This isn't porn. This is barely scandalous enough to be a freshman dorm room poster.
Meet the Warwick Women's Rowing team from the University of Warwick in England. In addition to being a very well-respected rowing program, both the men's and women's teams are known for their annual nude calendars, which raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.
The calendars are, as you would expect, very popular (in fact, they put them out more than annually, releasing supplementals with their training trips). Most importantly, they're tasteful, and they're for charity—two qualities that we've decided, as a culture, can elevate the "nude" above the "nudie."
"We're just gonna hang onto this photo for...evidence." (via BuzzFeed)
Except for Facebook, of course, which makes decisions based on what will look the worst from a PR perspective. In this case, that decision would be to ban the Warwick Rowing Women's Naked Calendar page for violating Facebook policies about indecent material, while leaving the Men's team alone.
Because, you know, images of nude men with rippling muscles whose genitals are barely concealed behind some carefully-placed objects are way less threatening than some shots of athletic women without the spandex that would show us the same forms, anyway. It's also interesting to note that these women previously came under fire from women at their own university for doing the calendar, although, once again, no one seemed to have an opinion on the (longer-running) men's calendar.
I assume the women in this photo are laughing because it's the only thing they can do in the face of this blatant hypocrisy.This was widely perceived to be sexism, because it was sexism. (The story soon spread, because what media outlet in its right mind would not cover this story? It has appeared in The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Daily Star, The Huffington Post, and BuzzFeed, among many others, and journalists and Tweeters alike agreed that these images were not porn. And if anyone is qualified to judge what is and is not porn, it's the citizens of the Internet.
The Warwick Rowing Women's Nude Calendar fan page has since been reinstated, and the girls are gearing up for their 2015 shoot.
During our busy last few days we have been finalising 2015 photos. Email nakedgirlsrow@gmail.com to register interest pic.twitter.com/IWvEWwuVj8
— UWBC Girls Calendar (@nakedgirlsrow) July 19, 2014
If you'd like to support cancer research and the right of men and women everywhere to tastefully photograph their college athlete bodies, head to their website.
(by Johnny McNulty)