An updated explanation: why the "continue reading" photos?
This post is partly in response to an email message from a reader who asked why I post an erotic or semi-erotic (and occasionally approaching-pornographic) photo a day, especially since most of my posts, while about sex, aren't so much about the erotics of sex but gender issues and social theory of relationships. I'm not sure I can explain *everything* but I can explain how those photos started.
It's funny about these photos. I started them with a *huge* amount of trepidation soon after I started my blog when it finally soaked in that a) contrary to everything I was taught women are as aroused by images they find erotic as men are and b) they were mostly drawn to gay porn and part of that was because so much of straight porn *isn't* particularly erotic for women. So anyway, after chewing on that for a while it occurred to me that while there's gay porn (for men) and straight porn (also for men) there wasn't anyone actually trying to create erotic images of straight men *for straight women.* After chewing on it further I summoned up *a lot* of courage, got out a camera with a remote control, and took a handful that, I hoped, *didn't* focus on what most male, or male-interest-serving photographers focus on.
I took photos of myself because I really didn't have any other models, and, taking them, I was dead afraid my skinny, ugly, un-conventional body type would distract and/or turn off people so much they wouldn't recognize what I was trying to say. And the results were both overwhelming and, the big surprise for me, overwhelmingly positive!
I *still* think a lot of the appeal has to do with me just trying to be interesting and not so much me as all that attractive (where that means even if I *wasn't* attractive since people insist I am.)
So anyway, after I posted that first series I thought I was done and so I stopped. And received a lot of queries and complaints. And so every now and then I take another series, usually of me doing ordinary things around my home but always mostly just about the small erotics of everyday life and not the exotic worthiness/achievement-linked stuff that's nearly always a part of porn for men. And then I just post one photo a day from the set.
It gets a little problematic for me sometimes because often I'll be in a randy mood... or at least rowdy one... when I take the photos, and then thirty, or ninety, or one-hundred-and-ten days later I'll be distracted or aggravated or wrapped up in ideas instead of erotics... and the next photo in the series will be more, um, naked than usual.
I try to keep going but sometimes I chicken out. For those of you who are into seeing those you can let me know either in comments or email and I'll send you an invitation to go behind the "friends-category" firewall where I'm more comfortable because nobody's seeing anything they didn't expect or ask to see.
And *that's* how the photos come to be there. It's part political, part illustrative, part accomodation, part personal, part arrogance, part payback, part self-education, part self-expression, part force of habit, part self-image verification, part tweaking the "women aren't 'visual'" part of the paradigm... the list goes on and on, and so, till I run out again anyway, will the photos. I'm totally
By coincidence I happen to be semi-starting a new photo series today -- it's actually a continuation of the previous one but I decided it might be more interesting to put my clothes *back on* while I was still aroused instead of parading around in the buff a bunch more.
I like your photos. They present a realistic sense of human sexuality always being a part of life at all times. The everyday erotic is all around us.
[Thank you, Adela! I appreciate it! --fl]
I've never thought you were 'skinny, ugly, un-conventional' in your pictures.
I mainly remember the very nice legs you have.
[No, quite a few emphatic comments like yours have persuaded me I just *though* I was skinny, etc. And I totally appreciate you and others like you who finally pounded that through my thick skull, J! Thank you. --fl]
Part arrogance? Arrogant is possibly that last way I'd describe you figleaf:)
If you want to believe people find you interesting rather than attractive, who am I to try to persuade you otherwise. Just believe there is at least one who finds you both - equally!
Nice, um, outline above:)
[Ok, so I'm *shyly* arrogant. :-) Thank you sincerely for your kind words, A. --fl]
I have the t-shirt that says "I dig scrawny pale guys" so, um, yeah, the world takes all types. That conventional muscular type the media tells me I should find attractive? I find it actively repulsive. Ew, muscles, gross. Lumpy, hard, no fun to snuggle with.
I've never understood where the myth that women aren't visually stimulated comes from. Maybe it was started by blind women?
[What it comes from is highly wilful denial that women are *anything* like men (or vice versa.) Men like porn so women have to like "erotica." Glad you like us normal-looking guys, Plymouth. Thanks! --fl]
I love your photos because you are a real, sexy, attractive man who has a wonderful eye for a great photo. You've already made me a "friend" on Flickr and I appreciate it. I find your photos very erotic and hope you continue them into the foreseeable future.
I've always wondered though, how does your partner feel about such erotic photos of you on the internet?
