Tag: erection

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.

bumblebail:

True Red

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. – ubiquitous paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 1:2

…

There’s no way around it: no matter how lovely, this is a dick pic.

Seeing it as such it’s easy to focus on the impetus for such leering color: friction? lipstick? Photoshop? I’m not really interested in that.

I am almost tempted to interrogate the close-up frame and bokeh, attribute them to a so-ascetic-as-to-be-decontextual minimalist aesthetic bent.

But my thoughts drift further afield; circle and finally alight on the concept of vanity.

…

Carly Simon would have us believe vanity is seeing oneself as the bright center of the universe around which smaller, less bright things swirl.

And any art history student worth their salt will couch things in terms of mirrors.

There is, however, a danger in conflating symbol with meaning–narcissism is decidedly self-sustaining; vanity must feed off others.

In a way, vanity requires empathy.

…

I want to double back to that matter of this being a dick pic but I feels necessary to suggest a corollary with the so-called selfie.

I am not sure it’s wrong to think of them as vain as long as it is borne in mind that the selfie can also be an ontological document–look here I am in this place-time.

I feel like what makes a shitty dick pic is narcissism combined with ontology–this is me-now, this is my desire which is your desire.

To me that is what this image does so exquisitely well: it displaces any vestige of ontology to elicit an unselfconscious perspective. There is no identity, merely a view one or any lover might glimpse of another.

Source: bumblebail

nymphoninjas:

nymphoninjas:

“And it will be more like a song, and less like its math

If you pull on my hair and bite me like that.” (Bright Eyes)

I used to submit my self shots, but now I have few reasons for submitting some I took of my partner.. first of all, there aren’t that many male submissions here usually and I don’t like this difference. this is quite generic view only. most personal is that I enjoy watching my partner playing with himself and it really turns me on. this time I took some pictures of the action..

It was a great Saturday afternoon and we had sex straight after this little shoot and few times later. different places, different intensity but all these were a real pleasure.

Absolutely gorgeous photo, I like everything about it from his sweet purple pants to her knees in the corner. Glad to hear you two are showing off for each other and documenting it, watching your partner get themselves off is pretty much the best way to learn about what they like and how to get them off. Sounds like you two had an amazing day, I’m quite jealous. I hope you two come back to share with us again, thanks again great job A+. 

This and Knitphilia’s Rape isn’t sexy, but being a survivor is are far-and-a-fucking-way my favorite Nympho Ninjas’ Submission Sunday contributions. (An aside: while I am guardedly supportive of the community surrounding NN it does–as an Asian-American–bother me the way ‘ninja’ is so casually appropriated.)

I don’t think this is an objectively good image. Further, pairing it with Conor Oberst’s self-important ravings borders on intolerable.  But, for all its flaws, it has something many more technically adept work lack: truthfulness–the frayed rag rug, messy hair, kick ass pants, beautiful light on the back of his right hand and knees jutting into the frame.

This is the first time in my life I have actually wished a depiction of male-bodied desire was of me–I almost globally identify with female-bodied depictions of desire. Here, I think it’s due to a mistaken notion that if I looked like this there’d might be a slightly better than impossible odds someone would find me attractive.

The Frenzy of the Visible – Self-Portrait (2013)

The first thing I notice about this is actually the last thing that registers: these are both close-ups.

I’m not averse to close-ups; they allow for focusing on details that might otherwise be missed and when thoughtfully applied can draw attention to the foreign-in-the-familiar.

However, most close-ups exemplify a knee-jerk, voyeuristic fixation: faces and erogenous zones.

It’s sensible enough tactic–glimpse up-close that which is instinctively watched; but there are at least two flaws:

  1. Contextual diminution imposes a representational metonymy wherein a part of the subject (the face) replaces the whole.
  2. Heaping familiarity on top of familiarity in tandem with physical proximity of the imaging device to the subject fosters a false sense of intimacy.

With something like say: portraiture, these are–at worst–critical peccadilloes. When it comes to imagery preoccupied with explicit content, it’s rather another.

This not only shows something beautiful, it shows its work with regard to why what is being shown is being shown in the way it is. (i.e. in close-up)

To see it: take either image independent of the other. Each is strong image in-and-of-itself; each offers an incontrovertible reading of the scene: a male-bodied individual laying on clean, white sheets, masturbating.

Taken together, the artful foreign-in-the-familiar framing in the separate panels merges to form a close-up than in an acharacteristic manner conceals more than it reveals. (Further emphasized by the matting and the orientation as a diptych.)

Truly a first-rate, fucking crackerjack image.

Source: frenzyofthevisible

Source Unknown (Initial poster Scott Loves Cock, maybe?)

