Cult of Jef

There’s a kid who some­times comes into the book­store to chat while I work at the counter.  I call him a kid, but he’s actu­ally a young man, prob­a­bly around 20.  I learn a lot about younger peo­ple by lis­ten­ing to him.  How­ever, the other day, he floored me.  “Do you want to see the brand new naked pics I took of myself?”

I looked up from the used book that I had been clean­ing.  “What did you just ask me?”

“‘Do you want to see the brand new naked pics I took of myself?” He said it with­out the slight­est bit of shame.

Now, when some­one asks if you want to see nude pic­tures of him­self, it can be tricky.  If you’re not inter­ested roman­ti­cally and/or sex­u­ally in the per­son, it’s wise to avoid seem­ing too enthu­si­as­tic to take a peek.  On the other hand, you don’t want to seem like afraid you’ll turn to stone if you see snap­shot of heir junk.  I’ve found a short but sweet response always works best.  “Tempt­ing … but no.”

“‘That’s cool.”  I returned to clean­ing my book, although with a lit­tle more ner­vous energy.  About thirty sec­onds later, he asked, “Can I see your naked pics on your phone?”

I set my book down and looked him in the eye.  I didn’t know where to begin.  “First, why would you assume that I have nude pho­tos of myself on my iPhone?”

“‘Every­body I know does.”

“‘What?  Why would you need nude pic­tures of your­self on your mobile phone?”

“‘You know, in case you meet some­one you want to hook up with,” he said.

“‘I don’t hook up with people.”

“‘Maybe you haven’t yet,” he said.  “But maybe one day you’ll meet some­one that you’d like to hook up with, and you’ll think ‘Oh crap, I’d love to hook up, but I don’t have naked pics of myself to send!’”

“‘That’s about as likely to hap­pen as Long Horn Steak House going vegan,” I said.  “My sec­ond ques­tion is why would you to see nude pic­tures of me, anyway?”

The kid shrugged.  “You know, just killing time.  I thought maybe I’d com­pare yours to mine, you know, see how I stand up.”

Oh great, I thought.  The only rea­son some­one asks to see a nude pic­ture of me is because they’re bored and have noth­ing bet­ter to do.  Maybe that’s why my response may have sounded a bit harsh.  “Take my word for it, I would tower above you.”  I picked up my book, then set it down again.  “Aren’t you the least bit con­cerned that these inti­mate pho­tos of your­self might come back to haunt you later?  Like if you decided to run for Pres­i­dent?  Or adopt a child?  Or open a frozen yogurt franchise?”

“‘No.”

“‘Why not?”

’”Because by the time I’m old enough to do any of that, every­body will have naked pics all over the Inter­net, so who’s going to care?”

Tak­ing this in con­sid­er­a­tion, the kid had a point.  He offered to take a photo of me drop­ping trou in the children’s sec­tion, but I again replied with a polite “Tempt­ing, but no.”

I got together with my friend Trixie for lunch a few days later.  She had recently been dip­ping her toe back into relationship-infested waters via online dating.

’”Do you have any nude pic­tures of your­self on your mobile phone?” I asked.

“‘Define nude.”

“‘Any­thing that might be con­sid­ered art in a museum, but inde­cent expo­sure in front a police offi­cer,” I said.

“‘It’s pos­si­ble,” she said.  “Why do you want to know?”

I told her about my con­ver­sa­tion with the kid.  “Ever since my con­ser­va­tion with him, I’ve sort of won­dered if I’ve fallen out of step with the times.  You know, maybe I should have some naked images of myself on my iPhone.”

“‘Well, if you think it’s some­thing that might make you feel bet­ter about your­self, I would encour­age you to do it,” Trixie said.  “I remem­ber how ner­vous I was when I attended that women’s self-empowerment class at that bar and had to sing karaoke to my vagina.”

My eye­brows shot up to the top of my fore­head.  “What does one sing when one per­forms karaoke for one’s unmentionables?”

’”I chose the Bee Gees’ ‘How Deep Is Your Love’,” she said, “And my vagina really appre­ci­ated it.  In fact, I think I felt it hum­ming along.”

“‘In an odd way, I can under­stand why some­one would sing to their gen­i­tals, but I know that I’m never going to e-mail or text dirty pic­tures of myself to anyone.”

“‘Who says you have to share them?  And who says they have to be dirty?  Why can’t you just take a nude photo of your­self for yourself?”

“‘Why would I want to do that?”

“‘Some­times doing some­thing that scares us empow­ers us,” she said.

“‘I’m not scared of tak­ing a nude pic­ture of myself, it’s just …”

“‘Just what?” she asked.

“‘It just seems so silly.  I don’t even enjoy hav­ing a pic­ture taken with all of my clothes on, let alone a shot of me on my back with my butt cheeks spread open for the camera.”

“‘Really?” Trixie leaned across the table with a huge grin on her face.  “Is that what you were plan­ning to do?”

“‘Of course not,” I said.  “I was exag­ger­at­ing, which just goes to show you that I don’t even know what’s involved with tak­ing a naked pic of myself.”

“‘I highly rec­om­mend ade­quate light­ing.  And make sure there are no pets in the back­ground, or else no one’s going to give you the time of day if they have to choose between star­ing at a kit­ten or your penis.”

“‘Well, I’m glad we’ve clar­i­fied that.”

“‘Mostly, the boys just raise their shirt up to show off the fact that they zero per­cent body fat and pull down their shorts just enough to show some penis cleav­age,” Trixie said.

“‘Penis cleav­age?”

“‘Yeah, leave a lit­tle mystery.”

“‘What’s left?”

“‘Now, since guys your age–”

“‘Our age.”

Trixie nar­rowed her eyes at me.  “Guys–COUGH! COUGH!–age, usu­ally don’t have zero per­cent body fat, so they nor­mally just find a pic­ture of some well-built naked guy on the Inter­net and pan it off as themselves.”

I care­fully con­sid­ered what Trixie had said.  “So, let me get this straight:  Pass­ing off a naked pic­ture of some­one else on my iPhone is sup­posed to make me feel bet­ter about myself?”

“‘Hmm … yeah … that doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?”  Trixie mulled this over.  “Well, maybe you should take a pic­ture of the part of your body that you feel best about, so that when­ever you feel down, you can pull it up on your iPhone and be reminded of how hot you are.”

“‘Trixie, that’s a bril­liant idea.”

A few days later, the kid came back in the book­store, and I asked him if he wanted to see my naked pic­ture.  He seemed sur­prised, but expressed inter­est, so I pulled up the image on my iPhone.

“‘Hey, this is just a pic­ture of your face,” he said.

“‘Yeah, I know, but I was naked when I took the pic­ture,” I said.  “I just decided to show what I con­sid­ered to be my best side, and how I want peo­ple to remem­ber me.”