Manspreading Round 2

Previously I posted about a pet peeve about which I’d been pondering since a Viking Cruise vacation. The peeve prompting this ponder…. Manspreading.   You might remember Manspreading is the practice whereby a man adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart.  Apparently the practice has been banned in Madrid since spread eagle sitting takes up too many seats on public transportation.

My earlier blogrant noted how girls are coached, even naggedby their parents to “always keep your knees together”.  “Be ladylike whenyou are sitting”.  “Keep your thighs, knees, and ankles in constantcontact.”  Moms of the 1940s and ‘50s must not have given their emergingmen the same memo.

I posted photos taken on the pool deck of the cruise ship documenting this Manspreading mania. 

But none of those photos made me laugh quite like a painting I discovered at a local art fair.  I did a double take upon seeing the Waiting Room in artist Greg Freeman’s booth. I confess to feeling flush with validation.  “Others recognize this behavior too!  Going so far as to document it in oil?”  Ok, so maybe I jumped the gun with my instant assumptions.  The artist is a man.  The painting is called the Waiting Room.  Maybe manspreading was not his intended theme here.

Nevertheless, thepainting demands one’s gaze gravitate to the bottom of the subject’s barelybuttoned shirt to the zipper climbing up his ballooning belly and to the paleupper thighs exposed by his hiked up shorts.

Just because I’mbelaboring this sight does not mean it is a welcome sight.  But I’m choosing to see the irony in thispainting.  Humor makes most things more palatable.