Tag: male nude

Angela Mary Butler – Seven Scars for Seven Stars (2014)

choomathy set the gold standard for bat imagery with her studied, Becher-esque typologies.

I’ve noticed a recent up-tick in similar work from far less talented image makers. But this images manages to distinguish itself in that it features a male bodied individual with a crescent of seven scars covering his mid-section.

It’s a strong image–and a glance at Butler’s work intimates she’s got some image making chops–but the image becomes more intriguing with the revelation that the scars belong to performance artist Miguel Suarez; who three days prior to this photo shoot enacted a performance piece where he lit a cigar seven times and put it out on his skin each time in the pattern reminiscent of the stars on the Venezuelan flag.

Source: europuss

[Source: REDACTED] – Title Unknown (201X)

I’m less than convinced posting this isn’t an ill-advised misstep: it’s irredeemably pornographic. produced by a pay-porn site whose ethos aren’t exactly in line with my own (or this blog) and it’s desaturated from the original (an marked improvement, actually).

Also, I am sure if I bothered to watch the video of which this is a part, odds are I would be repulsed.

Yet, this scratches entirely too many itches I’m feeling right now for any decision to exclude it not to smack of a certain degree of dis-ingenuousness. 

Frankly:  it really fucking turns me on.

Why?

I’ve noted previously my affection for and belief in the artistic potential in the visual dynamism of the ejaculatory act.

And although I am not every going to be first in line on ass play day, depictions of pegging appeal to me insofar as they implicitly flip the gender stereotypical, heteronormative script.

From what is glimpsed in this two second clip, my guess is this video flips the scripts but then amplifies the staged physical and verbal abuse to a level that would result in castigation were the gender roles not so clearly inverted.

What gets me about this clip–and I think it would’ve been enhanced in a wider shot–are the muscle tremors playing over his stomach. After all, he’s been brought to orgasm with an enormous dildo compressing his prostrate. His ability to exercise autonomous control over his body is effectively short-circuited; he is completely at the mercy of his partners.

It’s that feeling of being at the mercy of someone I trust completely is what I miss most about sex. Being pushed up against a wall and told in a whisper almost too soft to hear: you’re boundaries are bullshit. If you say ‘no’, I’ll stop. But you won’t say ‘no’.

And my desire to share that experience–to know the give and take of mutual needing–makes me thing this isn’t a two second clip but a much longer one. Where the woman continues to stimulate the man, reminding him there’s no such thing as too sensitive

the-secretpervert – submission to porn4ladies (2014)

Although these lack fully differentiated tonal range and the content/ composition announces them as cockshotus vulgaris, there is at least something charming about them.

I am probably being disingenuous–it being unwise to project the subconscious internal on the manifest external and label the result: interpretation–but this reminds me of Peter Hujar’s breathtaking portrait of David Wojnarowicz.

Whether or not that free associative jump stands up under interrogation, I think the common denominator–both depict male bodied individuals masturbating–is applicable here.

Adding masturbation by no means ameliorates concerns over presumptive entitlement associated with male-bodied exhibitionism but in this case the image reads less like look-at-what-I’m-doing-doesn’t-it-make-you-horny and more what-I’m-doing-makes-me-horny-and-I’m-curious-as-to-the-visual-mechanics-of-the-action.

Interestingly enough that does actually lead right up to what attracts me to these images: a very dear friend once confessed to me that although she masturbated frequently, she had only ever made herself come perhaps three times.

One of those times, she hadn’t intended to masturbate, she’d just been curious about her own genitals and employed a hand mirror to ease closer examination.

In her retelling, she didn’t realize she was going to come until it was too late to stop. Fifteen some years later, she still claimed it as one of the three best orgasms in her life.

For me, this image invokes the same feeling of someone explaining their sexuality to me not in an effort to invoke arousal–although if that happens as a side effect, so be it; but to instead share something true about themselves without fear of judgment or reprisal.

I can’t help but find that attitude incredibly sexy.

Max Švabinský – Paradise Sonata IV – Early Spring (1918)

It’s almost impossible to glimpse this and not think it depicts Adam going down on Eve.

The presence of ‘paradise’ in the title reenforces such implication. As do the undeniable influence of Albrecht Dürer, William Blake & Dante Gabriel Rossetti on Švabinský’s work.

But it reminds me of two curatorial comments I encountered in Madrid’s Museo del Prado. One referred to altar pieces’ heavily favoring a vertical compositional orientation. Another underscored the horizontal orientation of Venetian narrative painting (istorie).

