The parent of a student at the Tallahassee Classical School, a Christian charter school in Tallahassee, Florida, was appalled to hear that her child had been shown a full length picture of Michelangelo’s sculpture of David, the youth who killed Goliath. This was so clearly a violation of Florida’s mandate that children or at least their parents not be made “uncomfortable” by the material their children were being taught that the school’s principal, Hope Carrasquilla, was forced to resign.
In Florida, discussions of Black history, unconventional bathroom choices, gender-ambiguous clothing and other such topics will get you fired from your teaching position even at a time when teachers are in short supply. Ms. Carrasquilla’s unforgivable sin was to allow sixth-graders to learn about Renaissance art. Since much of humanity’s greatest artistic achievements occurred during this extraordinary interval in European history, one must wonder how this principal could get into trouble by allowing children at her school to view pictures of the phenomenal beauty achieved by artisans of the Renaissance.
Perhaps the discussion following the viewing of Michelangelo’s masterpiece placed too much emphasis on romanticizing a character who, after all, was a quasimilitary agent, sent into battle without the proper equipment. His death or dismemberment seemed all but inevitable. Perhaps his lack of judgment in facing off against a giant and his excessive reliance on faith in himself and his cause was inappropriate for review in an age group that already often feels invincible and tends to be reckless. Perhaps the parents of these children feared that their offspring would feel inadequate and overwhelmed by the artistic achievements of an individual so gifted that he could bring myths to life in marble and oil paints. Of course, none of this concerned the parents of sixth-graders at the Tallahassee Classical School. Their outrage, their insufferable discomfort, their calls for dismissal of the principal was ignited by an often overlooked element of this magnificent statue: its penis.
Yes, my fellow Americans, some of the citizens of Florida have answered the deeply philosophical question of “Can it be art, if it is naked?” with a resounding, ”No.” Their view is that pictures of the naked human body, even if they are pictures of a marble effigy of that body, are pornographic, regardless of the context. They are not the first myopic viewers of man’s (and woman’s) greatest achievements to be blinded by intolerance of all things sexual, even when those things are neither titillating nor salacious. This wonderful statue has been desecrated multiple times with the application of fig leaves to conceal its genitalia. Its current guardians are comfortable with the artist’s original depiction of the youth, devoid of distracting foliage, but that tolerance of an uncluttered groin may disappear if future guardians of our treasures find Michelangelo’s creation to be too revealing.
David is not the only Michelangelo masterpiece to face mistreatment. In the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, Italy, the massive fresco, entitled The Final Judgment, that covers the front wall of the chapel depicted naked men and women facing eternal damnation or rewards. In the sixteenth century and again in the eighteenth century, the naked figures got their ‘nasty bits’ covered by inept artists upon instructions from easily offended popes. God might be able to see through the loin cloths and other absurd garments applied to his children in this painting, but modern art restorers have been unable to remove the paint applied to this masterpiece and return it to Michelangelo’s version. [Rumor has it that the ‘artists’ who desecrated this fresco were dispatched to the seventh circle of Hell where they are drowning in their paint buckets for all eternity.]
The discomfort elicited in some of our fellow citizens by sexual, erotic, or even anatomically correct depictions of men and women has real consequences that extend beyond the classrooms of sixth-graders. I evaluated a young man, about 15 years old, who was relatively short and was unable to smell. Having been sheltered from images of naked men and women most of his life, he did not realize that his penis was abnormally small until he was forced to shower with classmates after gym classes. Investigations revealed that he had a hormonal abnormality, called Kallmann syndrome, that was identified long after it was readily amenable to treatment. I treated a nine year old girl whose fully developed breasts, armpit and pubic hair, and new onset periods evoked no concern in her parents until she started complaining of headaches. Her parents admitted that they were embarrassed by their daughter’s precocious puberty and avoided doctors for fear that they might be suspected of sexual abuse. Imaging studies revealed a growth in her brain, pressing on the area called the hypothalamus, that regulated the production of sex hormones. I examined a 45 year old man who had never had sexual intercourse because he was ashamed that the outlet for urine from his bladder was at the base of his penis, rather than at the tip of the penis. He had a readily correctable condition, called hypospadias, that remained uncorrected for most of his adult life because he thought it marked him as a freak of nature.
The Judeo-Christian Bible reports that Adam and Eve realized that they were naked after they ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, and they both rushed to cover up their nudity. To some, this story is an allegory in which the consequences for disobedience are immediate, severe, and discomforting. To others, it is a divine statement of the human body’s indecency, despite that body being formed in the image of its Creator. Given this negative opinion of the human form, many of Adam and Eve’s descendants are still obsessed with covering up, and the consequences of this hereditary embarrassment extend well beyond the eviction from the Garden of Eden. There are numerous and unanticipated consequences of our discomfort with our anatomy and that of our fellow citizens. That discomfort is unwarranted and inappropriate. I have spent my adult life studying this wonderful mechanism we call the human body. My conclusion is that it deserves awe, not fig leaves.
Dr. Lechtenberg is an Easton resident who graduated from Tufts University and Tufts Medical School in Massachusetts and subsequently trained at The Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan. He worked as a neurologist at several New York Hospitals, including Kings County and The Long Island College Hospital, while maintaining a private practice, teaching at SUNY Downstate Medical School, and publishing 15 books on a variety of medical topics. He worked in drug development in the USA, as well as in England, Germany, and France.