My reading of this runs pretty much like this: these two fellows are hanging out and one says: would you mind licking my balls while I masturbate.

I’m not going to lie: a world where desire was addressed in a similar fashion as admitting you’re hungry and inquiring if someone else is also. (By extension, the other person could not be hungry and it wouldn’t be a big deal that one party was and the other wasn’t.)

As fabulous as it all sounds–it’s a pipe dream for hundreds of reasons I can’t possibly get into here.

Here’s the knotty rub (pun maybe a little intended): part of the reason I see this image in the way I do is that I tend to perceive ‘gay’ porn as a cut above porn targeting straight men.

‘Gay’ pornography constitutes a fraction of my lifetime smut consumption, in truth. Whereas, I am familiar with the conventions of ‘straight’ porn: bronzed and muscle-bound male-bodied performer encounters buxom female-bodied performer in a perfectly mundane situation that might happen to anyone, things rapidly and unrealistically escalate and so begins ticking off check boxes on the list of things porn through nothing more than rote force of blind habit has convinced us ‘straight’ folks get off on seeing.

Not to even get into the issues surrounding privilege, objectification, exclusion, etc. & etc.

But as I am largely unfamiliar and therefore oblivious to comparable tropes in ‘gay’ porn, my impression is that ‘gay’ porn is more enjoyable for those who perform in it that is ‘straight’ porn.

It’s a well-intentioned enough view. However, at best it’s essentialist, at worst slut-shaming by proxy–the assumption being that because of the pervasive sexism in the porn, there is no way a woman can derive pleasure from her participation. (I am going to work on this, going forward.)

Finally, my reading presumes from a place of fundamental unknowing that there are no comparable politics of oppression acting in ‘gay’ porn. Just because I am unfamiliar with them doesn’t mean they do not exist. (I’m sure they do, in fact; history shows that as soon as something is commodified, means of exploiting the commodification for material gain come out of the fucking wood work.

Source: scottlovescock

Exclusive Teen Porn – Teen Threesome featuring Peach + Kyara (2012)

I would really rather skip the citations here because ExclusiveTeen Porn’s features a downright creepy website.

I am more surprised by how unsavory it is than I really should be considering my first reaction to this was SMASH THE PATRIARCHY!

But between the third and fourth syllable of ‘patriarchy’ I’ve registered the red outlining the lower crest of Peach’s right ear, pink flush speading through her checks. And Jesus Christ, her expression–eye closed, lips pressed hard against enamel. trying to focus on sensation, to concentrate to not lose the rhythm, holding out against surrender but want to fall hopelessly hard, now and forever.

My thoughts shift back to how bankrupt this is of artfulness or subtlety. Don’t get me wrong the more graphic the depictions of sex, the happier I am. But I just don’t see how this is anything other than an effort to cater to the basest aspects of what society whispers behind its hands is the stuff firing masculine sexuality. This fellow has two young women who are presented as focused on his sexual pleasure. (Admittedly, the rest of the series does pay lip service to an interest in the women’s pleasure.)

There’s momentary fluttery where I realize that Peach’s labia are just crowning the swollen corona of her lover’s erection and you can see his glans peaking out. That has to feel exquisite.

This isn’t art. Not even close. It’s not supposed to be. Ultimately though it’s like only being able to eat candy when you want something healthy and substantive.

I guess I just don’t understand how with a seemingly legit location with reasonable lighting and people who are willing to be photographed doing virtually anything, why more of a thought isn’t given to presentation.

Put another way: given all the same ingredients, I fundamentally believe it is possible to make art. The fact that no one ever tries is something I take a little bit like a kick in the teeth.

Not to mention it is some insufferable #skinnyframebullshit.

Two final notes:

  1. there is another version of this image floating around Tumblr. It looks terrible. Why do people insist on doing this?
  2. this image has been cropped a quarter of an inch or so on the bottom to remove a watermark.

Google Image Search suggests the earliest instance of this image being post to a site on Blogspot called Tacobill in June 2010 even though all the links on the page are broken. Beginning in August 2010 a broad swath of entries are attributed to So Many Boys. (EDIT: Wyohhandplay was kind enough to inform me that the source for this is bitemarks.)

It’s really a shame. For what it is– a staged photo of a boy with his fist circling his cock– I think this is classy.

The composition is nice. He’s presented entirely within the frame, not making eye contact with they camera. His body’s mid-line angles to his right, counter-balancing the framing which clips the vertical of the lamp base against the middle vertical of the metal bed frame/headboard.

With the lamp turned toward the wall, the light blows out into a white-hot super overexposed orb. In turn this allows the reflected light to illuminate the rest of the frame with appealing, dusky tones.

