Steve: My favorite way of putting an immediate damper on passion is to take photos of myself propped against a mountain of frilly pink plush. The only step further one could take this would be to actually bury oneself in the pile with only one’s face and cock protruding, but then that becomes "art."

For more inspiration see this prior example.

David: The delicate curtains in this picture convey a breezy, gauzy magical quality to the entire tableau. While the diffused lighting mitigates the dark, disturbing Nietzschean quality of this guy’s into-the-wild scrotum.

And the cluster fuck of toys? Who is to say stuffed animals can’t exaggerate the erotic charge of a naked self-portrait? One need only consider the paraphilia-driven Plushies craze. Th-th-th-that’s all folks.
 

Steve: Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my friend Walt, whose main thing is, “a chandelier on ever surface.” It’s kind of a new way to decorate and I don’t always understand what he’s doing, but I just trust it.

Because Walt is like, super-sincere.

Richard: I haven’t spent much of my life thinking about Eskimo cock, but this pic has made me reconsider my foolish ways. Seriously: who knew Nanook of the North and Peter North were cousins? My only question: did this caribou queen shave his balls so that grandma could finish off that handsome duvet?

David: I love the symbolic nature of the bedding. There are three historical stratas involved here. First there’s the patchwork quilt that is barely visible in the picture. The fact that he’s retained the old spread and covered it with the rambunctious gathering of faux “fur” is a statement of sorts — a breaking free signal. Most likely a fleeing from the adolescent closet.

Then we have the choices of fur, the wild mix-matching of patterns, shapes and animal forms. This indicates a movement away from the structured, gridded design of the quilt. The box-like constraints of living with one’s parents.

And then we have the guy himself — as the third and final strata. He’s now, in present time, unabashed and feral. As a final flourish there’s that wacky, American Indian-inspired star pillow that crowns his head. He’s the king of his domain and ready to take you in on a cold, cold night.

This is Manet’s Olympia reconfigured for a different gender and a different age (the age of Manhunt and fake fur). The small, frail black cat from Manet’s masterpiece is now a boisterous King of the Jungle. Similar to Olympia, our guy is offering himself brazenly to his potential customers, shaved balls and all. I’ve one word for him: “Sold!”
 

David: Like sand through the hourglass of time: He’s back! Mr. Yuletide Splendor from several months back. And Whoa Nelly — striking a pose that would send Manet into paroxysms of impressionistic ecstasy.

For the discerning eye — still reeling from the former photo’s glut of holiday cheer — a little smidgen of seasonal coloring finds its way into this sun-dappled room. Check out the red and green candy cane holder peeking from the upper left side of the bedroom mantel. Who can ever have enough Christmas — even in June!?

But alas, our moment is destroyed by a fucking appliance — that terrible little air conditioner stuck in the wall like a contractor’s afterthought. It’s always something.

Still, this is one for the annals of Men Embracing Wholeheartedly Their Inner Feminine. And for that I give this two screamingly erect thumbs up.
 

Steve: So here’s definitely something interesting, but I’m having a hard time figuring out what to make of it. I quickly ruled out being turned on, so what I’m left with is a combination of fear and pity.

Let’s not focus for too long on the obviously askew elements of the composition, like our seductor’s puppet companions, or the belt he bought on sale from the girls section at Hot Topic, or the rubber band he’s using as a cock ring, or even the ski mask.

No — I’m going to ask you to look past all that and to focus on the bedspread. Notice how I didn’t say mattress? That’s because, on closer inspection, what appears to be a bare mattress jolts into horrifying clarity as a matching bedspread and pillow combination, in teal and white, leaving me with only one possible conclusion:

This whole sordid tableau has been staged in Grandma’s room.
 

David: Like color blindness, there must be a medical term for individuals with an inability to feel the unhinging effects of colliding patterns. This photo depicts, in the most unpleasant way, the fallout from such a malady: One ends up neo-natally white, unconscious, naked and dreaming of floating down the Amazon on a raft covered with imprints of jungle animals as devised by the designers from Linens for Less.

John: Another Venus in another room! Another stretch of pale flesh to give the eye relief from that nasty war breaking out between the bed-coverlet and the wallpaper. Oh Matisse! What ravages have you wrought on gaydom! The duvet, meanwhile, with its cavalry of animals, horses and paislies, obviously knows how to win — to quote Joan Crawford in the Pepsi boardroom — “the hard way.”

And — is that a fucking futon on the floor? Compare the height of the male figure with the wall molding — are they not the same? Guy, you stopped living at the dorm about 15 years ago. Grow up and get a proper bed with a major Bobby Trendy headboard like the rest of us ! At least give us a rip-roaring, good-morning hardon if you’re going to insist on doing that dreary “caught sleeping” thing.

Heather: Though Laura Ashley has previously denied the existence of her first born son, this photo shows us everything — really, everything — she’s been trying to keep locked in the linen closet.

John: Another post-Modern masterpiece — this one co-opting the vocabulary of the French Impressionists. The reclining model, who eyes us with such worldly candor, seems a direct quote from Manet’s Olympia — that outrage of 1865 where a visually obvious prostitute was substituted for Venus, goddess of love.

