Tube hunks, for batter or worse

MEN in London or New York who travel on the subway qualify for a digital version of Candid Camera called TubeCrush.net or SubwayCrush.net.

Travellers are encouraged to snap surreptitious photos of ‘ hunks of the underground’ with their phones, then post them online with appreciative comments.

The sites have been running since 2011, but generated a fresh wave of interest when a website in China was reported to have lifted and republished the photos, attracting up to 100,000 likes and shares from intrigued Chinese women.

There has been some talk of this digital female scrutiny objectifying men, but it’s hardly threatening; the anonymous men can ask for their photos to be removed, but very few do, and the published remarks are all positive.

No one even remarks at the high percentage of open and inviting body language displayed by the subjects seated in subway carriages – which is to say that the majority of them seem about to give birth to giant watermelons.

The photographs are taken in a public place and the sites operate with an awareness of the l i ne between voyeurism and violation.

Newer sites are, if anything, even more genteel and circumspect, such as the literary-minded ‘hotdudesreading’, which offers studies of men in thrall to paperbacks and Kindles.

That feels like the kind of website that mothers would scope out for their si ngle daughters; ‘ He r eads! Maybe he’s a lawyer.’

What really puzzles me is that, despite the many variations available on this theme, no one seems to f e at ure t he Glasgow underground.

What’s the matter? Are t here no takers for hotdudeswithfishsuppers?