose for nude erotic art. And I think that the combination of me being a musician and being in porn, it adds to the sensation of it all. It's a unique combination."

The "porn star" part is still in development. Imani began posing nude within the past year—including shoots with local photographer Sean Dibble, for whom he's posed naked and dripping in blood. He's yet to get into the video market. "In Maryland, the porn industry is mostly guys starting up a porn company and looking for girls," says Imani. "I've had a few opportunities to do movies, but every time an opportunity comes up, something stops it from happening," he says. "I'm starting to wonder if there’s like some spiritual force trying to stop me from doing a movie."

There are more immediate forces attempting to stop Imani from speaking out about his sexuality. "Especially in hip-hop, that's something that you don’t say," says Imani. "I’ve heard rumors of people being on the down low, but they're not going to say it because in hip-hop, being bisexual is like the last thing that you want to be," he says.

Imani says he's received death threats over his sexual orientation. He's also received letters from fans thanking him for helping them come to terms with their sexuality.  "There is a fascination that some people have. I’m kind of one-of-a-kind. I say a lot of things that will alienate me, but those things also make me special in other people’s eyes. And a lot of people who are bisexual or gay will support me just [because I'm] open about it."

There's only one demographic he's not representing: "My age is something I don’t really like to talk about," he says.

Last week, readers theorized as to why art students avoid drawing the penises of nude models. Both David Quammen and John Hammack attest to students avoiding their genitalia by inserting an obscuring shade or a set of imaginary shorts over their crotches. Is homophobia and sexual repression to blame, or is free penis sketching a matter of training and experience? Discuss.

Amy says a drawing of the hand is easier than that of the bush:

having been an artist in a figure drawing class, I can tell you that the ‘tender parts’ tend to be just as difficult to draw as a hand (especially if you’re circumcised). Perhaps more difficult than a hand. I can practice drawing hands from observation by looking at my left hand, but only the guys in class can practice drawing male junk without a model—and even that they can’t practice while doodling in their notebooks during other classes.

So the avoidance of drawing your tender parts may be less shyness than lack of ability.

Stephen Kosciesza says he routinely gets snipped:

Amy, funny you say that about “it” being hard to draw, “especially if [we're] circumcised” I’ve been a model for 15 years. I’m an uncircumcised man. And I’ve seen it over and over: in college age classes, the young women tend to draw my “it” circumcised. I have to wonder if they’re not comfortable actually looking at “it” (especially on an older man), and they draw what they expect. And of course, here in the USA, if you haven’t seen many, there’s a good chance you’ve only seen circumcised.

PL suggests that the penis is "taboo":

I can appreciate that Mr. Quammen might attribute an amateur male artists reluctance to work with a male models to homophobia. However, it would seem to me that this is using a rather broad brush. There could be several reasons that amateur male artists are not comfortable with depicting male models, probably the most reasonable being that depiction of male genitalia in popular and modern culture is practically taboo.

I would suggest to Ms. Hess that she could have been more careful in illustrating that it is Mr. Quammen’s opinion that she is reflecting, and that not all male artists that have struggled to attempt to depict male models suffer from homophobia.

Saurs disagrees:

“There could be several reasons that amateur male artists are not comfortable with depicting male models, probably the most reasonable being that depiction of male genitalia in popular and modern culture is practically taboo.”

Yeah, the phallus as an architectural shape, for example, is so seldom used, I’ve forgotten what they look like.

Jon explains what "homophobia" is:

PL, Mr. Quammen is using the real definition of homophobia, not the more popular but incorrect definition (not liking gays). Homophobia is pretty much exactly what is described in the article, not wanting to draw or look at male junk (if you are male) basically being uncomfortable looking at or being close to those who are the same sex as you.

Stephen Kosciesza insists that genital avoidance is no homo(phobia):

I’ve been a male art model for 15 years. I suppose you might say that I’m a charter member of the Guild. I believe that explaining a man’s reluctance to draw a nude male model—and to draw a penis—as “homophobia” is just way too simplistic.

Nudity among non-intimates is something that most people in our society are not used to, and there’s bound to be discomfort and uncertainty at first. I’m sure many men AND many women feel some nervousness and discomfort when faced with drawing from the live nude model for the first time. No doubt, the nature of that discomfort would depend first on who they are themselves. And then it would likely depend on whether the model happened to be of their sex or of the opposite one.

