A local free weekly published pictures of nude University of Virginia women this week, raising objections from residents and unsuspecting businesses that offer the publication.
The current issue of the Hook, an alternative newspaper distributed in the Charlottesville area, features an article about UVa students who have posed for Playboy. The article is accompanied by an almost half-page montage of Playboy pictures of naked students, many fully nude.
“Everybody likes naked ladies. That’s just human nature,” said the Hook’s publisher and editor, Hawes Spencer, on Thursday. “Even ladies like naked ladies.”
Spencer says the “tasteful” montage is simply an “illustration for an article.”
But some stores are pulling the weekly from shelves.
“Nudity in a magazine doesn’t fit our guidelines,” said Jennifer Thompson, spokeswoman for Harris Teeter. “We do have a lot of children who frequent our store. We wouldn’t want a child picking that up.”
Minutes after seeing the nude shots, a manager of the Harris Teeter at the Barracks Road Shopping Center had the papers removed.
The weekly was also removed from the nearby CVS.
Spencer was unrepentant.
“What if one of these kids picks it up?” Spencer asked sarcastically, pointing to a picture of his three young kids on the desk of his Downtown Mall office. “Ooooooo.”
A message left with Playboy for this story was not returned.
Copies of the Hook were available at the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library on Thursday. And the photos, which are also on the Hook’s Web site, were not blocked from library computers. A phone call to the library’s director wasn’t immediately returned Thurs-day.
Copies were also at the Albemarle County Office Building on McIntire Road. County spokeswoman Lee Catlin said the papers would not be removed unless the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office deems the pictures “pornography,” because the local government doesn’t want to violate freedom of the press.
Residents had mixed reactions.
Blane McFarland of Charlottesville saw the publication at a CVS and said he doesn’t “think that it’s appropriate at all, because families read that.”
Peter Arnold of Albemarle said he thinks it was a strategy for the Hook to increase readership. “I don’t have any problem with it.”
Courteney Stuart, who wrote the Hook article about Playboy’s most recent edition of “Girls of the ACC,” said she doesn’t foresee the weekly publishing nude photos frequently. She added that she thinks the newspaper will publish nudity when it’s relevant — regardless of whether the naked people are women or men.
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