Treasured Chests

“A Baldwin Brothers Crib Sheet” was a hoot until I read the line about Stephen Baldwin--”hairless as a pre-adolescent” (Film Clips, April 3).

What a snide, gratuitously negative way to describe a man with a smooth chest! The anonymous “Film Clips staff” reduces smoothness in men to a kind of arrested development, as if such men were stuck in puberty.

Would you let this same limited standard of male beauty ostracize such “hairless” types as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has the biggest smooth chest ever, or Tom Cruise, Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Liam Neeson, Patrick Swayze, Michael Douglas, Gabriel Byrne, Don Johnson or good old Paul Newman?

The gutless writers who refused a byline owe an apology to Stephen Baldwin. And to Paul Newman too. Hell, you owe all the smooth-chested guys out there an apology.

I just had to get that, ahem, off my chest.

ALISON SKIPWORTH

Sacramento

Your writing staff proved that sexism and the double standard are alive and well.

Let’s just say that an identically flavored article appeared in Calendar, but instead of the Baldwin brothers, you featured the breast-size differences of sisters Meg and Jennifer Tilly or a facial-hair shaving analysis of the not-all-related Leighs: Janet, Jennifer Jason and Vivien.

Just what would the women’s organizations do when presented with such an article? Since when is it politically correct to make sexist and abusive remarks about a man’s physical appearance, even if it’s only a “joke”?

I’m tired of the behind-the-back posturing of the media getting their jollies by demeaning men and manhood while presenting themselves as a voice for equality and fairness.

STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Corona del Mar