It’s an artful take on what could have easily been another uninteresting, disposable iteration of the same old thing.

kalkibodhi:

Encouragement request

KalkiBodhi Archives

EDIT I: it has been brought to my attention that the young woman in this image is Kristine Kahill and that this image was originally posted on Sex and Submission (a Kink.com imprint). Sex and Submission interviews models before and after the sessions. In other words, explicit consent is given for the acts depicted in the subsequent images.

Furthermore, it seems the post can be read as suggesting being submissive is a ‘reprehensible’ behavior. I assure you, that was never my intention. As someone who is thoroughly hardwired as a switch–I am not down on D/s practices at all.

I am opting to leave the original post untouched. I make mistakes. And I am sorry if my comments offended anyone. It still concerns me, however, that this image is presented entirely disconnected from its original context. In the future I will make every effort to do better due diligence. That being said, all things being equal I do stand by my reading of the problematic aspects of this image as it originally presented to me.

EDIT II: Also, I neglected to mention this is some straight-up #skinnyframebullshit.

TinEye turns up two ‘matches’ for this: both in color, both cropped and both hosted by purveyors of violent porn.

But anything more than a glance reveals as much: the composition of the image says as clearly as if the image maker had drafted a memo and sent it to every viewer: women are nothing more than props existing for the sole purpose of accommodating male desire.

It’s a reprehensible ideology. And this picture does almost nothing for me.

Except the young woman’s face, hairstyle and how her eyes accentuate her expression bears more than passing resemblance to an erstwhile co-worker on whom I have a crush.

It’s not the first time I’ve chanced upon porn which reminds me of people I trust—and by that I merely mean someone who can touch me without causing me to flinch. Usually, I avert my eyes—much the way I would if a loose fitting top gaps and offers a glimpse of an elicit vista. It’s not that I don’t want to see—fucking Christ on Christmas, I exist to absorb sensory input.

I don’t feel the same inclination here, however; it’s a feeling that I am interested in explaining without judgment or justification—not because either does not belong here but because this response is such a fatherfucking anomaly.

Navigating boundaries is something for which I lack any talent. I don’t really understand them because for all intents and purposes I do not have any of my own. But I comprehend—at least academically—that other people do. I think of boundaries as privacy force fields. (Go ahead and laugh.) Privacy force fields are like whatever it is about a door that prevents a vampire from passing without being invited.

Looking down the front of a loose blouse or connecting a pornographic image with someone I trust usually causes me to feel like a vampire trying to enter a home without being invited.

It’s the same with masturbatory fantasies. Granted when I masturbate I don’t usually think about scenarios or exchanges so much as the process is something more like meditation or stretching my arm through cage bars towards a hanging key I can almost just reach.

On the occasions where I please myself while fantasizing about someone, it’s as a rule never someone with whom I am close. (Of course it’s a different story if the person consents—but this has only happened once with someone show I was never romantically involved.)

There are two notable exceptions. One is my crush.

Perhaps it’s not really an exception. I don’t fantasize about how she might touch me, how I might touch her in turn and where that might lead. Instead I try to picture her in the same room as me—she’s one of those women whose fundamental perception is of being unattractive. She’s not upset about it; in fact, she cultivates an image of herself as not being able to give less of a fuck of what anyone else thinks of her. Of course, this in combination with her vicious wit, talent and intelligence makes her even more attractive. Then I am in the same cell again stretching, reaching for, almost touch that hanging key that if I can only reach will unlock a treasure chest with a mirror that if she held up she could glimpse herself as I see her through my eyes.

Then I fall away, crawl back but fail.

I don’t know why I refuse to turn away in this case. But in so doing, I remain unashamed.

Ren Hang’s work elicits equal and opposite reactions in me.

Few photographers exhibit such an omnivorous eye; fewer gaze upon such transgressive material.

And I fucking adore Hang’s non-prejudicial and unapologetic depictions of an exceedingly broad range of graphic human sexuality.

Unfortunately, a by-product of what I love also makes the work uncomfortable for me: confrontation.

After more than a half century of pornography rigidly marketed to exclusive sexual demographics, displaying a picture of a woman applying lipstick to her vulva next to a photo of a male-on-male anal sex is an inherently confrontational act. I don’t have a problem with that. In fact, I applaud it: FUCK goddamn centuries of hetero-normativity and straight privilege bullshit.

What bothers me is the way the majority of Hang’s work features on under-current of aggression. As if the inherent confrontation of the presentation takes second seat to something closer to rubbing the viewer’s nose in what is displayed.

Which is why this image stands out to me: the color of the grass so closely matches the color of his skin that the boys erect cock, thrust hips and come-hither eye contact with the camera evinces an almost counter-intuitive vulnerability.

Source: renhang