Lowest Common Denominator

"I am not trying to be a snob", said the snob, "But if you come from any of the coasts or if you have an education in art … you wouldn't even think twice about it."

But, what is "it?"

Well, since you had to ask, "it" is the photographic work of MSU professor Danny Guthrie who over the course of the past few years has produced a controversial series of photographs. The controversy arises because some of the works contain Guthrie's aging nude body juxtaposed and oft times interacting with the nude bodies of female art students decades his junior.

Guthrie has it made--a high paying union gig at a taxpayer supported institution where emotionally immature coeds can be successfully plied out of their clothing so the tenured prof can artistically slobber on an outer thigh.

However beautiful that saliva or thigh might be, should the professor be using his understood status amidst the student body (heh, I wrote that on purpose) to publicly lament his sexual waning?


So that you know, this photo is cropped to hide the naughty bits.

While they might not think twice about this on any of the coasts or among the artistically educated, as an MSU parent who lives more than thirty miles from Lake Huron, I'm thinking about it big time right now. What I'm thinking is perhaps we should not allow the incrementally desensitized to be the moral arbiters of all things artistic in this world. Perhaps we should not hold the artistic community in such high regard that their flippant responses to moral and ethical questions become the standard by default.

I am no prude. If some twenty one year old wants to yank off her bra in order to allow Guthrie to plant his grizzled pate between her breasts at the perfect light optimizing angle, I suppose that is her choice. That doesn't make it any less creepy.