That’s for testicular photograph portmanteau, in a portmanteau.
The Steam Room Stories episode (very fit guys, gay and straight, clad only in a towel, in a steam room, talking about their bodies and about sex) of December 31st featured two of the steam room guys sitting side by side on the bench. I paraphrase their exchange:
Right asks Left how his vacation was. Fantastic, Left says, bragging that he took some great photographs. Left whips out his cellphone, pages through photos of gorgeous landscapes for Right, who admits that Left is a really good photographer, adding, however, that Left’s camera seems to be defective, because there are dark round blobs at the top of all the photos. Nothing wrong, dude, Left replies, those are my balls, don’t you know about nutscapes? Right is astonished, appalled. Left stands up, bends over, and shows how he snaps his testicles:
(#1)
Right is even more appalled; of course he says that Left is nuts.
The actual “Nutscapes” SRS episode can be viewed here.
That’s nuts + landscape, with a play on Netscape folded in.
A nutscape, one of many you can find on the net, with an especially hairy testicle:
(#2)
From Details magazine in November, “WTF: Men Are Taking Pictures of Their Balls in Beautiful Landscapes: Nutscapes are a new trend that involves pretty vistas and testicles” by Max Berlinger:
Ever thought that the beauty of God’s green earth in all [its] unfettered glory was somehow missing something? That a verdant pastoral field or the gloriously undulating rock formations of a millennia-old canyon needed the addition of something more corporeal? Well, you’re not alone in your desire to add a decidedly human touch to nature’s stunning vistas and breathtaking expanses. As the website Nutscapes so . . . interestingly . . . demonstrates, sometimes Mother Nature’s most majestic views can be improved upon by just a small glimpse of testicle.
This is where you ask yourself: Huh?
No, we’re not kidding. The site’s entire existence is to promote the “trend” — if you can call it that . . . yet — of bending over, dropping trou, and capturing a lovely landscape with just a hint of hairy sack hovering at the top of the frame. Juvenile? Sure. And yet there’s something both disgusting and strangely hypnotizing about the endless array of variations featured on the site. From just a little sliver of the ol’ family jewels floating above a coastal scene to a more eye-catching hint of hanging ‘nad perched above a snowy mountain setting, it’s a reminder that (a) nature’s bounty is endless and (b) one’s body is, in fact, a wonderland [John Mayer song “Your Body Is A Wonderland”].
Notice that Berlinger pretty much runs through the relevant vocabulary: testicles, nuts, balls, family jewels, (go)nads, sack. Journalists are fond of avoiding the use of one term again and again by constantly varying their vocabulary, piling on synonyms, especially in edgy semantic domains,
(Side note: In unearthing this piece, I found the sad news that Condé Nast has closed Details down, and at the same time has significantly cut back the staff at GQ.)
