self-photography

I Win! Louis Theroux Says Free Internet Porn is Killing Industrial Porn. As I Predicted Back in 2007!

Posted by figleaf on Thu, 2012-06-07 17:00

Frequently Freakonomics-addled economics professor Alex Tabarrok relays the following from Louis Theroux in The Guardian

...it is difficult to see how a business selling hardcore movies and even internet clips is sustainable when most people simply don’t want to pay if they don’t have to. To many people, when it comes to porn, not paying for content seems the more moral thing to do.

Source: The Guardian

To which I can only say I'm winning. That's a link to what I think was my first assertion that as both the stigma for acknowledging one's sexual activities and the economic barriers to entry drop, the number of people who find it exciting to upload "porn" made with partners who similarly enjoy exhibitionism is going to increase. And as it increases it's going to eclipse industrial porn.

Or, as I'd put it today, I would add that, especially now that both stigma and capital barriers to entry are so low, to many other people when it comes to porn not charging for the content they and their sex partners produce and upload also seems like the more moral thing to do.

Because the best thing about zero-marginal-cost porn is there’s also approximately zero marginal incentive for the coercion, exploitation, and unsafe working conditions which have traditionally been the biggest objections to porn, at least on the progressive side of anti-porn debates.


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A Not-Recommended Solution to Writer's Block, Oh, Plus Reflections on Gender and "Crotch Shot" Self-Photography

Posted by figleaf on Sun, 2011-11-13 13:53

It's often observed by college students that one is most inclined to clean one's room when one should be writing one's term papers. Similarly ones term papers urgently demand attention to the precise degree that one's room needs cleaning.

This morning I have been doubly productive -- not only cleaning to the uttermost depths of the refrigerator but also knocking out posts with aplomb. I have not, however, made an inch of progress on a project that a) I'll actually get paid to do that is b) due Monday morning. :-P

Meanwhile, though, I might as well mention something I've been meaning to write about in greater detail for several weeks. In one of my whirlwind patrols of the Tumblr erotic self-photograpy circuit I've started to notice more and more women seem to be picking up the vulva equivalent of male cock-shot syndrome. While increasing numbers of women seem to be engaging in this allegedly exclusively male behavior I don't know if they're yet emailing them to random recipients on dating sites. But I sort of imagine that as time passes and social permissions equalize we'll probably start seeing a little more of women doing it.

Another observation about the male-cock-shot syndrome. Just as not all women are likely to start exclusively posting 8x10 color glossies of their vulvas, it turns out that neither do most men!

It also occurs to me that, gender narratives notwithstanding, a lot of men may have been sending out those photos for the same reason women seem to have started doing it. Because they can, sure. But also not so much because they're aggressive or even utterly, esthetically clueless. I think instead it's because they imagine that everyone else will be as fascinated by the poster's locus of erotic pleasure as the posters themselves tend to be.

Well.

Duty calls.

Oh, not that duty though! I can't work on my paid, near-deadline project now, oh no. Now I have to go shopping for the week!

After that I may have to mop the roof! :-P


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Sports Equipment Word to the Wise, Plus a Possible Sign that We've Reached Peak Porn

Posted by figleaf on Sun, 2011-08-28 13:18

Photo by Flickr user Photoraphy_Gal. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Photo by Flickr user Photography_Gal. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Don't ask me why I would know such a thing but sex on a trampoline isn't as much fun as it sounds.

Actually that's not quite true. It's lovely to be outdoors, if you get a thrill out of the possibility of being seen or perhaps caught it can be fun, and hey, it's a nice relatively flat surface. And since trampolines are a great form of exercise and sex after mild physical exertion can be pretty great because of the increased circulation, oxygenation, muscle activation, and body warmth.

So let me rephrase my original sentence: "don't ask me why I would know such a thing but vigorous woman- or man-on-top PIV intercourse on a trampoline isn't as much fun as it sounds.

Yes, of the 100,000 or so trampoline-related emergency room visits sprained penises, bruised hips and pubic bones, and other pelvis-related injuries rank pretty low. But...

Oh wait, I said don't ask why I would know such a thing... :-)

I'll just say that it was years ago.

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Incidentally, at least according to Google, while Rule #34 ("if you can imagine it there's porn of it") appears to be conserved thanks to a few relatively random uploads to sites like YouPorn, there do not appear to be any dedicated trampoline porn sites.

