BOSTON -- Strangely enough, the archdiocese that was at the heart of the Catholic sex abuse scandal is now playing the victim after Equinox Fitness ran a sexy advertisement featuring nuns in this month's Boston Magazine.

In a press release, Equinox, their advertising agency Fallon, and photographer Ellen von Unwerth describe the ad:

In an ad called "Figure Drawing," a naked man, as perfectly muscled as Michaelangelo's David, poses for a group of young nuns set to paint him. He's a canon of beauty, a classical model of perfection, comfortable enough in his skin to bare all.

Coy, flirtatious, blushing, and intrigued, the nuns can hardly contain themselves.

This David is the pinnacle of what a male wants to achieve in fitness -- a body that can melt even a nun's resolve. The nuns, meanwhile, get to look and to imagine what it might be like to touch.

"This is very naughty and I like to push things, you know. I've done books like Revenge," von Unwerth said. "But I don't like to just shock -- there's a message here."

"We're elevating the fit, naked body to deity status and creating a fantasy that speaks to both men and women," Kosoy said.

The ad has raised the ire of the Catholic League of Massachusetts who called it "a sophomoric soft-porn ad".

However, the Catholic league must be ignorant of the Renaissance artwork that adorns many Catholic cathedrals and Basillicas in Rome, most notably Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Theresa of Avila". Originally intended for one of the chapels inside the Vatican, the sculpture was deemed too explicit and too sensual. Despite this, it was not destroyed or even censored. Rather, it was placed in one of the minor chapels outside the Vatican, the Cornaro Chapel.

The sculpture was inspired by the writings of St. Theresa herself. She wrote: "In his hands he had a large golden Spear and at the end of his spear was fire. With this spear he entered my body. When his spear was pulled out, he left the fire of God inside me. The pain I felt made me groan, but it was also sweeter then I could ever imagine. It was mostly spiritual, but the body had a mayor part in this experience."

Equinox Fitness responded to the Catholic's league charge with the statement: "Our ad campaigns are based on personal motivation and fantasy and throughout history the body has been considered a form of art."

Indeed, the model's pose is deliberately evocative of Michaelangelo, another sculptor whose artwork adorns the Vatican.

The Catholic League can try playing the victim, but in light of the Church's history of evocative art and the recent shameful sex scandals the Boston archidiocese has been at the center of, their arguments are unlikely to garner much sympathy.

		(top) The controversial Equinox Fitness ad "Figure Drawing" as run in the February 2008 issue of Boston Magazine. (left) Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Theresa of Avila" that continues to adorn the Cornaro Chapel today.
Photo by docdee242