[My partner has visited my site, and when we're discussing current events and/or scandals she asks if I'm going to blog about it. But otherwise she doesn't say much at all about it. She thinks it's funny, or a little wierd, that anyone thinks I'm attractive. I mean *she* thinks I'm attractive but, maybe because she knows me better, I don' t think she thinks I'm cross-the-street attractive. I, on the other hand, think it's great. :-) Thanks, Bunny. --fl]
I don't see you as pale (fair?) and definitely not scrawny. Thanks for the pictures, Figleaf, I dig them. I think the whole idea that women are not visually stimulated in not from women, blind or otherwise, so much as, as you said, so much of porn is made for men. Who wants to look at a bunch of vaginas. Not me, Not that I think vaginas are gross or anything, they just don't turn me on. You, on the other hand, are nice to look at.
I also think that part of what makes a man attractive is what he has to say, and I think that is a big part of what attracts so many women to you. I think women like a self respecting man who respects women and manages to at the same time to still be manly.
[Yeah, if all porn was nothing but men, men, men... especially presented in a way that I couldn't relate with personally... it wouldn't do much for me either. But that wouldn't make me "non-visual" either. Good point, CB! Thanks. --fl]
I just found your site recently, through Hugo or feminist allies. I don't remember which.
The posts are interesting and I love the pictures. I like the timidity and shyness in them.
I think the idea that women are not viewers is left over from the idea that women don't/shouldn't like sex. If you are not supposed to want sex, then seeing a man (semi) naked, or watching people have sex, seeing a good-looking man clothed even, shouldn't turn you on. Nothing should turn you on.
Men (in general) realize that women do look, that we are viewers (or they are beginning to realize anyway). Straight men work out, dress and present themselves to be physically attractive to women. I realize that there are other reasons as well, but being attractive to women is one of them for most, I think. All of my gay male friends assume that women look.
The thing is, that most men (read: non feminist sensitized) don't realize that or why pornography made for them is not erotic to most women. They assume that since it turns them on, it turns us on. My current partner is male, but I am turned on by women also. He knows that I like erotic art. He is very aware that I enjoy looking at people who I find sexually attractive and that it may turn me on. However, I had a discussion with him the other day about why what goes on in a strip club turns me off rather than turning me on, even though it turns him on. I am not turned on by women subjugating themselves to men in order to stimulate the men. Watching that turns me off to possibilities for the man and the woman.
[Yeah, that and, at least for me, stripping is the quintessential expression of the "no-sex" class paradigm: no matter how many cues the stripper manefests, no matter how much money the customer sticks in her garter, she's never, ever going to have actual sex with him. Or they wouldn't call it *teasing!* (Yes, some prostitutes work in strip clubs but and... eventually... dole out orgasms in "champaign" rooms, but at that point it's not technically stripping anymore.) And of course even prostitution tends to happen inside the paradigm (i.e. "women want money, men want sex, how's that different from marriage?") So I can see how real women might have a harder time with that part of it (as do I.) But yeah, just because watching men and women act out patriarchal transactions doesn't float your boat doesn't mean something actually *erotic* wouldn't float it nicely. Thanks, Christina. --fl]
I actually like unconventional body types, and what I've seen so far, your body is NOT ugly. So please keep posting them as long as you are comfortable taking them. Besides your photos are very tasteful and sexy.
Just for the record, I've taken nude photography of myself, posted on a nudist website, and gotten some wonderful responses. And my own body wouldn't be considered conventional in the "model" standards (ie..I have hips!). Its very empowering to know that I don't have to starve myself to death or go under the knife to know that people find me attractive.
Its good to see healthy men, in different shapes and sizes showing off in varying degrees of undress. I'd love to see more men be more comfortable with their own bodies.
[Just a quick challenge on using the word "conventional" in terms of body type when we usually mean "unconventional but sought-after." The beauty myth claims there's only one "conventional" woman in the world -- recently at least it was either Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Aniston, right? And Brad Pitt or maybe George Cloony as the single "conventional" man and, meanwhile, *everybody else* is below "normal" attractive. :-) But yeah, obviously not even at the level of arithemetic, let alone human esthetics, does beauty work that way. Thanks, Gina! --fl]
Thank you for being hairy and not afraid to show it. It's amazing how many men get a complex about not being one of those oiled, hairless guys in ads and magazines everywhere.
[Thank you, Lydia! --fl]
I started taking nude shots of myself to combat my body dysmorphia. Several photos later I have learnt to accept my body and take pride in my work and its subject, and I think you should too :)
p.s. I've added you as a contact on Flickr
p.p.s Please ignore my blog, it's still in fledgling stage
[Hey Virago. I won't exactly *ignore* your blog since I see you've already got some good posts up. I think it's great that you're getting into self-photography because, as you've noticed, it's a *great* way to appraise one's self more fairly than we usually allow ourselves to do it. --fl]