Philadelphia Weekly

"Oh my God!"

A startled Philly suburbanite calls his wife to the window. Just outside their Elkins Park home four men--one gay, three straight--are strutting across the street. Naked.

"What are they doing at 5:30 in morning?" exclaims the lady of the house.

"It looks to me as if they're making an artistic statement--by means of a naked pastiche of the Beatles' famous Abbey Road album sleeve--about the fluid nature of human sexuality," says hubby, frowning.

"Should I call the police?" she says.

"The police? Hell no. I mean, not yet. Maybe we should watch them for a while, to see if they do anything ... interesting," says the husband, moistening his lips.

No one called the pigs. But they could've. Which is why local TV celeb Butch Cordora--host of the gay chat show In Bed With Butch--had his lawyer on speed dial when he and a trio of buck-naked Philly heterosexuals strode across the road with their nadgers swinging in the morning breeze.

It was for a dead arty and sociopolitically extremely important photo shoot. But it was also--in an America where a quick flash of a pop star's nipple on prime-time TV generated an astonishing half-a-million complaints--open to misinterpretation.

Butch Cordora is 48. He has the body of Greek god. And the face of a Greek god's dad. If you were drunk and he was naked, you (male or female, gay or straight) would almost certainly have sex with him.

In 1999 Cordora launched his TV show on Drexel University TV and WYBE.

"There were a lot of hate crimes that year, " says Cordora. "AIDS and HIV--a lot of talk about how hard it was being gay, the struggle. I wanted a show that celebrated the gay community. Something a 15-year-old kid could tune in to and think: He's normal, he's happy, he's healthy. He's got lots of friends and family and he's having fun. I'm a huge fan of Letterman and Oprah--the classic three-camera chat show."

Cordora's in-bed interviews were a hit. But then gay strangers started stopping him in the street to ask why--as spokesperson for gay Philadelphia--he wasn't interviewing activists and attorneys about the serious issues affecting the gay community.

And so for about a year Cordora did. Out went the naughty bed. In came the serious couch. And interviews with recovering crystal meth addicts. Butch was all growed up.

"And then one day I thought, You know what? I don't want to do this. I don't like politics; I don't follow politics. Too fucking bad. Go make you own goddamn TV show!" So he returned to his roots.

Then in 2006, Cordora had a great idea. How about a calendar where he appeared naked getting it on with naked straight men? Hilarious!

"But," says Cordora, "a photographer friend pointed out to me that straight guys getting it on with a gay guy would just look gay. So how would you know they were straight?"

And so the new, improved and distinctly less saucy (but infinitely more subversive) Straight and Butch calendar was born--12 professionally shot and tastefully posed photos of naked Butch and naked straight guys doing incredibly straight stuff. Like applying corpse-paint before a wrestling match. Or massaging one another naked on the table in a pizza restaurant. Or shaving. Or crossing the road. Photos "full of vulnerability and tension."