Now that's classy.

In all seriousness though, what kind of freak would put this stuff in their house? What would you say if you had people over?

This kind of reminds me of Ed Gein.

I gotta say, I don't see the outrage here. How often do you see women's bodies celebrated at all? *crickets chirping* It's not like this furniture is porographic, it incorporates elements of women's bodies, and if you browse the site and look at lots of the guy's pieces, most of the emphasis is on curves. How often do you see large hips and thighs celebrated in post-Raphaelite art? And the contrast of light and dark stains gives it a really multi-racial appeal, this isn't just some crap about anorexic white women. So it celebrates the sensuality of women of different body sizes and races... and we're mad about this?

I think that Boobycase (while having a silly name) is beautiful. I come from a family of woodworkers, and the craftsmanship on that thing is amazing. And the women supporting the table look handcarved, that's amazing. If I had the kind of money or home where I could display something like this I certainly would buy it.

I dunno...celebrating beautiful women's bodies and making art inspired by them is one thing. Creating furniture of dismembered body parts (esp. the ass-table that looks like an invitation to be screwed) is another. It's hard to tell where the line is drawn--I've no problem with your approval, I just find it to be a bit dehumanizing.

Well lots of art uses "dismembered body parts", in particular, lots of feminist art. I few months ago this site linked to another selling vagina shaped purses, and I didn't see anyone saying that they were degrading dismembered body parts. Also if you look at nude sculpture art as a genre, an entire sculpture of a nude person all David-style is extremely rare, for both sculptures of men and women. Historically, lots of nude sculptures don't have heads for example, or arms or feet. Often the emphasis is placed on the torso area and the rest really isn't that important.

What I find really weird about this stuff though is the high-heeled feet thing. I would like that table a lot more for example, with the the high heel feet, if they just chopped off at the ankle. Even though it would make them more dismembered.

I think the high heels are what makes me think that it's more of an "invitation to be screwed". I like the idea of celebrating the female form, but this feels creepy to me. It seems less celebratory and more objectifying from where I sit.

I'm more troubled by the idea of "erotic furniture." You have sex with people, not furniture. Women are not furniture. Actually, they're people. If what you want in life is for some middling combination of your wife and your couch, you've got a few problems.

The headless torsos of stone sculpture are often that way for an entirely different reason however: In one case, that of ancient sculpture, the heads were often removed and carried off as ornaments/trophies by those who found them in pre-archeological times (or simply broke/disappeared), and the bodies were recovered and installed in museums at a later time, in modern cases, classical sculpters misguidely sought to emulate what they thought the ancients had created with headless torsos etc, when in fact, the arms etc had fallen off. (the romans often created their sculpture in pieces, joined by metal which subsequently rusted).

Even then, the object is to celebrate the person or the story depicted, not for the body to become simply an instrument to another end....

Yikes! Sort of reminiscent of the SS craftshop at Auschwitz. Got a lampshade to go with that table?

I have to agree with Sarah. These aren't pornographic. The cabinet is really quite gorgeous, a beautiful use of wood. I find it hard to tell the difference between that and the photo feministing uses to sell it's "wife beater" teeshirts, with the areolas and nipples emphasized by the way the photo's cropped.

In both cases, it's body parts. In the photo in the right column, her head's cut off, making you focus on the rest of the picture, the t-shirt, but that's not what you see. You see lovely breasts.

The table legs (aka asses), at least the two I can see, don't show fuckable asses. In one, the legs are cross, the other looks as if she's doing some weird attempt to kneal downward, one knee turned inward -- so as to be lady like and coy about it. But that just may be the angle.

I play with chopped up body parts on myblog, but for a reason different than what this guy may be doing. Here, he's working in a craft/art tradition and speaking in, to, and, possibly, against it.

Or, he may just be a sicko. I didn't look into it. I just saw some beautiful furniture, coming from the perspective of someone who enjoys working with wood.

Yeah, I just visited his site. He's clearly someone trained in art. One piece, under Sculpture, is entitled, A homage to Rodin.

And, it's certainly acceptable to see the the chopped off statues of old as art, in spite of the fact that they weren't initially intended to look that way. They've been taken up as art in what the sociologist's call the "art world." It is there that it has meaning for us -- though those meanings are not homogeneous --which is why we have the debates and differences in interpretation.

At any rate, this guy is revealing some amazing craftwork, as Sarah said. I can imagine lots of people buying the furniture and having no problem explaining it to their friends. Quite likely, they're friends wouldn't consider them freaks and, if they did, were they my friends, I would drop them. :)

don't get me wrong--i'm not "outraged" over the furniture. i just find it creepy. dismembered body parts do that to me.

I agree with Jessica. These are creepy. I do see it as viewing women (or should I say women's parts) as decorations.

i wonder what kind of woman sleeps with a guy who's got that shit in his house. they should be untouchable-with-a-ten-foot-pole-like-they've-got-a-disease,-man.

The most telling part, to me, is the "lock" in the "virgina".

That little freudian slip makes this whole thing an order of magnitude creepier.

Oh, and as for: "How often do you see women's bodies celebrated at all?"

I still don't see women's bodies celebrated. I see them, quite literally, objectified.

The most telling part, to me, is the "lock" in the "virgina".

That little freudian slip makes this whole thing an order of magnitude creepier.

I attributed that to mistranslation rather than a Freudian slip.

I think the lock in the vagina is pretty creepy, too. And I also think the heels on the women supporting the table make it suspect.

Erotic, pornographic...what's the difference really.