A woman might very well feel awkward drawing the nude man in front of her, too. And a man might feel uncomfortable the first time actually looking at the nude woman modeling in front of him.

It’s human nature, and as with everything about human nature, there’s rarely one, simple explanation. And since when we’re talking about human nature, we’re talking about individuals, generalizations are noteworthy mainly for their exceptions.

I think to boil male reluctance to draw the male nude as homophobia is way too easy and dismissive an answer.

Adrienne:

Stephen K, it’s human nature to feel uncomfortable with the human body? Really? It seems to me a clear case of the exact opposite, of a reflection of how societal constructs and expectations actually inhibit true “humanity” (whatever that is).

There’s no “natural” reason for men to be uncomfortable with the sight of a nude male body. I wouldn’t go as far as to say every man who is uncomfortable is homophobic (I don’t think the article was saying that, either) but there is an idea pervasive among many in US culture that for a man to look at another man’s body is “gay” and therefore wrong. We don’t have a cultural space for the appreciation of the male form as a work of art (certainly not like, say, the ancient Greeks), so to see a nude male body is jarring for many people. The biological penis has so much cultural weight as a tool of sex that it’s hard for a lot of people to get out of that mindset, and for some men this manifests as homophobia.

This is the exact opposite of “human nature” which, if anything, would dictate that people be, by default, comfortable with nude bodies of all genders.

I know we probably agree on a lot of this (being uncomfortable with nude men not being an exclusively male trait) but it bugs me when people bring out “human nature” to justify/explain away behavior that is actually learned and socially constructed.

Sketch, with penis intact, by Keli Anaya

Three area artists’ models bare all about the job’s hazards: potential psychopaths, fake artists, and people who draw imaginary shorts on them.

THE KILLER SKETCH.

When she was in college, F. took off her clothes for $16 an hour. F., 23, worked as a model for figure drawing classes at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, a job that required her to stand in the center of a circle of students, disrobe, and strike a series of poses while the beginning artists sketched her form. About six months into her tenure as a nude model, F. posed for a painting class where she held the same position for several hours—naked, seated, reading a book—while artists painstakingly reproduced the image. During a break, she wandered around the classroom to silently critique the students’ work. “Hey, that’s me all dismembered,” she remembers thinking of one student’s painting, which portrayed her with all of her extremities disconnected from her body. “Everything was just jumbled up—arms, legs, torso, head too probably,” she says. “I thought, ‘That’s kind of gross. OK. I’m going to go back and sit down now.’ It freaked me out.” After the session, the artist cornered her outside and offered her a ride home. She declined.

THE AMATEUR.

Lise Bruneau, a local actor, was modeling for art classes in San Francisco in the early ’90s when she decided to begin advertising herself for private sessions. She reported to one artist’s hotel room in the Tenderloin. The venue put Bruneau on edge, but she kept an open mind. “I thought, ‘Hey, artists are poor! Artists don’t have any money! This could be normal!’” she says. Still, she made sure to inform a friend of her whereabouts, just in case the guy turned out to be weird. He did. “I met him, and he was a very unusual, awkward guy, but I wasn’t going to let that bother me,” says Bruneau. “Again, he was an artist.” But when Bruneau asked to review the artist’s portfolio, he refused. “I don’t understand why we can’t just get started. You can go change in the bathroom, or you can take your clothes off right here,” he told her. When Bruneau insisted on seeing the work before undressing, the guy reluctantly produced a couple of drawings. “He showed me two crayon drawings. Stick figures. One was an oblong shape with another circle above that and a pair of pigtails on top,” she says. “I was seized with terror when I saw those drawings. You don’t hire a naked woman in your hotel for an hour and not be an artist.” She left the room as quickly as possible.

THE NAKED MAN YOU SHOULD NOT CROSS.

If you’re a local artist’s model who has hastened an exit after finding yourself alone with an artist whose vision includes extracting your limbs, or whose crowning achievement is a pair of crayon renderings of little girls, you can always call David Quammen. Quammen, who has a decade’s worth of experience in figure modeling, started the Figure Models Guild in 2002 to help eliminate such inappropriate encounters in the sometimes misunderstood profession of posing nude. “Nudity is so touchy. If you even start to make the sound—’nuuu’—all of a sudden everyone is up in arms and it becomes a big deal,” says Quammen, 70. “The goal of the guild is to treat the subject artistically, to increase the level of confidence and professionalism in the field.” In addition to his Guild duties, Quammen runs Georgetown’s MOCA DC gallery, which supports the work of figure models and artists through such annual exhibits as “Heads and Tails: Fine Art Portraits and Tasteful Backsides.”

