Church and Modeling

Before this entry, there are 25 posts on this blog.  My stats show that of those 25 posts, one receives a much higher "hit" count than all the others.  In fact, the hits on "A Christian Model" outnumber the hits on the 24 other posts combined.  Why is that?  When I look at the search keywords used to send people to my blog and that particular blog post, I see such things as:  "naked crucifixion," "crucified naked," "public nude crucifixion," etc.  While I will never know if the majority of people making these searches are doing so in a desire to learn more about Jesus Christ or merely a (somewhat disturbing) fascination with torture and execution, I hope that all visitors find something enlightening in what I wrote back in February.

I was recently scheduled to model for a drop-in session at Oil and Cotton, a relatively new artist venture.  In an attempt to boost their attendance (because better attended figure drawing sessions tend to spark even more figure drawing sessions which means more work for us models), I invited a few people on my Facebook list. I invited only those whom I knew to be serious artists. Many of those had drawn me before. Of the ones who had never drawn me, one was a lady from my church. She has a degree in art and recently started her own art school for children. Her response was: " lol I would totally go but I cannot go if you are modeling. Im not squeamish but I just can't see my friend or my friends husband nekkid lol." I told her that I was a professional and that it wouldn't bother me, but she replied: " haha i'm sure its not but it would be weird for me. I would consider going though because I really love figure drawing. It is challenging and beautiful and every time I do it it turns out differently. love that." Seeing that she loves figure drawing, I made one last attempt to get her to go, but I got this rather emphatic reply: "Maybe I was a little unclear. I mean this in the nicest way possible. It would be somewhat offensive to see my friend, my husbands friend nude. I have not figure drawn since college days!"  She wound up not going, of course.  I continue to be disappointed with the church's view on simple nudity and on my part-time job.

Keeping with that theme, I did recently add a new blog to the roll at the right side of the page.  My Chains Are Gone is a website designed by Christian ministers to help those struggling with an addiction to pornography.  I highly recommend reading the articles to everyone, but especially to those who view life drawing of the nude and Christianity as somehow incompatible.  The articles explain very eloquently and with scriptural references that they are not.  I plan on "liking" and commenting on posts on the My Chains Are Gone Facebook page in the hopes that some of my friends from church will see it.  Maybe some of them will even begin taking a view that seeing nudity, even the nudity of our fellow church members, is not "somewhat offensive."