Source unknown – Title unknown (20XX)

Generally speaking, although my grammar is fucking terrible, I do make an effort to maintain a degree of rigor in my application of certain terminology w/r/t this blog.

I’ll only ever refer to images produce via analog processes and technologies as photographs. Anything digital will always be referred to in terms of process as ‘digital imaging’ and the result as an image. And I refer to the confluence of analog and digital practices as image making. The point being: contrary to how they are used in practice, analog and digital are in no way interchangeable processes.

I also distinguish between porn and pornography–the latter of which I consider matters of what constitutes ‘pornographic’ to be a logical subset. Lower case a-art can be about porn and Art (upper case A) can be pornographic. Porn is fundamentally incapable of association with Art (upper case A).

Also, one of the main ways of differentiating between porn and pornography, has to do with the profit motive. Is the purpose to make money? It’s not always cut-and-dry but generally, I’d argue if the goal is to make money, then it’s porn.

You get into grey areas with material that isn’t necessarily produced for profit. Nothing about the above suggests it was made to turn a profit. Yet, it doesn’t read as a documentary self-portrait, either. It seems it was taken for someone other than the subject’s personal/private enjoyment. So the ‘profit’ becomes less about currency and more interpersonal attraction.

I’m not sure I’m willing to deem this porn. Yes, it’s lacking technical merit–it’s #skinnyframebullshit is egregious as fuck and the bleach bypass effect adds nothing.

Still there are some nice things: the discarded clothes, the computer, the ever-so-slight glistening perspiration on the boy’s face. Ultimately, these are all just missed opportunities to transcend something more than porn. (It’s clear that the document of the act of seeing is more important than the how and way of it.)

And that’s unfortunate because even if the act of seeing was so important horizontal orientation would have contributed additional contact and if the camera had been moved 18 inches to the right and panned 35 degrees, this would’ve further highlighted the globs of semen on his abdomen as well as accentuating the sixth spurt current blocked by his spent member.

So while I do not for a second think this is a good image, it does have potential–admittedly ignored–but, something about this gets me right in the feels.

I have very few regrets in life. I’d rather have do than wonder what it might’ve been like to have done. If I’m honest, I do have one regret: I wish I had been able to shoot a scene for I Feel Myself–or since (much to my perpetual chagrin) my body is the goddamn wrong gender for that, Gentleman Handling, I guess…

And as much as I’d like to do it now: the intermittent health issues I’ve had for the last two and a half years, have caused me to gain weight. And I’m realizing now that although I’d never be happy with my body, that the fellow in the above image is only slightly more attractive than I was back in the day.

I’m rambling… I guess the point is I missed my window. No one wants to see me now. Hell, no one wants me period. So I guess that if you were feel like you really want to do something but you’re afraid what the consequences will be if you go for it, in my experiences the  consequences of not going for it are much, much worse.