But Quammen’s strangest task may be working to eliminate the scene’s weirdos. The Guild currently maintains a membership list of 125 models—70 male and 55 female—a resource that Quammen discloses to artists only after a proper vetting. Despite the precautions, Quammen has addressed a variety of bizarre complaints over the past eight years. Once, a group of female models approached Quammen to report that an artist had been staging sessions as a way to corner potential dates. Several months ago, Quammen received a phone call after a model thought she had spied a hidden camera on an artist, and summoned the police. A few years ago, Quammen reprimanded a photographer who got 30 minutes into a session before informing his nude model that he would be finishing the set without his clothes on. When the Guild first started up, one man calling himself a photographer showed up at Quammen’s monthly open drawing session for ogling purposes. “He wouldn’t draw. He would just look,” says Quammen. “Whenever a male stepped up to model, he would go outside in the lobby or out in front. But whenever a female got up, he’d be back in the room, watching.” Nude modeling tourism is now against Guild policy. “If you’re not drawing, then you’re not to be in the area where the model is,” he says. “There have been cases of people coming in for the wrong reasons. I try to weed them out as effectively as I can.”

As a model, Quammen has encountered the opposite problem—artists who refuse to look at him at all. Since the D.C. area is host to dozens of colleges, figure models are offered constant sessions in front of artists who are, by definition, amateur. “It isn’t uncommon for some male students to react in strange ways to their first encounter with nude male models,” says Quammen—particularly if the students are reluctantly fulfilling an art requirement for an unrelated discipline. Quammen has modeled for male students who have been so incapacitated by their homophobia that they refuse to draw Quammen’s genitalia. Some have addressed the phobia by sketching tiny shorts over his penis; others obscure his crotch in shadow; a few have outright refused to draw him, a process that would require them to actually look at a naked man. “As the students get used to male models, some overcome their aversion and draw what they see. For some, however, it becomes obvious that their homophobic reaction is rooted in a deeper paranoia,” he says. “It’s usually a small number who retain this attitude. On the other hand, most classes adjust rather quickly to it and realize that drawing genitals is part of the process.”

“If somebody comes to me with a problem, I won’t automatically take their word,” says Quammen. “I’ll have a discussion with the artist and the model, and if it doesn’t get resolved, I’ll act on it. If it is a model, I’ll take them off the model registry and kick them out of the Guild. If it’s an artist, I’ll let them know that I have a lot of clout in this field, and that I can blackball them throughout the whole area if necessary.” Quammen says he’s been forced to ban only a few artists for inappropriate behavior. He’s also ejected a handful of models from the Guild, for mostly mundane reasons—absenteeism or tardiness at modeling sessions. But Quammen says that the awkward sexualization of nude modeling isn’t only a symptom of unprofessional artists. “There’s a younger model who will get an erection on purpose,” says Quammen. “He’s like a rooster just crowing out there, saying, ‘I’m a big man. I’m an alpha male.’ He’s very popular."

Artwork by Keli Anaya

Ever wondered exactly what you have to do with your penis to be charged with indecent exposure in Virginia? Need to know what sort of aperture you have to be looking through in order to be convicted of peeping? The Washington Post is here to help!

Last week, 29-year-old Eric Williamson was charged with indecent exposure after "a woman and her 7-year-old son walked by his Springfield house and saw him, through the window, naked." The woman claims she was walking her son to school one morning when Williamson presented his naked body to her not once, but twice—first "standing nude in the doorway, " and then "through a large window that appeared to have no drapes." She called the police.

Williamson concedes that he was hanging out naked in his house, but denies that he intentionally exposed himself to the woman and the boy. The police response, Williams says, was extreme. "All of a sudden, I get woken up by police officers, and this guy has a Taser gun in my face," he said. "I'm freaking out. Is this a movie? A horrible dream?" He called Fox News.