This, incidentally, could be more significant than some people might think. A few years ago I predicted that the flood of amateur photography made possible by stigma relaxation plus affordable home recording equipment plus ordinary network effects would have strong negative consequences in the market for paid porn. After all, 5 megapixel cameras on dumb cellphones are now par for the course so if even one tenth of one percent of the billion or so people with digital capability choose to upload images they've taken for their own enjoyment that's 100,000 new actors and models competing with paid performers and producers.

I'm confident there will always be specialty sites, particularly for the kinds of things far more people want to consume than are willing to produce for their own recreation (cough kink.com) but to invert William Gibson's famous quip, the future may not yet be evenly distributed but it's here.

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Note: I don't object to commercial porn in principle, and the total market for professionals will never be completely replaced any more than affordable home equipment has replaced ordinary professional photographers. But the influx of volunteers both in front of and behind cameras has reduced the previously high opportunities for arbitraging the ability to make money by depicting fairly ordinary people engaging in what at the end of the day are fairly ordinary sexual activities.


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HNT Editorial: "Sex" Tapes and the Mundanity of Women in Winter Pants

Posted by figleaf on Wed, 2009-11-11 21:07

Anna N of Jezebel has some information for your Half-Nekkid Thursday “I told you so” files.

Carrie Prejean may have called her sex tape “the biggest mistake of my life,” but according to Salon, we are totally over watching celebrities bone.

Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams writes that “it was a big freaking deal when Rob Lowe had a romp with underage girls or Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee enjoyed connubial bliss,” but that after the creepy night-vision of “1 Night in Paris,” the cultural relevance of the sex tape began to wane.

...

It’s true that it’s hard to imagine one of the main tragedies of Trainspotting — Tommy’s life is basically destroyed after he and his girlfriend make a sex tape — taking place today.

She said it here.

It’s not that there are zero consequences and so everyone should just start taking and/or sharing their half-or-more-nekkid photos.

It’s more the opposite, actually.

It’s that the more people who take and/or share their half-or-more-nekkid photos the fewer consequences there are likely to be.

It’s sort of like women wearing pants. When I was in 7th grade the first girl, ever, to wear pants to school was marched right back down to the office and sent straight back home. That she was a “good girl,” with excellent grades, high participation in school activities, and was generally recognized as an exemplary student carried no water at all for the scandalized administrators. For whom all her redeeming qualities only deepened their disappointment with her deportment. (Aside: Do school administrators ever use the word “deportment anymore?”)

Never mind that it was record-breakingly cold. Standards are standards, conventions are conventions, and pants on girls are scandalous, sexualizing, gender-bending, and unladylike.

She was back the next day. In the same pair of heavy wool pants. Something about her mom and a lawyer and a decision that time could change even in public middle/junior-high schools.

I believe it’s now almost completely noncontroversial for girls to wear heavy wool pants (if not entire tuxedos... yet) to school. Even though not all that long ago it was transgressive and “career-ruining” enough warrant suspension or expulsion.

Same with photos. It’s not yet soaked in but it turns out people have bodies, and cameras, and libidos. It’s still transgressive, if considerably less career-ruining enough that I don’t think everybody should jump online in their altogethers. But before my 7th grader reaches my age I suspect it’ll be roughly as controversial as women in winter pants.


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HNT Editorial: Straining Credulity in the Defense of Half-Nekkid Self Photography

Posted by figleaf on Thu, 2009-07-23 14:02

Pam Spaulding of Pandagon has a nifty writeup of yet another “family values” Republican, this time Tennessee State Senator Paul Stanley, who a) pursued a typical evangelical religious social-conservative legislative agenda, including some anti-porn legislation, while b) conducting an affair with a much younger employee that included c) taking “compromising” photos of the intern at his apartment.

Instead of just handwringing or tisk-tisking I’m going to try for a different interpretation. But first here are the specifics…

The boyfriend, Joel Palmer Watts. 28, discovered a computer memory disc with sexually explicit photographs of [the intern, Mackenzie Morrison] that appeared to have been taken in Stanley’s apartment. Watts then blackmailed Stanley, demanding $10,000 in return for keeping quiet.