It’s almost as if the mechanics of a vertical composition draw the eye heavenward while the eye scans across that which is horizontal–sacred vs. profane.

I am certain a great many humanist artists knew this and purposely executed profane work in a secular style as a subtle subversion.

I think there’s a bit of that at play here. And while I almost want to criticize Švabinský for his ambivalence towards a definitive context, I feel the work was a little too slippery for even him to completely control in much the same way the customary atheist proverb isn’t wonder enough? conveniently misses the truth that the experience of wonder is the experience of being in the presence of God. Just not the god as placeholder for transcendent experience that bear names like Allah, praise be upon him, Yahweh, Krishna, Buddha, etc; names and obtuse back stories that facilitate parallel reciprocity at the expense of relationship.

Our Naughty Adventures – Submission to Let Me Do This To You (201X)

There’s this essay that’s been bouncing around in my head for more than a year. It has to do with the junctions, disjunctions and ruptures in the terms ‘erotica’, ‘sexual explicit imagery’, ‘pornography’ and ‘Art’.

I have some 30 pages of notes but sitting down to write in earnest is a real struggle for me.

It’s a shame, really–being able to call on such an essay in the analysis of this image would pay rich dividends in the case of this image, especially given that I’d be inclined to label this as both ‘erotica’ and ‘pornography’ but less willing to attribute any strong artistic merit or suggest that depicting and erect penis precludes sexual explicitness.

What’s sexual here is the position of the female body in relationship to the male. The image clearly captures a moment prior to the commencement of sexual congress; in other words, the image titillates through implication.

There is a sense of artistic pretense–high contrast, black and white, shot with a strobe there’s also the feeling that what is presented is a crop from a larger image; or, what should have been a composition centering on a wider angle of view.

Artistic shortcomings aside I do find this image to be highly erotic as it includes a number of things that dampen my undies: the fact that although not wearing a stitch, the female bodied participant is presented in such a way that her nakedness is hidden at the same time the male bodied participant is visible for all the world to see. (In this case I also really dig the acute angle of his erection and way the flash draws attention to the texture and tone of his foreskin.)

There’s also something intangible about the image that conveys for me  a sense of craving a lover’s body so much it causes physical pain. And with that aching transforms the carnal union into not only an approaching of ecstatic bliss but a drowning of pain in pleasure.

Source: letmedothis

Ida Oppen – Pale Afternoon from The Wicked Innocent series (201X)

Ida Oppen is an early twenty-something freelance image maker hailing from the suburbs of Oslo.

Her work transcends the perfunctory reproaches I customarily present. Honestly, I am profoundly impressed with her sophisticated compositions, precocious attention to scale and use of color.

Thus, the bifurcation into two mutually exclusive bodies of work–the editorial/‘fine art’ and the sexually explicit–really fucking baffles me.

From the standpoint of commerical viability, this is understandable: ‘professional’ clients are unlikely to appreciate graphic presentations of genitalia, intercourse and sexual effluvia.

What fails to track is the degree to which Oppen’s approach varies between disparate oeuvres.

The painstaking craft of the editorial work loosens in favor of a grittier immediacy. Not that craft is by any means lacking–pay attention to the precision of the framing (especially in the multiple image assemblages reminiscent of analog contact sheets), the manufactured multiple exposures and the–admittedly less astute–digital chromatic interventions.

Oppen admits this is what she’s after in her artist’s statement for The Wicked Innocent series. And there really isn’t much room for argument. She knows what she’s doing as well as how it is going to be read by an audience.

But as a member of that ostensible audience I would like to be pushed outside of my comfort zone and confronted a little more directly. Honestly, I mean that less as a criticism and more as a misguided compliment because although I know Oppen does not conceptualize this work as pornography, it offers me everything I look for–but rarely find–there. It’s partly that there seems to be a great deal of overlap between the kinds of sex with which Oppen is preoccupied and my own interests. But that is only intensified by the fact that vulnerability and trust factor so prominently into the process of making the images.

Viewing the work there is an unshakeable sense that the openness is equally if not more arousing than that which is explicitly depicted; the feeling that I am seeing what I am seeing not because there’s any expectation that it will turn me on but that it is a record of what gets someone else overwhelmingly aroused.

Merel Wessing – Title Unknown (200X)

I’m not 100% as far as the attribution on this.

Google Image search best guesses as Belgian model Merel Wessing.

With the galaxies of freckles on her forehead and around her eyes, this is almost certainly the same young woman.