The incident has courted international attention to Virginia's indecent exposure and peeping laws. In a Washington Post online chat yesterday, Fairfax attorney Atchuthan Sriskandarajah administered a quick legal lesson on the peculiarities of Virginia's sex statutes. Can a person indecently expose themselves from the privacy of their own home? By the same token, can passersby who happen to spy a naked person through the window be charged with peeping?

According to Sriskandarajah, indecent exposure must require three elements:

* Exposure. Displaying your private parts (breast-feeding doesn't count).

* Intent. The question that plagued the Justin Timberlake-Janet Jackson Superbowl flap.

* Obscenity. The nudity must be accompanied by an obscene act to be considered "indecent."

In Virginia, a person can be convicted of indecent exposure even if the exposure occurred inside their own home—as long as they got naked, deliberately revealed that nudity to passersby, and, like, grabbed their genitals or something.

Virginia's "peeping" statute also contains three major elements:

* Secrecy. No matter where you're peeping, the peep must be "secret or furtive"—the naked person can't be aware you're looking at him or her.

* Residential peeping. In order to prove you've peeped into someone's home, you gotta peep through something. The statute lists windows, doors, apertures, holes, cracks, or any "other similar opening through which a person can see" as acceptable peepholes.

* Commercial peeping. If the peeping is occurring outside a residence—like in a "restroom, dressing room, locker room, hotel room, motel room, tanning bed, tanning booth, [or] bedroom"—you still gotta peep through cracks and holes. But this time, you gotta be seeing something naked. According to the statute, that includes "the purpose of viewing any nonconsenting person who is totally nude, clad in undergarments, or in a state of undress exposing the genitals, pubic area, buttocks or female breast."

Photo by rick, Creative Commons License.

The "beaded collar," (prices vary). Available in the classic "circle/rope" pattern, as well as a few flashier models.

For the nudist biker:

For the nudist Republican:

For the nudist cat lady:

'

"Sheer pants" and matching jacket; $49 and $59 respectively. So that even when your dick's not hanging out, your dick's hanging out.

The "uniwrap" for men, $25. A skirt.

The "sportif shorts" for men, $47. A skirt.

The zippered "Just Bare It" hat, $14. In case they can't figure out your nudism based on nudity alone.

The "intimate area shaver" for men and women, $69. But how do you tote this along with no thong to tuck it into?

The "buckle dress," $49. I knew Dov Charney was in on this somehow.

The Huffington Post's latest foray into celebrity eye-candy linkbait, "Iconic Swimsuit Movie Moments," comes in two flavors: Male and Female.

The Huffington Post, it seems, has tired of just fetishizing female bodies, and has moved onto more equal-opportunity objectification. Since it's too much to ask for a Web site to refrain from objectifying any humans, is this a cause for celebration?

Blogger Echidne of the Snakes, for one, isn't convinced by the Web site's newfound gender-neutrality. The effort falls short of equal exploitation, she writes, as HuffPo's readership appears to decisively prefer one set of skin-baring pics over the other. So while Phoebe Cates, Ali Larter, and Bo Derek are currently workin' it to the top of the Web site's "Popular Stories" slots . . .

. . . Daniel Craig, Patrick Swayze, and Sacha Baron Cohen are being boxed out of the top spots by such decidedly nonsexual fare as this:

That's right: Huffington Post readers are more interested in discovering the key to happiness than checking out semi-naked dudes. Say it ain't so!

Echidne's got her theories: "Huffington Post wants to make money and advertising money is in clicks. And what gets clicked is bodies of chicks. By dicks? I'm getting carried away here, but let me just add that I would have thought Huffington Post has female readers, too. I guess their clicks don't have the power."

So, is the Huffington Post engineering some sort of mass sexist conspiracy to push naked ladies onto the front-page while subjugating the male bodies to barely-linked territory? Not exactly. HuffPo is just cashing in on that same old mass sexist conspiracy—the one that's been around long before blogs figured out how to make money off of it.

Here's a refresher on that old thing: Young, thin, hairless, and female bodies are for being sexy. Aged, hairy, fat, and male bodies are for making jokes about how un-sexy they are.

By adding the "Male" gallery—and encouraging readers to click through for the hot swimsuit moments—the Huffington Post isn't making an honest attempt to expand the definition of what's sexy, or to ease the objectification of women by objectifying men alongside them. What the Huffington Post is doing, I think, is responding to some recent criticism by turning the heat on its readers, not its editors.

