poster boy

Josh Hawley can’t remember if he had a poster of a half naked man hanging above his bed in college

The New York Times just published a deep dive into Josh Hawley, speaking to more than 50 people close to the antigay senator, including his prom date, middle school principal, and a Black classmate he used to bully, about his uber-conservative upbringing, extreme ideological beliefs, and how he is positioning himself to be the intellectual heir of Trumpism.

But perhaps the most interesting revelation in the article is about a poster Hawley allegedly kept hanging in is college dorm room while studying at Stanford:

Above his bed he hung a sepia-toned poster of a shirtless male model cradling a newborn; when asked by classmates, he said it reflected his fervent stance against abortion.

The poster was of Spencer Rowell’s iconic photograph titled “L’Enfant.”

Per Wikipedia:

L’enfant, better known as Man and Baby is a 1987 photographic poster depicting a shirtless male model (Adam Perry) holding a young baby. The image, photographed by Spencer Rowell, was published and distributed in the 1980s by British company Athena Posters. The photograph was said to herald the “sensitive but sexy New Man” aesthetic.

We have a lot of questions about this, the main one being: Why did Josh Hawley, who hates LGBTQ people, have a poster of a half naked man hanging above his bed in his college dorm room?

Related: Josh Hawley’s wife files criminal complaint against peaceful protestor for violating her tranquility

Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know since a spokesperson for the senator told the New York Times that the homoerotic image was “not something he remembers. But he’s proudly pro-life.”

Here’s what people on Twitter are saying about it…

Graham Gremore is the Features Editor and a Staff Writer at Queerty. Follow him on Twitter @grahamgremore.

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