Have you ever bought a naked charity calendar?

[Ed]

If you would consider it, which matters more:

The cause, the appearance of the people in the calendar, or the level of nudity?

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[Anonymous]

I’ll be boring – definitely the cause. I regret not buying one on the train I used to catch, when one of the regulars was in a naked calendar for multiple sclerosis and was taking orders for copies when they came out. She wasn’t at all a model-type, if there is such a thing, but I admired her commitment to the cause. She’s in the middle at the back on this photo, by the tree, and looks really good naked. A few weeks later I overheard her telling her friends on the train she’d never done it before but enjoyed it so much she’d become a naturist.

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[Ed]

That’s unusually revealing for a charity calendar, especially the lady second from the left.

[Anonymous]

Yes, she did say something about that at the time. I think she said they wanted natural-looking photos so no strange poses just to hide their bits. They’d all agreed to be full-frontal if it made for a better picture.

[Ed]

A place my wife worked considered doing one but most of them didn’t want to be naked and none agreed to expose nipples etc.

 

I wonder why whole groups can be SO different.

[Arthur]

I’ve never bought a charity Calendar before but I guess it depends on how attractive the naked people are, and I think that there would be an added bonus if they looked awkward and uncomfortable about it, because to me that’s more attractive than people who were boldly and confidently naked, because I can relate to it more.

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[Ed]

That’s an interesting point. There was talk of doing a (non-charity) calendar for this site but we only had men volunteer to participate and the consensus was sales would be too low to be worth the effort.

[Anonymous]

Looking awkward and uncomfortable is an interesting one.

For a calendar, I think I’d prefer everyone to be completely happy about it, as if the people in the photos are saying “If I can do this, you can do something (time or money) for the charity”. “If I can overcome my terror at being seen naked, you can overcome your reluctance to chat with homeless folks and make them tea”.

It’s different (for me) if a group of friends have somehow persuaded themselves to flash at the camera to show what a good time they’re having (or what an exciting game/bet they lost). In that situation, if one is clearly regretting it a bit, I like the extra human dimension that brings. How did she get into that situation? Is she secretly enjoying it? Is this the first and last time she’ll do this? How will her friends keep her in the group? Can they persuade her to join in if they want to do it again?

There’s line, as ever, between having your boundaries pushed a bit, and being abused. There are a lot of photos on the internet of girls enjoying having their bikini tops pulled down, or at least enjoying the exciting atmosphere, but that’s a long way from being bullied by being stripped and displayed when you really definitely don’t want that to happen. I don’t know if I’ll ever find the right balance in that kind of situation. If you’re planning ahead, for a hen-party for example, the answer is probably to agree a safeword. “We’re going to strip you at some point tonight, but say ‘custard’ if you really really want us to stop.” The rule has to be that no means no, but if you’re looking at photos of someone looking distressed at having their top pulled down, how do you know if they’re acting or panicking? I’ve heard that used as an argument for entirely boycotting online nude photos, but hopefully a very large majority of the photos are of people simply having fun.

[John]

I bought one to help out a friend, who was in a group trying to raise money to put on a festival. Nipples were regrettably blurred out, but I’m guessing from the mortification written all over her face that the nude calendar wasn’t her idea. Never been in one, would do it though, not that anyone would buy a calendar with me in it 🙂

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[Arthur]

@Prof Green

Embarrassed and uncomfortable and fun aren’t mutually exclusive! I know that if I were in a naked situation I would be absolutely dying of embarrassment but it would also be exhilarating for that very reason. I just think would be interesting to make a calendar of people who are like naked for the first time and who might be awkward or reluctant about it. Again it would obviously be consensual and everything and they would agree to it, but it’s fun to see people who are sort of awkward and uncomfortable about it rather than people who are exhibitionists, something about people sort of smiling coyly and blushing while naked in a picture I think is very attractive, and I know that that is exactly what I would look like if I were in such a calendar!

To me it would be especially funny if it were like sort of a surprise calendar where people are basically asked if they would like to be in a calendar but then only when they arrived they learn that surprise surprise it’s going to be a naked calendar! Obviously they can choose to back out at that point but I think that there would probably be a lot of people who were awkward and uncomfortable about it and who nonetheless would bite the bullet and have fun with it, even if it made them extremely embarrassed by it. You know sort of like you are having fun with it but at the same time you like oh my God I can’t believe I’m actually doing this! Totally an unexpected surprise!

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[Anonymous]

“Embarrassed and uncomfortable and fun aren’t mutually exclusive!” – yes, exactly, they make it more fun.

I’ve found the picture I was thinking of though. It’s not from a calendar (as far as I know – there would probably be 1 or 12 of them if it was) but it makes the point well enough. At least three of them seem to be fully up for it, and the one in the middle is at least going along with it fairly happily. The one in the headband is either a good actress, or the photographer caught her at an awkward moment (in which case why not have another go), or she’s really unhappy about what’s happening.

1. As a photo of a group of people with feelings, it’s an example of one that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
2. As a photo that could inspire a number of different stories, it does provide some inspiration, which is useful. Off the top of my head, the one in the headband was very sad about leaving her current job to go to a new one, and she asked her friends to cheer her up with a group photo to remind her of what they used to do at staff Christmas parties, but it didn’t work out very well. The next thing they did, perhaps a streak across the carpark, worked much better.
3. As a charity calendar photo, I wouldn’t like it at all. I could imagine the one in the middle always being the shy one in several photos and then, for this one, finally feeling free to join in. That’s fine. I don’t know to include the headband one though. Even if the pictures showed (a) why she was so sad and (b) what eventually cheered her up, I still can’t see her discomfort working in a charity calendar at all.

Maybe I’m just over-cautious, or maybe I think different rules apply to charity calendars. I think they should do something “good”, and showing people enjoying their nakedness or even being a bit embarrassed and uncomfortable in fun way, is “good”. Showing them in a slightly distressed way can work in all sorts of ways, but doesn’t strike me as “good” in the same way as a charity calendar should be.

Let’s assume she’s a good actress or they have a bad photographer.

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[Arthur]

@Prof Green

I see what you mean as she does look rather uncomfortable, the one in the headband that is. But I have to admit that the look on her face is priceless, and to me very attractive, but I can see how that could put somebody off if they wanted a happy kind of calendar with no ambiguity. I guess I just kind of relate to that because if I was in a calendar I probably would be like that woman with the headband.

But you can have a situation where people are very clearly incredibly embarrassed but still sort of having a good time, as I have looked at numerous pictures of embarrassed nude female over the years and while you can see that they are clearly blushing and just dying of embarrassment you can also see that they are finding it very funny, and you can see that they are laughing rather awkwardly, and I think that is also very attractive, again probably because I relate to that because that’s probably how I would behave in a situation like that.

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[Ed]

Here’s another one:

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[Anonymous]

The Warwick group are definitely enjoying themselves! Good to see a mixed gender group from Kinross.

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[Ed]

Here’s another one. I have to admit that I’m more interested in what the individual participants felt about the experience. I’ve found huge variations in how much the models expose in calendars, not just to the camera but to each other.

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[Anonymous]

They certainly look very comfortable together, despite giving each other full view of their bodies. Maybe they’ve done some naked team-building events???

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[Author]

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