It’s Official: 2021 Is the Year of Dad Bods

Understatement alert! 2020 has been a real kick in the boxer shorts, so in classic Dad fashion, we’re telling it to shape up or we’ll turn this car around! As we look forward to 2021, our hearts and waistlines swell with the hope that next year will be WAY damn better. Things are already looking up, courtesy of a Cleveland calendar depicting Daddies in their natural habitat: our twisted, teddy-bear fantasies.

Shiny Penny Studios is releasing 12 months of sassy sensuality as embodied by mature men posing like they’re strutting down the catwalks of Milan… Milan, Ohio (apparently). “This crazy dudoir calendar adventure actually started as a simple idea for a website blog post about taking better selfies,” narrates Keli Schimelpfenig, photographer for the Dad Bods of 2021 project.

“The next day, I posted an open call on Facebook looking for average looking men to meet me in a sunflower field. While some were coaxed to attend by wives and girlfriends, five brave men showed up with the understanding I would get some photos to use for my blog and they would get some new profile shots… Then things got interesting.”

Proceeds from the grrreat concept will benefit the Cleveland chapter of Meals on Wheels, and we are already feasting on fierceness just looking at these preview images.

“Men have as many body sensitivities as women do,” Schimelpfenig continues. “When women see that, and when they see that men are so comfortable being themselves and doing some goofy things, it almost allows everybody to be a little celebratory of the less than perfect model bods that you see out there.”

The 2021 calendar is yet another reason to love Shiny Penny Studios. The creative collective has recently reaffirmed our indelible love for tattooed muscle bears.

And Shiny Penny’s initiative to capture proposals on camera has also captured our big, gay hearts.

So, let’s reward those Cleveland cuties by buying their calendar and rocking into the new year a little wiser, a bit friendlier, and a LOT Daddier. Pull my finger… or whatever else grabs your fancy.

Photo: Instagram @shinypennystudios