SANTIAGO, CHILE — Those who believe that a historic figure who came to be called the “Virgin Mary” generally agree that she would qualify as “jail bait” today, although she was selected by her deity to bear a savior and married to a fully adult man with a career in carpentry. How big or small her breasts were has traditionally been a matter for artists and sculptors to determine on their own. Alas for Ricardo Oyarzun, the Roman Catholic Church appears to consider ripe, mostly exposed breasts to be incompatible with those deemed appropriate for the barely teen mother of God’s chest.
Oyarzun is a prominent fashion designer in Chile who has taken to dressing some of his models up to look like the famed Virgin, sometimes wearing halos and sometimes baring much of their amble bosom while doing so.
According to Reuters, not only has the RCC condemned Oyarzun’s planned fashion show and a number of anonymous callers threatened him, but at least one conservative group has tried to block it in court.
Fortunately for Oyarzun, the court is having nothing to do with keeping his models from strutting their semi-sacred stuff.
That won’t remove the excrement that those who deem themselves more holy than he have felt compelled to smear on his doorstep, however.
“There is no pornography here, there’s no sex, there are no virgins menstruating or feeling each other up,” Oyarzun insists about the catwalk show to be held in Santiago, “This is artistic expression.”
The designer admits that he drew inspiration from nativity scenes and icons, as well as the Virgin Mary herself, but denies that any of his models are meant to actually represent her.
Nonetheless, Chile’s Episcopal Conference issues a statement on the matter, declaring that “We look on with special pain and deplore those acts which seek to tarnish manifestations of sincere love towards the Virgin Mary, which end up striking at the dignity of womanhood by presenting her as an object of consumption.”
Meanwhile, statues, pins, pendants, posters and more featuring socially acceptable artistic representations of the Virgin are available throughout the country, which many believe is struggling to emerge from a long-held reputation as one of Latin America’s most socially conservative nations.
