My new hero is Chad Hardy, the canny inventor of 'Men on a Mission'. This is a best-selling calendar series featuring twelve of America's hottest Mormon missionaries, recently returned to the US from spreading the word of Christ overseas.
Apparently, not everyone is too chuffed about Chad's business venture. He was excommunicated by a disciplinary council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But that hasn't stopped him from expanding his business empire - coming later this year, Hot Mormon Muffins featuring 'sexy Mormon mothers'.
Chad is also a master of post-rationalisation, arguing that his calendar offers "a light-hearted spin on a social taboo... and is a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the selfless servitude of missionaries." I'm sorry, but to these jaded eyes, it looks more like a soft-porn celebration of the rippling joys that lurk just beneath the most conservative of exteriors.
Still, at least Chad lives by the theory that you should never ask someone to do something you're not prepared to do yourself. According to one article, he stopped paying the required tithing and stopped wearing the sacred holy undergarments six years ago. I imagine they're crumpled up on the floor of a photographic studio somewhere.
OK, so beefcake calendars are nothing new. First it was firemen, showing off their abs for housewives who needed something to hang inside the airing cupboard. Then it was rugby clubs, playing up the inherent homo-eroticism of the sport by posing naked with each other (and smartly charging the gays about £30 a copy). But semi-naked Mormon missionaries? It's just weird. It's like spiritual entrapment. Perhaps they believe that they can convert gays to Christ with some square pecs and a flash of their obliques.
As the audition section on Chad's website asks, "Are you ready to unleash the mormon within?"
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