It seems she’s a photographer too. Or was, at least–there’s a Flickr account bearing her name and the The Way Back Machine shows updates between 2007 and 2011.

Unfortunately, none of those images are cached. Anywhere as far as I can tell.

Excepting the above, another photo from this same ‘shoot’ and this, her work has been scrubbed from the Internet.

Although there’s no way to qualitatively assess her abilities based on three photographs, the images–especially this one–justifying a strong curiosity with regard to the rest of her work.

I have an itching suspicion she was/is very good, if not flat out phenomenal.

Source: lovelyporn

Source: Unknown

As best as I can tell, this image was originally from one of three different photo shoots featuring this couple.

It was probably commissioned by one of those dime-a-dozen paid membership amateur porn sites who tout the ability to download unedited photo sets as a selling point.

A certain Motherless user–who I am not going to even bother identifying–shunted the images over to his account on Halloween 2012.

From there, a Serbian tech geek added all three sets to his lo-fi website.

I spent about an hour and a half browsing through them the other day–that time may or may not have featured two self-love sessions–and although they aren’t what I would call ‘good’–heteronormative sex doesn’t really do much for me–there are some things I appreciate:

  • The boy at least seems somewhat mindful that the staging of the scene is runs counter to his partner’s needs–even if he doesn’t really go to any great lengths to compensate for it;
  • The money shot in every set avoids the ubiquitous porn facial that I so hate; she brings him to orgasm via fellatio, letting just a little bit of his semen dribble between her lips to visually signal ejaculation;
  • There are some awkward and poorly planned shots but they come off as strangely sincere and maybe even awkwardly endearing.

Maybe a handful of the images make for pretty decent photography–this is probably the best of the bunch and marginally not #skinnyframebullshit to boot.

The image I’ve posted is not the best-the tile seam between their heads is distracting and emphasizes the frames questionable compositional logic.

What I like are the nuances in their interaction. Her along with her face is flushed; the fringe of her hair, damp. Due to her position, her center of gravity–three inches below her navel–in under his body; her shoulder is turned in to his body.

The way her right hand is holding him is not conducive to anything greater than a teasing level of stimulation. This combined with the way she is cradling his testicles conveys a profound sense of bodily acceptance but also simultaneously proclaims you are mine and I will do what I want to you; you can’t stop me and you are completely safe in this space.

The way he is reaching towards her, kissing her with unfeigned, intoxicated passion is lovely.

The nakedness of the wanting and being wanted is always something I find incomparable erotic. 

Source: 91.210.216.1

Sally Mann – The Last Time Emmett Modeled Nude (1987)

In my admittedly short lived travels in fine art photographic circles, Sally Mann tends to be merely tolerated in public while she is derided and/or dismissed for her ‘excessive sentimentality’ behind closed doors.

So it’s not surprising to witness her wondering aloud in HBO’s excellent documentary What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann whether or not she’ll be ‘pilloried’ by the critics when she exhibits her new project.

It’s a telling scene. Mann’s observation demonstrates a keen understanding of the disparity in her reputation between consumers of culture and the cultural gatekeepers/overlords.

The accusation of ‘excessive sentimentality’ is a palpable hit. The sentimental lies at the foundation of virtually everything she’s ever made. (Except maybe the cibochromes–which if you haven’t witnessed, you are truly missing out on some of the most staggering color work since Eggleston.) 

The cultural gatekeepers/overlords aren’t so patient with sentimentality given their unquestioning adherence to the syllogism dictating that the sentimental is to art as Kryptonite is to Superman.

It all strikes me as too convenient. Yes, Mann’s chosen medium is photography. But that doesn’t mean her lineage can only be traced back through Gowin to Callahan and the Bauhaus movement. Mann belongs equally to the tradition of Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau both of whom are comparable sentimental and adored for the fact.

A better criticism might be to draw attention to her blemished, unnecessarily dark printmaking.

Or better yet, acknowledge that–as the aforementioned scene illustrates-even when anxiously doubting herself and her work, she plays the conceptual art shell game masterfully.

What makes her work great is she always predicts criticisms that will arise from the work and uses the work to refute them in advance.

What makes Immediate Family the greatest work she’s ever likely to produce, is its naive, unblinking curiosity that didn’t manage to see the snake until it had already stepped on it and still somehow avoided getting bitten.

It’s impossible for me to narrow that work down to a single favorite image. But this image of Emmett is easily one of the top five.

Source: sallymann.com