Once HuffPo offers up the naked girls and the naked boys, it's not up to the site's editors anymore to determine which bodies are click-worthy—"you" decide for them.

Unlike Echidne, I don't think the popularity of the female body on HuffPo's site necessarily means that the site's female "clicks don't have the power" of its male readers. I just think that we haven't been taught to objectify male bodies like we have female ones. Cosmo's valiant efforts aside, the objectification of women is a mainstream entertainment standard—and both women and men grow up taking it all in. It's telling that HuffPo's male beefcake gallery has to be filled out with a couple of joke entries—Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat, Eddie Murphy in Norbit—in order to meet sexy slideshow quota. Women—even heterosexual women—are more likely to check out photos of bikini-bedecked females than Speedo-clad males. This trend doesn't let purveyors of female flesh off the hook, of course. Offering men photos of girls in swimsuits helps men see women as objects. Offering women photos of girls in swimsuits helps women feel bad for not looking like them.

Is the Huffington Post's focus on scantily-clad women still sexist? Sure, but it's a sexist view that comes with the support of at least 2,890,011 male and female viewers. Would HuffPo print a sexist op-ed, even if it were of interest to millions of Internet trolls? Probably not—HuffPo readers are usually self-aware enough to shun clear sexism when it's written in black-and-white. But when it's written in tits and ass? Click click.

If the Huffington Post decides to keeps up its gender-neutral exploitation efforts—despite the poor page-views for the male portion—I have just one request. When you're objectifying male bodies, can you try not to ridicule female bodies while you're doing it?

The Huffington Post has finally discovered the porthole through which its sexist entertainment content can jump off of the Entertainment page and onto more explicitly political verticals. What is this valuable new discovery which suddenly makes sexy naked women so politically relevant? It starts with a P, ends with an Eople For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and it has been pulling this liberal sexist bullshit for years.

Well, PETA and HuffPo are together at last, with two super-sexy animal protection stories making their way onto the site's "Green" page this week. After the photo-accompanied "Lydia Guevarra, Che's Daughter, Poses Semi-Nude for PETA" made a semi-nude splash in the Web site's Popular Stories last week, HuffPo cashed in on the theme with the full slide-show: "The Sexiest PETA Ads of All Time." Click on it for the environment!

To HuffPo—and PETA's—credit, the collection of PETA's notoriously naked ads includes its share of topless dudes alongside the unclothed women. But as the interactive poll feature demonstrates, Huffington Post readers are not so down with this nudity-for-all tactic.

Readers are allowed to rate each PETA rep's naked ad on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 signifying "Rather have meat" and 10 "Pass the produce!" Here are the current rankings, from hottest to not-est:

Charlotte Ross 8
Alicia Silverstone 7.6
Annalise Braakensiek 7.6
Sophie Monk & Maggie Q 7
Dita Von Teese 6.9
Jenna Jameson 6.7
Pam Anderson 4.7
Kathy Najimy 3.7
Jamie Bamber 3.7
Two male models making out 3.4
Tommy Lee 2.2

Let's take a look at the hierarchy here. The nine women on the list all score higher than the four men. The women lose points as they get closer to the porn spectrum, with the exception of Kathy Najimy, who is un-young and un-skinny enough to rank just above the men. At the bottom, we have the four guys: The dude from Battlestar Gallactica ranks above the overt display of male homosexuality, but the kissing guys still beat out the universally reviled Tommy Lee. In my opinion, Tommy Lee's low-ranked bare chest alone is enough to debunk HuffPo's "sometimes a nipple is just a nipple" theory. Nobody wants to see that shit.

The Huffington Post brushes off the idea that the female nudity focus on its Entertainment page has any impact on its progressive political cred. In passing off interactive nude slide-shows as environmentalism, however, HuffPo wades into explicitly political sexist territory. PETA paved the way here by exploiting women in the hopes of ending the exploitation of animals. HuffPo joins the fray not by presenting a counterpoint to PETA's sexist tactics, but by reveling in it—asking its readers to rank the "hottest print promotions."

I have to wonder if PETA's T&A has ever convinced a soft-core porn enthusiast to stop eating beef. I bet the naked stuff is actually used more of a peace offering to the general public—they may be annoyed by PETA's radical vegetarianism, but at least there are naked chicks.