“Releasing the photographs to individuals or the media would cause embarrassment, both professionally and personally, to Stanley,” according to the court affidavit, as if we needed an explanation for why this might pose a small problem for our family values champion.

While this sounds like a garden-variety Republican Sexual Hypocrite, Stanley takes it up a notch with his legislative CV: 1) he campaigned against the right of gays and lesbians to adopt (“When you’re married, there’s a commitment there,” Stanley said last year, while discussing legislation to prohibit gay people from adopting children); and….drum roll…2) he introduced a bill prohibiting viewing porn while driving (WTF!? Is this some kind of rampant problem in Tennessee?)

...

BTW, this hypocrite Stanley told NewsChannel 5 that he will continue his social conservative legislative agenda.

Read the rest of Spaulding’s post, and follow her additional links, here.

It being Half-Nekkid Thursday and all I’m going to see if I can cobble together some way for Paul Stanley to look somewhat like less of a hypocrite… though not less of a jerk… for legislating against porn while taking his own erotic photos. Here’s how something like that might work:

a) A lot of anti-porn people seem to define porn as the depiction of unwilling, disadvantaged victims performing unwanted sexual acts that leave them feeling degraded and abused. Depending on the degree to which one believes women have any sexual agency beyond the limited right to say no before marriage this may include believing that all persons, or at least all women, who appear in porn are by-definition coerced, degraded, and performing unwanted acts. Although it might not.

b) Sen. Stanley, and possibly Ms. Morrison, may have regarded the images found by the boyfriend as mere mementos of a sexual relationship where no one was coerced or degraded and where no unwilling or undesired acts were performed.

Therefore

c) There might be no contradiction and therefore no hypocrisy if the Senator was opposed to a) porn-as-bad-by-definition and b) provocative and/or explicit images taken with only the intention to arouse the parties involved and, possibly, anyone else the participating parties chose to share those images with. Which evidently would not include the would-be blackmailer, Mr. Watts. Nor, obviously, would the “certain members of the media” Mr. Watts proposed to share those photos with without the consent of Sen. Stanley and Ms. Morrison.

d) Which, of course, creates the distinction most right-minded people need to judge publication of so-called “revenge porn.” Revenge porn is often ordinary erotica taken by consenting parties for their personal enjoyment which is then discovered by or shared with third parties without the consent of all the original participants. Often with the intention of humiliating or degrading one or more of the original participants against their will. Thus, if one prefers the “it’s only porn if it’s bad, it’s only bad if its porn” definition then that’s the point at which ordinary, self-taken images can become porn.

Therefore, if that was Sen. Stanley’s position, it would not be hypocritical to legislate against porn while taking personal photos. I’m not buying it, but I could see someone trying to make that case.

Oh, and e) Bonus supporting point: When confronted by Watt’s blackmail attempt Stanley went straight to the cops who in turn set up a sting and arrested Watts. It’s actually kind of remarkable that a married evangelical ‘winger legislator would be so straightforward, but it’s actually the exactly correct thing to do when someone like, oh, say, the average HNT participant or anyone who’s own images are misappropriated. Because whatever social consequences one might run into (remember, even in socially conservative Tennessee Stanley appears to still be married and still be a Senator) the legal consequences to the blackmailer are way harsher. Anyway, Stanley’s behavior would be consistent with my attempted he’s-a-jerk-but-not-a-hypocrite interpretation of what came down.

Now.

That being all said and done there’s a rather prominent loose end I can now address — the bit about Ms. Morrison being an intern and Sen. Stanley being at least her nominal employer and supervisor. Such relationships may or may not be an issue for evangelical tub-thumpers but they’re considered actionable under employment law. Remember I’ve been attempting to be generous here so while not forgiving or forgetting, for purposes of the first part of this post I’m treating it as a separate offense. (For which, to keep things tidy, he probably ought to be investigated, and sanctioned, under any and all rules, regulations, and statutes.)

Happy HNT (or Half-nekkid Thursday!)


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Hold That Pose... No *That* Pose!

Posted by figleaf on Mon, 2009-03-16 10:46


Photo by Flickr user figleaf (hey, that’s me!)

prMac of the technology newswire MacMegasite says

Vancouver, BC – PhotographyTips has released its first guide for posing female models for iPhone users, entitled “Poses Volume 1: The First Female Collection.”

