They say that women aren’t stimulated by sexual visuals the way that men are. Well, maybe they just haven’t seen the right pictures yet…like this NYC Taxi Driver Calendar for 2014, which takes a cue from the annual FDNY pin-ups by taking a profession and making it sexy. Only in this case it’s not hunky firefighters, it’s that guy who watched you sloppily make out with a stranger on a $20 fare to Brooklyn Saturday night, and then had to deal with barrage of Find My iPhone pings the next morning after you realized you dropped your cell in the car somewhere around third base.
Created by Philip Kirkman and photographed by Shannon McLaughlin, all the proceeds from the calendar will go towards University Settlement, which provides basic services for immigrants. In a profile in The New York Times today, you can’t help but root for these guys, who feel that they can’t compete with buff firefighters. Like Waseem Butts,a Pakistini who lives in Brooklyn and is featured in the magazine:
“You cannot compare the Fire Department with taxi drivers..It’s like comparing a stone with a diamond.”
Mr. Butt paused to issue a clarification: The taxi driver was the stone.
Still, body image matters aside, this calender might help market the unpopular profession: after all, consider how we think about firefighters (heroes) versus the guy driving your taxi with a turban and an unpronounceable name (suspicious). But by posing shirtless, these drivers are showing the world that they’ve got nothing to hide. Literally.
