Jesus Christ, Super Slut

BAKER STREET

by Eric J Baker

How many Christians, if given the chance, would nail Jesus Christ? And I don’t mean “to the cross.”

Now that I’ve got one foot in Hell, I’ll continue: Lust is a sin (despite God installing lust software in every one of us and it being necessary for the survival of our species). That’s why we have Jesus. For that pure, perfect, sexless love we’ve all been yearning for.

Sorry, but I call “Bullshit.”

After raising our readers' expectations, we couldn't lead with one of the art history lesson images Baker selected, so we dipped into Google with "jesus naked" and found a picture of Grandma posing in front of boy toy Jesus Luz for W. Look, she's wearing a cross. She also looks like she's about to puke.

If you’ll permit me to be metaphorical for a moment, I will tell you that a river flows. You can divert it or dam it (ooh, double meaning inside my metaphor. I am clever!), but you can’t stop it. All that water has to go somewhere.

So it is with lust. You’ve seen what sexual repression has done to the Catholic Church and its rampant pedophilia. Even those sitting in the nave are indoctrinated to think desire is bad and shame is necessary. Surrender yourself to Christ, they say, and be his bottom bitch.

Is it any wonder that Christ is depicted in art as a total stud?

Here’s your pure, perfect love, all naked, muscular, and hunky. The image on the left, Dead Christ watched over by angels (1526) by Rosso Fiorentino, prompted one of my art professors to say, “I really wish he’d turn to face me so I could get a good look.” Props to her for being honest. Mannerist artists like Rosso often showed dead Christ with a smile, but I think he looks less dead and more like he just got laid. This oil painting hangs in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, too high on the wall for me to steal.

On the right, by the unrivaled genius Michelangelo, is the Risen Christ, completed in 1520. Please tell me if you’ve seen a sexier man depicted in sculpture. RC won’t convert me to Catholicism (or to homosexuality), but it might make me into a sick fetishist who sleeps next to seven-foot-tall stone statues. I believe that if this figure came to life and stepped down off its pedestal, female worshippers (and a lot of repressed male ones, like Killough’s evil twin, Andrew Sullivan) would line up for blocks just to fondle its marbles. Papal carpenters might have to widen the confessional and put in a vibrating bed.

Even Ru Paul's novice drag queens on "Drag U" know how to fake tits better than Mickey B. did.

I know what you’re thinking about me. Look, I’d make stone cold love to one of Michelangelo’s female statues, but, for all his brilliance, he never saw a nude woman in his life. All his ladies look like professional wrestlers with glued-on grapefruit halves for breasts. I can imagine the master himself sending his students into the studio to carve the boobs while he waits on a bench in the hall, doubled over with stomach cramps just thinking about those dirty pillows. Geez, Michelangelo, you are hardcore gay.

You’ll have to trek to an old church, Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, to see Risen Christ, which is considered by snobs to be one of Michelangelo’s lesser works. Apparently one of his students messed up the toes. Whatevs.

Still don’t believe me that Jesus Christ is the world’s most popular sex symbol, bigger than Scott Baio and Erik Estrada combined? Check out Mary Magdalene, JC’s number one fan, as depicted by boring French academic painter Jules Joseph Lefebvre in Mary Magdalene in the Grotto (1876):

We can't see her pubes, so we don't know if Mary M. was a real redhead.

Clearly, Mary’s feelings for Jesus are pure and sexless. She can’t remember what happened to her clothes, though. She swears they were on before. Honest, Mom and Dad.

It’s off to St. Petersburg, Russia if you must see Lefebvre’s oil painting in person, though I wonder why you would. There are plenty of lonely, horny Magdalene canvases by dull French academy painters now playing at an art museum near you. You can find them by looking for the gallery no one is in because it’s full of French academic paintings.

Getting back to Mary, I hope she feels guilty about her lust. It’s her fault that Jesus is always showing off his ripped body. Except for where it hangs (the artwork, you perverts), there’s little difference in physique between a Renaissance-era Jesus by Rosso and a fantasy calendar-era Conan the Barbarian by Frank Frazetta.

Said barbarian is in the news a lot these days, what with a new movie coming out this summer and his former alter ego Arnold Schwarzenegger announcing his separation, after 25 years of marriage, from wife Maria Shriver.

I never understood this relationship. Shriver, a member of the royal family of liberals and, by all accounts, a true humanitarian, is married to an arrogant, ass-grabbing, (allegedly) journalist-groping, former-bodybuilding jock (notwithstanding his brilliant performance in Raw Deal). Plus, they’re both kind of hard looking, all sharp edges and obvious bone structure. It’s a wonder they don’t get paper cuts and bruises kissing each other.

Seriously, Schwarzenegger was a great movie star, but he doesn’t exactly seem like the Phil Donahue type.

The new Conan will be in 3D, which in this case stands for three times the drivel.

Now that Arnold has time on his hands, perhaps he will drop by his local movie theater this August 19th, when Conan the Barbarian is released, to judge the acting chops of new Conan Jason Momoa, seen above in our obligatory beefcake shot of the day. The trailer disappoints, as it looks like yet another homoerotic sword fest with everyone shouting their dialog amidst swirls of CG fire and dust. I was hoping the studio wouldn’t care about making its money back and let Edgar Wright direct it, he of the burgeoning cult classic, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I’d love to see Wright favorite Nick Frost playing an overweight Conan who shouts, “For fuck’s sake!” every time another CG monster shows up.

While her (maybe) soon-to-be-ex-husband Arnold broods in the darkened theater wearing a pair of 3D glasses, perhaps Maria Shriver will partake in the next SlutWalk. What’s a slutwalk, you ask?

Apparently a police official in Canada said this January that women shouldn’t dress like “sluts” if they don’t want to be victims of sexual assault. In response, thousands of outraged women in Canada, the United States, England, and Australia have been organizing protests known as SlutWalks to combat sexual violence and harassment toward women. Predictably, men all across the internets are accusing these ladies of being whores, attention grabbers, bimbos making a big deal out of nothing, and so on.

Because we men can’t be held accountable, right? Women should have known better than to be born female. Flash a little skin, and we can’t stop ourselves from committing acts of degradation and humiliation against them. Look what happened to that slut, Jesus. He walked around naked and got totally crucified for it!

Given the barrage of dick and hunk chest Baker had to endure last week, we'll humor him with this image of one of his ideal petite brunettes.

I would gladly participate in a SlutWalk near me, if only to impress the ladies with my sensitivity and understanding. One lady I’d especially like to impress is the stunning Mary Elizabeth Winstead, above, who co-starred in the aforementioned Scott Pilgrim and is top billed in the latest remake of The Thing, coming this October. I didn’t plan on ending this bit with a beautiful brunette like I did last week, but Killough said he was done with the shirtless men pics the very same day my previous post appeared, and we see how that turned out. Since then, we’ve had Tuttle’s tornado of topless male models on Wednesday, and then JK went ahead with actual dick shots on Thursday with nary a NSFW warning in sight. My eyes are still bleeding!