“This product will be welcomed and embraced by photographers who use iPhones or the iPod touch, and who have a need to attractively pose female subjects,” said Dan McCormick of PhotographyTips.

Poses Volume 1 contains 368 individual color images of attractive, popular poses that any model can quickly and easily adopt. The application has a unique ‘Fit Pose’ feature that assists in getting the subject’s pose to closely match any professionally-posed example from the application. ...

“This practical guide will solve any photographer’s posing problems once and for all,” said McCormick, “whether photographing a girlfriend at the beach who may never have posed before or a professional model in the studio. It’s easy to use, and a superb posing resource that photographers and models will call upon over and over again for years to come.”

Read the quote in context here.

The volumes 2 and 3 are forthcoming. It’s possible the other two volumes will have poses for men and, I dunno, children or something, but I get the strong impression it’ll be another 736 (for a total 1104) ways to pose women.

Actually though this is pretty interesting. One of the nice things about professional, semi-professional, and amateur photography on the internet (erotic and otherwise) is you see enough images that you start to recognize a certain grammar… and organization… to poses that becomes more stylized cliche´ formal based largely on the experience or training of the photographer.

Even more interesting are digest or excerpt sites that pick out “best of set” photos for reuse on their own sites. If you follow their links to the original photo sets you’ll often see the photo in question isn’t necessarily the “best” content-wise (you might see as much of the subjects, you might see as much of the backgrounds, you might see pretty consistent proportions, focus, color, etc.) but instead “best” fits into one of the (evidently 1104 for women) ways to pose.

It’s not just human photography, obviously. You’ll see it in car and airplane photos, sports photography, food, and even LOLCats.

Anyway, it’s kind of good to see that past some level there really are, literally, templates for posing people.

Update: See also Scott Adam’s Rules of Art.


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Half-Nekkid Friday (Reflections)

Posted by figleaf on Fri, 2009-03-13 11:17

Not to change the subject (whatever the subject I’m bound to return to it) but I wanted to highlight two genuinely cool posts from yesterday’s Half-nekkid Thursday contributions.

shows us a photo of one of her tattoos

this is my daughters autograph on my right rib. the girl, Speedy, was born with a brain tumor. it was found by ultrasound at 28 weeks in utero and they removed it at 3 weeks of age. she was then diagnosed with a form of CP and i was told she wont walk or talk. she has proven them all wrong and runs and doesnt shut up.

she does have a seizure disorder, a learning delay, ADHD, and still with the mild CP.

when she tried to start printing, she had a hard time. they thought she would not be able to at all. she struggles with it but she has managed. so at the 10 year mark of my finding out about her tumor, i had her sign her name and draw a heart on a paper and i brought it to the tattoo guy. ‘i want it just like that’. he said no problem. :)

Read the text, and see the photo, here.

Even though I have a tattoo, and even considered becoming a tattoo artist, and don’t have a problem with tattoos in principle, in practice I’m rarely very enthusiastic about the results. Partly it’s because people aren’t shaped like canvas, but more because tastes change over time such that what seems unforgettably cool today seems, um, awkward 35 years later.

However! There’s just something perfect about kids drawings and skin. They look good, they’re timeless, and if they’re your children’s drawings you probably not ever going to want to forget them anyway.

Anyway, in this case especially, recording the impossible miracle of a written-off child’s handwriting? Oh yeah, that’s perfect. Add to that the nuance of a whole person with a multidimensional life and the too-often overlooked erotics of human beings’ ribs, waists, and sides, and even while being perfectly “work safe” it’s a lovely, sexy picture as well.

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Dana of Amid Life’s Crises has another thoroughly memorable HNT post this week

For about 3 days, I had been hearing a new noise when driving my car. Now mind you, I drive a 1998 Chevy Cavalier with 132,000+ miles on it – it makes many noises – but this one was unfamiliar. I talked to husband about it Friday night. Told him it was a rumbling vibration, maybe an exhaust issue. He assured me he would ride in the car over the weekend to see if he could tell what was going on. Did you know, as a wife, it is my obligation to nag? I did NOT nag him incessantly until he caved remind him that he was supposed to take a ride in my car, therefore it did not get done (*note to self* Take nagging 101 next time it is offered at the Community College).

