Source: Unknown

This is not an objectively ‘good’ image. Overexposure leaches color from an already truncated palate; while the framing–presumably orchestrated to preserve anonymity is painfully awkward. (Scooting the camera back as little as two inches and squaring the level would have done wonders.)

Still to my eye there is something magical here–although I am not entirely sure how to explain my meaning.

It seems–in my head, at least–more of a still from an amateur sex tape than a discrete image; I keep imagining how things will proceed from here.

Not knowing the source, it seems inappropriate to project my own sexual predilections onto an image that has fuck all to do with me, instead of reading and interpreting things at face value.

Here’s somethings things that grab my attention:

• Both are smiling in playfully curious/knowingly smirking way,
• He is laid out, open and on display while she is more curled into herself,
• His pubic hair is carefully trimmed,
• Her red lacquered nails draw attention to the slightest bit of motion blur, suggesting teasing strokes,
• Her hair is a mess, having what could be a either bed head or post-coital, shower wet hair that has dried unevenly over the course or further lovemaking sessions,
• And, she’s wearing what may well be a wedding ring.

All of it taken together suggests to me the crucial distinction between the taking of pleasure and the receipt of it. One is a central tenet, the prerogative of patriarchy; the other: demands a willingness to surrender, to become vulnerable, to let go and in letting go, letting another.