Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Cuerpo de Tamal

As I've said before, Mexico City is fast becoming the coolest city on the planet. It now boasts gay unions, abortions and 18,000 brave souls getting naked for photographer Spencer Tunick's largest massive nude photo yet, in no less than Mexico City's central square, el Zócalo.
Check out some stunning pictures here.
This is quite astounding for a number of reasons:
1. Mexicans tend to be rather modest and discreet about their bodies, which as the headline points out, are often the shape of tamales. No beauteous curves or chiseled bodies for us. Because of it being a staunchly Catholic and sexually repressed country, and because of the tamal body phenomenon, we don't run around in tangas and show our tits and asses without much coaxing, like in other places in Latin America.
2. As Mr. Ex-Enchilada points out, there is now a growing epidemic of obesity thanks to our enormous capacity for snacking, which is increasingly replaced by evil manufactured junk food, rather than our traditional yummy antojitos. So that means a lot of human tamales in not the very best shape. When queried about who got naked, Mr. Ex-Enchilada reports that 75% of the models were males. Feel free to draw your own conclusions, but I rest my case: female modesty is still very much the norm, and the bane of many a frustrated male. The female ogling that goes on in Mexico is a topic for an encyclopedia. No one is safe. I can only imagine that this was the dream come true of every construction worker, hell, any male pedestrian that ever trod asphalt in the D.F. Except that 75% were machos. Hhhmmm...
3. "Es mucho trabajo". I bet getting 18,000 Mexicans naked and organized must have been a crowning feat for Mr. Tunick. Too much work, like a compatriot of mine would say.
4. For years the government would not even allow rock concerts in Mexico, (although this has not been the case already many years), but it seems that after allowing abortion, and even more shockingly, gay unions, letting 18, 000 citizens bare all is chump change for the authorities.
It's all good, by the way. Right on, chilangos!

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