A nation that bares it for charity

last updated 8 January 2015

United Kingdom

Jan Moir

"Will the people of Great Britain please put their clothes back on this instant?" asked Jan Moir in the London Daily Telegraph. It was a charming idea back in 1999: Imagine members of an organization posing for photo calendars to be sold for charity. The craze was launched by a chapter of the Women's Institute, which produced Britain's first nude charity calendar to raise money for cancer research. The calendar quickly "became a sensation," raising more than $3 million and inspiring a Hollywood film, Calendar Girls. But then came the dozens of copycat projects. Every group now wants to strip for charity. Such behavior is more typical of the French—and they'd probably be better at it. These days, one is "forced to confront newsagents' racks filled with the kind of sturdy Saxon torsos that were never designed to be viewed in the harsh light of day." A calendar shopper has to wade through "acres of untanned and untoned flesh" before arriving at something palatable, such as "the firm, fox-hunting thighs of the ladies from the Oakley Hunt." Still, there's a bright side to all this exhibitionism among the usually repressed British. "Deep in our national psyche, something wanton is stirring."