A nude calendar of people with Type 1 diabetes in the U.S. has caused people with Type 1 diabetes in Finland to shed their clothes.
Two years ago, Kat Reed and Tara Layman launched T1D Exposed, a calendar featuring people with Type 1 in the buff, except for their diabetes gear. They followed the calendar up with a 2016 edition. The project was sidelined for 2017* because of a health issue, but that doesn’t mean we have to go a whole year without Type 1 diabetes nudity.
Read “Baring All for Type 1 Diabetes.”
In Finland, earlier this year, Mika Haulo and Miika Rautiainen were having an email conversation about how to draw attention to their new Type 1 organization, Diabetesseura Plasma. The group had just applied to be part of the national association of groups of people with diabetes, and Haulo and Rautiainen were trying to figure out how to publicize the news.
That’s when the following exchange occurred (in Finnish):
Rautiainen: I’m publishing the announcements now. I couldn’t come up with any suitable images for the posts, so I just took a picture of my cat. Cats are cute, so we’re sure to get some attention with that picture.
Haulo: Cool.The rumor is that pictures and videos of cats are even more popular than porn on the internet nowadays.
Rautiainen: Speaking of nude people, I bought a nude calendar. It’s made by Type 1 diabetics in the U.S. It’s really awesome.
Haulo: Oh, wow. So…should we make one, too?
And thus the idea for Diabeteskalenteri 2017 was born, with the blessing of T1D Exposed’s creators. Like T1D Exposed, this calendar features nude people with Type 1 diabetes and their diabetes gear.
One might assume that it would be harder to get Finns to take off their clothes than Californians; after all Finland has a colder climate. However, getting Finns to disrobe isn’t as hard as you may think, Haulo said in an email interview.
Read “The Nude Diabetes Calendar is Back.”
“Nudity is a kind of strange thing among Finns. We’re typically shy and don’t talk to strangers. On a bus, we avoid sitting next to other people and try to find an empty row of seats instead,” he said. “But we have no trouble taking our clothes off and going to sauna with people we don’t know.”
He offered this meme as an exaggerated example:
The calendar is a fundraiser for Diabetesseura Plasma, a relatively new national group for people with Type 1 diabetes in Finland. It may be the first national Type 1 diabetes organizations in the country. Finland is a small country, and there aren’t many with Type 1 diabetes, explains Haulo. There is a national organization that focuses on both types of diabetes, but people with diabetes don’t join that organization directly. Instead, they join local diabetes groups, and those groups then join the national organization, he explained.
“I hope this explanation makes at least some sense,” he apologized. “And even if it doesn’t, don’t worry. Not even all people with diabetes in Finland understand [this system] correctly.”
Haulo also hopes that the calendar, and Diabetesseura Plasma, can provide some sense of community and inspiration for Finnish people with Type 1. Already, the organization has seen a boost in membership since the calendar’s release.
The calendar can be bought internationally via the group’s website, and Visa and Mastercard are accepted. Currently, the calendar’s text is in Finnish, but it could be translated if there are enough orders from English-speaking customers.
If you’d like to purchase the calendar, you can do so by clicking here.
If you’d like to read up on the organization, in Finnish, and see a picture of a cat that might, or might not, be more interesting than the nude Finns with Type 1, you can do so by clicking here.
*T1D Exposed is planning on a 2018 calendar.
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