Richard: It’s tricky to critique pics from Manhunters in other countries. What’s sexy and sultry in Estonia can seem silly and sappy in the States — and vice versa. So I’m a little apprehensive about analyzing this shot, which I’m guessing comes from Holland, based in part on those curtains and in part on other factors. If I’m wrong, someone please send this man a Hickory Farms apology bouquet on my behalf. 

However, I must point out — and Ban Ki-moon would agree — that there are a handful of rules that transcend national borders. For starters: lace is never, ever, ever sexy. I mean, maybe if you were one of the Landers sisters and you were sporting a silk bathrobe and some very expensive lacy bits from La Perla, and you’d put some baby’s breath in your hair, you might be able to get away with it. But if you were one of the Landers sisters, you’d be aiming your trademark pout at straight men, and let’s face it, straight men are easy targets where hot, 80s vagina is concerned. Among the Gays, lace either screams “grandma” or “Stevie Nicks“, so tread lightly.

On the other hand, the wicker furniture is great and perfectly appropriate for a sunroom, and Chatty Cathy gets an A+ for color-coordinating the flora. Too bad nothing says “turnoff” like a giant flyswatter on a coffee table. Well, except putting mayonnaise French fries.

File Under:Dens From Hell

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Richard: All cards on the table: I popped a B-movie boner when I first saw this shot. I mean, how many sex pics could’ve possibly been taken on the 1973 set of Texas Chainsaw Massacre? And more importantly: how many of those could’ve survived? This was cinematic history!

Then, I looked closer, and my fatty deflated. I saw the ill-fitting sheer, meant for a suburban model home, but repurposed to hide what looks like an otherwise interesting farm door. I saw the sad dog bed, a post-2000 purchase meant to bring a modicum of comfort to a waning pre-2000 pet. 

But worst of all, I saw the computer desk, with its deep brown veneer that always reminds me of the Masonite lining the home of my friend, Christopher Hebert, who was the hottest thing in Mr. Schexnaydre’s seventh-grade homeroom, but who never let me see even one of his newly descended testicles. Chris and Masonite: both promised wood, neither delivered.

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David K: With only the items in this room, I can build a giant colonial-style spaceship with ornate brass detailing. That’s one possibility. Or I can call the Humane Society and demand they launch a full scale investigation. I mean, where is the iguana? Where is the monkey? Where are the goldfish? Those possibilities aside, I must comment on the instanteous tackiness of wall-to-wall wood panneling peopled with photographs of Heather Locklear. No wonder the animals fled.

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Richard: This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you stage a sexpic.

Ignore the wood paneling. It’ll grow on you. Ignore the valance, made from some poor, shivering baby’s bedsheets. Ignore the hideous cut-glass lamp and its ill-advised, wood-finished, chinoiserie side table pilfered from the second-best little whorehouse in Texas. I even encourage you to ignore the pre-framed art — after all, someone’s gotta keep Big Lots in business.

No, people, turn your attention to the cabinetry behind our Manhunter du jour. What separates this pressboard finery from the same shelving units found in family rooms across Planet Earth? THE VHS TAPES. Not those Jackie Chan flicks or the copy of Ghost Dad, but the tapes that our man recorded himself, with handwritten labels pasted meticulously down the spines. Who knows what wonders those hold? Lost episodes of Night Flight? A director’s cut of Myra Breckenridge? Perhaps even the holiest of holies: Boom!? Even if he turns out to be a dud in the sack, there are hours of fun ahead.

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David: We think there’s a form of Lurid Digs-inspired devolution at work here. After years of highlighting the kind of sofas most inclined to suffocate (or devour) their unwitting owners (see our entries below), we’re now discovering another disturbing trend: chairs that are serving a similar death wish-compelled function: Big, brown, puffy Barcaloungers. Only in America could this phenomena occur with such callow abandon: The land of Hummers, 55 ounce Big Gulps, Costco food orgies and Texas. What was once a room, a reflection of the owner’s style and aesthetic sense, is now nothing more than a just a storage area for The Chair. And while we’re tracking trends, we reluctantly draw your attention to the bungie-secured cage strapped to gramma’s old dresser. Though what it harbors is not visible, we’re imagining either a mongoose or — during these hardscrabble times — maybe even a small child. Tears have been shed.

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Sean: I’m pretty sure we’ve all heard this story before: Brother bought a coconut, he bought it for a dime, his sister had another one and painted his door lime. Not exactly the right lyrics, I know, but one too many pina coladas while listening to a Harry Nilsson ’s greatest hits album on repeat does that to a girl.

PS I don’t mean to be a bitch, but when a paint company tells you to colour your world , they’re expecting an itty-bitty , eensy-weensy, teeny-weeny bit more from you. Right?

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Richard: My mother used to say that wisdom comes with age. My mother also used to say that orange is a wonderful color for a bedroom and that gauchos are perfectly acceptable for Sunday church services, so she’s been proven wrong before.

This photo pretty much destroys her wisdom/age hypothesis.

Now, on the plus side, I give daddy-o a clap for using so much white in a dungeon/kitchenette. That takes some serious cojones. He also earns big-ups for painting his ceiling a darker color than the walls — an advanced move, and not for the faint of heart. The built-ins by the fridge look good too, and if the queens on HGTV are any gauge to go by (hint: they’re not), they’ll boost his pad’s resale value. Which is great, because any potential buyer looking at those off-kilter free-standing shelves, the random unframed mirror leaning precariously on the floor, and folding chairs nabbed from the Our Lady of Perpetual Succor garage sale is bound to lowball his first offer.

But put all that aside a moment. What I want to know is why anyone would post a sexpic to Manhunt or Boyhunt or Bearhunt or whatever and advertise the fact that they’ve got crabs. Distinctly unwise.

File Under:Dens From Hell | Kitchen Kitsch

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