NEW YORK, NY — Chocolate has become the new medium for cutting-edge sculpture. Used to craft the invariably controversial and anatomically correct Cosimo Cavallaro sculpture “My Sweet Lord,” as well as the equally edible but genital-free Richard Manderson “Trans-substantiation 2,” the delicious taste treat has now become a festive holiday confection – with a very naughty twist.Michele Maccarone is an art dealer with a passion for chocolate and ownership of Peter Paul Chocolates to prove it. Currently, her favorite edible object d’art is a 10” tall chocolate Santa Claus. But this isn’t just any 10” tall edible chocolate Santa Claus. This is a 10” tall edible Chocolate Santa Claus butt plug.

Operating out of Maccarone, Inc., her Greenwich Village gallery, the subversively delicious idea for the Santa Claus butt plug was introduced to Maccarone by 62-year-old Los Angeles eccentric and performance artist, Paul McCarthy.

McCarthy is most famous for filling his pants with tuna and his mouth with hot dogs before rolling around on the floor. At Maccarone’s gallery, however, he has created a storefront filled with mirrors, shelves, festive paper, and jolly Santa figures. In an area set aside specifically for the creation of anally intrusive chocolates, a half dozen workers assist chocolatier Peter Grewling in turning high class, 72-percent cacao Guittard chocolate into – well, something uniquely holiday oriented.

According to England’s The Times, McCarthy’s dreams of edible ass Santas was rejected by most of the chocolate industry. Having created chocolate pirates and Pinocchios in the past, McCarthy had some familiarity with creating art from the raw material and a passionate desire to share his view that modern society is childish and focused on consumption and disposal, eating and shitting, food and fucking and wrestling with bathroom issues.

Fortunately for the creative entrepreneur, even though Maccarone didn’t hear from him until June of this year, she wasn’t afraid of the short timeframe for opening up a chocolate factory. In spite of the quick turnaround, the duo has been surprisingly successful. True, they’ve had to provide unusual training to their sex toy ignorant packaging department employees, had a difficult time keeping enough copies of New York’s Artform magazine around to shred and use as packing material, and needed to deal with the inevitable damage that even chocolate butt plug Santas can suffer in the line of duty – but eager mouths and who knows what else have declared the $100 figures to be mighty tasty. Tasty enough that 1,000 a day are produced by the start-up, although only 1,000 were purchased during the first 10 days – mostly by what Maccarone calls the “art cognoscenti.”

Master chocolatier Grewling tells The Times that the hollow yummies are made from chocolate that “doesn’t have any particular flavor notes that stand out, but it’s a blend of beans with a beautifully well-balanced flavor.”

He’s not sure that the sweeties are appropriate for butt play however, stating that “if you want to break this off and stick it… I wonder. It might work. I haven’t tried it.”

More information about the unusual holiday sex sculptures can be gained by visiting Maccarone.net.