But unlike PETA, the Huffington Post is not a one-issue newspaper. PETA objectifies women in order to save the lives of the poor, helpless bunny rabbits, but it never professed to care about women. HuffPo objectifies women in order to save its entire politically progressive business model. Why not pull a fast one on PETA and stick to objectifying wallabies instead?

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Since Arthur Delaney has already produced the definitive narration of the Coachella tasered wizard video (above), I will take a page from the Huffington Post manual and aggregate his brilliant retelling here:

The police officers beg and plead for the man to put on his robes, but all the Naked Wizard wants to do is be free of his wizard sleeves and hang in the breeze. He throws his colorful garb onto the grass.

"It doesn't have to stop," the Naked Wizard says.

"I'll tell you what," the cop says. "You can have a great time — but you can have an even better time if you put your clothes on...Can I get them for you?"

The officer grabs the gown and tosses to the Naked Wizard, but he casts it away again. Then the cops put on their rubber gloves, and things get ugly.

After finishing their tenure at Creative Loafing Tampa and graduating from Yale, Scheinman and Reed came to work at the Washington City Paper (Scheinman remains as CP's Online Producer; Reed has since moved on to a Croc Fellowship at NPR). Before my new coworkers even arrived in the District, I heard tell of their cover-boy exploits down South, but I hadn't actually set my eyes the cover until last week. When the newspaper was unceremoniously dumped in my cubicle, I approached the cover as I would the site of a terrible collision: Not knowing what else to do, I simply stared, wondering why the tears were not coming.

As with any unexplained tragedy, the image piqued my curiosity; I needed to know how and why this had happened. In an interview, Scheinman detailed the genesis of the cover. "It was [Editor-in-Chief] David Warner’s idea. There were a bunch of half-assed ideas being kicked around about the cover, and then [Warner] asked us if we would do this," says Scheinman. "He clearly was not joking."

Scheinman and Reed—who had penned an essay for the issue on the "Caliente" nudist resort and community of Land O'Lakes, Fla.—were interested. "We thought about it for a moment, and no one could think of any reason not to," says Scheinman. Though Reed admits he was nervous the night before the photo shoot—"like the night before the first day of school"—he was comfortable with the idea. According to Scheinman, the pair had become accustomed to lounging together naked while undergrads at Yale. "Oh, yeah, yeah. There’s a seedy subculture In the Ivy leagues of naked, Dionysian revelry," he says. "There were naked parties."

Scheinman clearly was not joking.

On the day of the shoot, Scheinman and Reed, both 23, disrobed at Caliente in front of another Creative Loafing reporter, who took their photograph, and an advertising rep, who simply "wanted to come along," says Reed. After posing for about 100 shots, the Creative Loafing editorial team narrowed the selection down to a few possibilities, which were sent to the newspaper's Atlanta office to be finalized for the cover. "We knew, obviously, that the key areas were to be covered up," says Reed. "That was implied." After the digital insertion of the check marks, Reed and Scheinman were told that all copies of the nude photos would be destroyed, save for one CD of the photographs which remains in Reed's possession.

But while Scheinman and Reed were comfortable with their nude photo experience, I am not particularly comfortable with it. I generally am not opposed to the display of nude art in the workplace, but I do find saucy nude photographs of my co-workers moderately disturbing. I am not alone: In the aftermath of the issue, Warner wrote in a blog post, "the manager of a sports bar told us it was 'inappropriate for a paper featuring naked boys on the cover to appear at a family establishment.'"

Or, you know, in your office environment. Scheinman and Reed's essay, admittedly, is soaring:

They took a moment to look at us, lounging decadently in big, reclined patio chairs, sipping our drinks, smiling, feet up on the table, naked and spoiled as the day we were born, our cranberries dangling papally.

So soaring, in fact, that the image of papally dangling cranberries will forever be seared into my brain each time I approach our Online Producer with a modest question concerning our Web stats.

Even more unsettling is the inside photo. The second shot shows Reed and Scheinman, again naked, this time embracing an unidentified woman (also naked):

I may have just lost my naked lunch.

Am I right to be disturbed by this? Or is the nearly-naked coworker a sight we all must endure in the Internet age?