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Homelessness is a growing crisis in the United States, with the number of homeless persons increasing by around 6% each year. The high costs of housing and living expenses, combined with strict laws and regulations regarding zoning and new construction, make this issue one of the toughest to resolve in America.
Straight Arrow News contributor Adrienne Lawrence looks at a new project from the Nomad Alliance, a non-profit group for homeless advocacy, called the Sexy Nomad Calendar. The project takes sexually suggestive photographs of homeless men, packages those pictures into an annual calendar, and then sells the calendar for fundraising. Lawrence argues that the project dehumanizes and sexualizes homeless men and that it further erodes their sense of dignity and self-worth.
So why use sexual exploitation to raise awareness to the homelessness’ plight? The math ain’t mathing here. If anything, taking sexually explicit photos of unhoused people would seem to only compound the psychological trauma because it basically communicates that your value to our society is sexual. That’s when we’ll notice you.
Sexualizing people does not humanize them. It degrades them. As a woman in a patriarchal society, I can tell you that being reduced to your sex appeal is not a win. Nor is having folks look at images of you in a sexualized manner, or perhaps even mockingly, if that’s what Nomad Alliance is truly leveraging here.
At bottom, we can’t ignore that our society has ignored and neglected a significant number of people. And that number is only growing. According to the 2023 State of Homelessness Report issued by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the unhoused population in the United States has been on the rise since 2017, yet the rate of homelessness services have not caught up.
We need to raise awareness about housing insecurity and the state of homelessness today, and we must do it in a way that dignifies those impacted. It’s imperative that we showcase the humanity in these individuals, not the sex appeal.