Venus was usually idealized in a generically pretty way, but in Manet’s painting, a very real flesh-and-blood woman assumes the iconic goddess position. So what we have in our amateur photo above is something of a boy goddess and something of a bored courtesan.

I also see Matisse in the wallpaper, in the contrast between the stark expanse of flesh and the busy disintegrating patterns going off everywhere. What a feast for the eye!

Richard: Remember in The Andromeda Strain when Kate Reid — looking like an older, heavier Velma from Scooby-Doo — is trying to work up a vaccine to this epidemic, and she’s looking through all the viral samples, and they’re cycling through the computer, and finally she gets to the crucial one, the one that’s seen no growth, and the screen’s flashing red, and it’s all, like, “NO GROWTH, NO GROWTH,” but of course, the flashing red lights have induced a petit mal seizure in little Ms. Reid and she’s helpless to move or do anything but stare out at the monitor through big clunky glasses? That’s how I feel when I see this interior.

David: What none of you realize is that this guy is only two inches tall! You’re looking deep into the interior of a Faberge egg. (How’d they do that?!)

David: There are two alternate realities colliding here. To the left we have the model’s “old” world. The apex being the teddy bear shrine (representing infancy), bookended by various colognes (the adolescent teenage years). And I bet there’s one of those wooden “keys and loose change” catching devices up there, too — indicating adulthood. All of this is punctuated by what seems to be an antique etching of a downtown cityscape, I like that.

On the right is modern world accoutrements, complete with that New Agey Wyland whales in the ocean print (puke!). I also can’t deal with the dresser, nor the carelessness indicated by the shabby computer chair. I’ve also never understood men who wear jewelry — nor would I date them. Though I do love big beefy thighs like this, because usually the ass that accompanies them is very thick, globular and meaty, supplying a wide, solid expanse for gripping while performing fellatio. I’ll stop now.

Heather: This is straight out of an early Russ Meyer film, I swear to god. The headless erection comes to attack whoever the poor soul is that lives in this sad little dump. It really has to hurt standing that close to the light fixture.

Richard: Hey, what’s going on here? That bureau doesn’t even come up to this guy’s balls. The perspective’s all wrong. Maybe this one of those Ripley’s-Believe-It-or-Not rooms where the things up front look really big and those at the back look tiny. Or maybe Goliath is just so tall his image can’t be captured in one frame.

John: The dick, we are happy to note, is pointed toward Mecca. The powerful body set powerfully in the forefront, dwarfing the touching little bedroom, is everyone’s fantasy of fucking the Colossus of Rhodes — if everyone were gay, of course.

Richard: This bear is obviously a neophyte collector of stuffed humans. Had he any experience in the field, he’d know that this Dakin-model “Ron the Raverboy Wannabe” flooded the market in 1995, diminishing the value of every other Dakin favorite, including “Phyllis the Fire-Eating Dyke” and “Ernie and his Espresso Enema.” Perhaps this bear should spend a little less time smoking in bed (note the prominent cigarette burn in the comforter) and a little more time watching Antiques Roadshow.

Heather: Am I blue? Dear god, it’s death by monochrome. I do, however, have to give kudos to the art-by-proxy that occurs here, since the shading between the pillows and duvet and those of the tan lines on his chest and pelvis seem to be perfectly harmonious.

David: Nabokov actually had a name for the male equivalent of a Lolita, and to this day I still can’t find it when I scour the book. Confirming, once again, that it pays to use a highlighter when reading the classics. What I love most here is the tangle of wires, all heaped on the floor. It signals to the subconscious that both the bear and the boy have escaped entrapment and are free to roam and model at will. It’s nothing but blue skies ahead for this duo as the comforter so reassuringly assures.

John: Nabokov called them faunlets, David, fyi.

You just know that out of frame his right foot is wiggling one of those slippers with teddy-bear heads on them. The allusions to childhood, the white purity of the bear, the yielding vulnerability of the neck — it’s enough to make a pedophile weep. The hard dick ain’t bad either.

David: This personal space is the “poster child” of bad American interior design across the globe. In one fell swoop it brilliantly unites several conflicting “styles”: Colonial (the headboard), Haight Ashburian (the Escher-like poster), Laura Ashley-esque (the pillows and hat “hangings”), post modern Captain Kangaroo (the stuffed rabbit), Parade magazine memorabilia/effluvia (the wall plate) and finally — the most obvious — Queerola Homeboya 2000 (the Calvins-clad model). I’m impressed (and dizzy). Now, torch it!

Richard: How many times do we have to go through this people? Even low-rent porn stars make their beds — every morning! And if they’re smart, they’ll also hide anything that might give away their hat fetishes.

John: There is something very Rentboy in Tijuana about this picture. It’s the colors, the tobasco reds and tortilla yellows. It’s the sombrero-ish hat on the wall with its wide straw brim. It is, ultimately, the boy himself. Why do we know he’s jockey petite, jockey precious? There is something touching and absurd about the arm flexing. Macho in minature. Like those baby chichuachuas in vintage ads, we can hold this Hercules in the palm of our hand.

Heather: This is real marketing brilliance. Just when you thought Aunt Fran couldn’t find a thing she liked in pornography, you give her that flea market-flava, Minnie Pearl hat and all. Now, who could resist such a nice boy?