New American Pinup, the site dedicated to, well, pinups, has a new Miss April: Emma The Amish Girl. Is Emma The Amish Model really Amish, and is New American Pinup going to discover itself at the center of a religious controversy? Well, possibly. If she does leave her religious life, Emma The Amish Model has certainly secured loans for her new life. So what’s the real story behind Emma The Amish Model?
Emma The Amish Model poses for New American Pinup Magazine
Miss April of the New American Pinup Site is a girl they’re calling Emma The Amish Girl. Though the website tends to feature tattooed and pierced girls, it appears that Emma has neither – though she is “due to be re-shot” for a book that features both.
Is the claim of Emma The Amish Girl true?
New American Pinup claims that “Emma The Amish” model is truly Amish, and has a few pictures of her in traditional Amish wear, as if to prove their point. In many Amish groups, most youth have a “Rum Springa” or period of “running around”. Adolescents are encouraged to explore the world outside the Amish community in some groups – in others, they’re allowed to attend dances and “mixers” for youth. Youth can leave the lifestyle at that point, or they can return and be baptized as fully Amish. If she was raised Amish, Emma The Amish Model could have very well left after Rum Springa. Many rules within the Amish religious sect are being broken, if Emma The Amish Model is really nevertheless practicing the Amish lifestyle – when not posing nude. Either way, she would have to be 18 years old to appear in the New American Pinup, well following the time for Rum Springa.
Emma The Amish Girl is not without business
When Emma is banking on her Amish identity as a foray of Amish culture into America, she is not the first. Many reclusive or religious groups have individuals that have experimented outside of their sects. Just as often as these people leave their group, they return. Faron Yoder, an Amish youth, was featured within the documentary Devil’s Playground, where the Rum Springa tradition is explored, and Faron explains why he did not return. Curly Oxide is a man that, for a when, became a rock star before recommitting himself to the Hasidic Jewish lifestyle. Emma The Amish Girl is the first to bank on her Amish heritage as a pinup model, but she probably will not be the last.
Sources for this article
This American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/213/Devil-on-My-Shoulder
New American Pinups WARNING – Contains nearly-nude photographs
http://www.newamericanpinup.com/Month_April2010.html
