Tag: nipple

Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes? In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no “erogenous zones” (a foolish expression, besides); it is intermittence, as the psychoanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic: the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash itself which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance-as-disappearance (Barthes, pg. 9-10).

Perhaps it’s the introversion suggested by the huddled pose or the comely skin. My eye—wishing it was a tongue—darts and circles the erect left nipple.

But the wetness of wanting is thwarted by the shallow depth of field which pushes my gaze away over oceans of cream floating morning glories, wilds rose and springs of red baby’s breath before being pulled back again over small breasts and pale skin to sunlit shoulders and long strands of red silk hair.

And in this seeing I have an honest-to-goodness itty-bitty petit mort every time I glance at this picture.

No, it’s closer to a lover shifting slightly and the movement sending cascades of shivers outward through the ebbing pulsing of orgasmic spasms.

A feeling not unlike the memory of pixie with snow white skin, wire straight, carbon black hair and mischievous eyes wider than miles of un-translated manga: I gazed as she reached across the table, her motion pulling the lower edge of her too-small t-shirt away from the waist of her too-large belted jeans. Thinner than a rail, the ridges of her spine led my eyes down to the orange on purple Victoria’s Secret underwear.

Edges are important. Particularly given their extensive history of being manipulated in order to objectify and sexualize the female body—expertly lampooned by Duchamp’s Etant Donnes.

But the headless woman does have anonymity. And where this previous implied women as little more than fodder for men’s sexual appetites, it now is put into service in order to facilitate the open expression of a sexual identity from behind the safety of a mask.

To be clear, I think that’s awesome; but like all awesome things, it is not without its problems. In this case, the line between anonymous expression and exhibitionism is razor thin at best. What is presented as artful and considered frequently suffers as a result of compositional inconsistencies necessitated by the requirement for anonymity.

This beautiful photograph is one of the few that manages to be rigorously consistent in its composition while also employing the frame edge as a means of masking idenity. A slight shift in perspective, however, would have almost certainly transformed it into something either nakedly exhibitionist or visually impoverished.

It for that reason I think most photo dabblers would do well to borrow from the book of Bellocq’s brother by making a thoughtful image first and then blacking out faces and identifying features later.

Source: vaginabubbles

Top: Most pegging shots focus on the shifting of the power dynamic. You won’t hear me argue that is not a part of it but it is not what interests me—I am not interested in the pain so much as the openness to sharing a side of oneself ones lover might not otherwise known. This is the only images mostly met my blog worthy criteria. I do like the way she is grabbing his ass—both holding and spreading it. Also, that she is watching attentively to how he is responding to is being done to him is great.

Bottom: I have problems with this image: the framing dismembers her body, the focus is on her expression, left nipple, bare vulva and erection partially inserted into her asshole. I’ll allow that at least she does have some sort of pubic hair. The reason I am posting this is its aesthetic is one of those rare occasions when form and content complement each other perfectly. I am not sure if it is a filter or if it was snapped with a smart phone off of a monitor, but I love the way it distresses the image without deteriorating it—as if it knows how sleazy it is so in shooting for that aesthetic, it manages to almost, but not quite, transcend it.

…

In film school there were some actors and actresses I made do some pretty absurd things toward the end of realizing my ‘vision’.

Looking back I am struck by how little of what I more or less convinced others to do willing would have been things I would have ever considered doing myself if the roles had been reversed—if I was put in front of the camera and told to enact the fantasies of someone hidden safely away behind it.

Morality is arbitrary at best and usually total horseshit. But there is dishonesty and disingenuousness in asking someone to do something I wouldn’t do if I were in their shoes—it makes the situation, no matter how carefully conceived or well-intended exploitative.

That’s really what I think of anal sex in the vast majority of heterosexual porn: the anus is presented is just another tighter hole that you just need to ask her to let fill with your rock hard cock.

I know all about the fact that it is four degrees warmer and has four more working muscles than the vagina. That’s great. But unless you are okay with being on the receiving end first, you really should not be thinking about what it might be like to find yourself on the giving end.

Kara Neko and Brittany

Ibn Arabi, a venerable Sufi mystic, understood reality as the breath of Allah—praise upon him.

All was tohu va bohu until Allah—praise upon him—breathed out, creating the world. But, upon breathing in again this newly world vanished, returning to Him to be annihilated. Until he breathes out again, calling another completely formed reality into existence.

This notion is called continuous creation.

In case that is not entirely clear there is one of those rare perfectly serving metaphors: cinema. A reel of film consists of thousands of individual frames. Each frame only a little different than the one before and after it. As the strip runs through the projector at a continuous rate, a shutter that blocks each frame as it appears and before it disappears; thus the stream of discontinuous images appear to be continuous, fluid.

Over the last four years, I have spent a lot of time thinking about stories: making some up, listening to others them their own, stripping them down like that crazy uncle who thinks he can not only fix the toaster but make it work better if he can only get it put back together again.

And I am realizing that well-told stories are almost always acts of continuous creation.

Take these two exquisite young women in the above photograph image. (’Photograph’ as it’s likely this is a 6×7 image scanned from 120 color negative film. EDIT: Kara contacted me to correct this was taken with an iPhone by her boyfriend.) Despite the awkwardness of the framing—seriously we all see you are observing the rule of thirds but nothing was gained by this not being framed horizontally!)—this is a seed which contains an entire narrative within it.

Look at just what is within the frame: an uninspired bedroom in a small apartment, daylight streams through the windows (yes, plural—check the mirror over the bed).

Invariably, despite even Hollywood’s best efforts one lover always ends up undressed before the other. And here the naked one leans towards the other eyeing her bust line—her pose is assertive, communicating a physical desire but her distance is close enough to make her desire clear but still respectful of possible reservations. She of the bustier appears uncertain, her hands a mix of openness and hesitation.

The story is here. There are different ways it can go, yes. But one person is more in love than the other. Both see the edge of the cliff approaching but what you survive is always preferable to what might have been. The tension holds even though we already know how it all ends already.

Source: sookie-m

The above reminds me of a pinup photo. Or, more accurately perhaps: anti-pinup.

It replaces the manufactured glamor of Betty Grable with the (preferable to me) alt-punk body/sex positive grunge mien of Camille (Cam) Damage.

With all my bitching about how so many photographers cut up women’s bodies with slipshod framing, you would think I would be goddamn all over the pinup. (Can you recall one that doesn’t include the entire body? I can’t.)

But there are two things I find troubling about the pinup tradition. The first doesn’t apply but it lends weight to the second: in a pinup the model’s acknowledges the spectator’s gaze.

Miss Damage, while clearly aware of the camera on her, ignores it.

However, taking an existing form—in this case the pinup—and replacing its various components with their appositives does not a new form make; In other words: you can include all the thin, alluring, pierced beauties with a progressive take on body hair—and please do not misunderstand me, Miss Damage is so hot you have to spell it haute—but the result will invariably mimic the original form.

Inversion is like that, never quite managing to be subversive.

What bothers me is the inherent problem of pinups (as well as anti-pinups); whether intended or not, they serve as a metonymy wherein the whole of an individual’s sexuality is represented by a part, which is most often their sexualized body.

As much as I hate on pornography—it rarely struggles with this problem. Depicting the sex act is fundamentally narrative; it has a beginning, middle and end; demands choices with regard to the inclusion or exclusion of a mass of details.

As Nabokov noted: God is in the details.