Aw, jeez… apparently the busybody brigades, frustrated that the Blue Boutique managed to reopen in its new location without brimstone raining from the heavens, have found someone else to pester with their crusade against healthy adult interests.

According to Tribune columnist Paul Rolly, a Murray City woman has been told by police that neighbors are complaining about a large abstract nude she has hanging on her living room wall because it’s visible through her window, and the neighborhood boys have been gathering out front to ogle the thing.

So what do the neighbors do? Do they have a responsible chat with their horn-dog sons about what they’re looking at and why they’re getting funny feelings down below from the sight of non-photorealistic boobies? Or do they tell the little pervs to leave the neighbor lady alone and go find something else to do? No, they call the cops and try to get them to pressure a fellow citizen to change her interior decor.

You know, stuff like this actually gripes me even more than the Blue Boutique thing.

If I was that art-lover, I’d tell the neighbors to keep their kids off my lawn if they don’t want them looking at my painting, and to mind their own damn business about what I choose to hang on my walls. And then when the kids inevitably disobey their prudish folks and creep back for another glimpse of The Forbidden, I’d go out and offer them some lemonade and maybe a spotting scope so they can get a really good look. Because I remember from my own horn-dog adolescence that embarrassment is a much more effective deterrent for a young boy with ants in his pants than stern prohibitions against things that they really can’t help being curious about anyway. You see, the funny thing about adolescent boys is that everything turns them on — it could be Picasso’s bizarre vision of a nude woman, it could be those big silos west of I-15 that vaguely look like breasts. Pubescent kids aren’t that picky about their sources of stimulation. And that’s just part of life; it’s natural and it’s normal. But still, you don’t want to antagonize the neighborhood parents by becoming an attractive nuisance — i.e., giving a crowd of tumescent kids a reason to gather on your front lawn –so go ahead and shame them into leaving. In the long run, that’ll be a lot less harmful to their mental development than telling them that art is bad.

Utah, man… suddenly I have a desire to go pick up some Vargas prints…