Monday, I came home for lunch and found this. Yep! Definitely an exhaust issue. No way I can get it fixed before payday. Off to Ace Hardware to secure some 14 gauge steel wire (got to MacGyver the exhaust system back to where it belongs – at least temporarily) and then I do what all good grease monkeys do … take off my shirt, get under the car, and temporarily fix the damn thing. And yes, I really did!

See the text, the photo, plus her cool but not work-safe click-through photo here.

I love that click-through photo. It’s got this cool quality similar to the best of BDSM imagery only instead of exploring the erotics of dominance or submission — which even people who aren’t into bondage tend to be familiar with — it expresses the erotics of capability and resourcefulness. Which we tend not to encounter as often. Or at least not acknowledge.


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Maybe Not Quite Enough Too Much Information

Posted by figleaf on Wed, 2008-08-20 01:22

Well, the weather’s changed, I’ve only got two more big projects (ok, one major — packing up the basement for an entirely non-cosmetic but much-needed seismic retrofit — and one minor) and, thankfully, no more trips(!), and I hope no more heat-waves before my family returns to a normal school-year routine. Almost out of the woods isn’t out of the woods but I’m finally feeling a little less frazzled and consequently way more communicative. Apologies for being so out of communication email-wise, comment-reply-wise, and in person as well. Again I’m not out of the woods yet but, maybe because it’s finally raining properly again I’m up for a little non-seriousness and so, via Elisa of Fairy Flutters, a very late TMI Tuesday reply.

1. Are you truly politically correct? Be honest.

Yeah, pretty much. And by the way “politically correct” doesn’t mean perfect. (If nothing else, kyriarchy makes that nearly impossible anyway.) What it does mean, though, is owning your shit when you find yourself busted. Or when you bust yourself. And then cleaning up any mess you made as best you can — while recognizing “as best you can” may not be enough.

2. Will you ever streak in public during rush hour?

Hmm… Osbasso’s announced an HNT Olympics theme for this week so… Eh, probably not. For one thing I’m not sure how I’d photograph myself.

On the other hand while the memories have grown unnervingly dim I certainly streaked a number of public venues during the original streaking fad, including somewhere downtown area in Chapel Hill, NC., a (Unitarian) church service, and numerous large and small parties. Oh, and I think an interstate exit ramp in broad daylight when I knew a bunch of friends traveling in a separate car were about to pass us.

But would I ever streak in public during rush hour now? I’d need a pretty good reason, and a really great venue (I can say it’s way more fun with friends around) but… yeah, maybe.

3. Would you ever do something sexual in public (more than 20 people around)?

You’d have to define “sexual.” I’ve been covertly sexual in public places but not in a way other people would notice.

Does waking up naked with another person in a sleeping bag and discovering that what we’d imagined was the privacy of a forest but was actually someone’s back yard… with the trail of clothes we’d carelessly shed the night before scattered halfway up the hill? Fortunately the homeowners weren’t looking out their picture window but we certainly noticed them. (Yikes!)

I’ve also been sexual in a dark room where a lot of other coupled-up people were also being pretty sexual, but since we were all sort of into each other it wasn’t like anyone was putting on a show — there just wasn’t anywhere more private to retire to. So I don’t think that counts either.

Oh, and I’ve been very sexual in a couple of very large crowds (for instance a late-night outdoor concert, a fireworks display) but again only very discreetly. (It’s not about the fear of being caught, it’s about the excitement of not being noticed.)

But, again, as for would I openly have sex in front of 20 or more people? Eh, I wouldn’t rule it out, especially if it really spun a partner’s pinwheel, but I definitely wouldn’t seek it out either.

4. Do you ever not have good table manners?

Sadly no. Ok table manners yes. But definitely not great. I’m a little self-conscious about it.

5. Do you ever fantasize about a public sexual act? Describe.

Not so much. As I mentioned above I’ve been sexual in public settings but it’s not something I fantasize about.

Bonus (as in optional): Have you ever gone through a true sexual fantasy? Describe.

Oh yes! Although maybe it’s that I have pretty achievable fantasies that mostly involve highly exciting but not terribly outrageous fantasies about people I’ve had crushes on anyway. But to say I’ve gone through fantasies is sort of putting it backwards — my best fantasies are memories of things I’ve already done.

And as far as that goes, as you might expect from someone raised inside the “no-sex” class paradigm but not highly enamored of it many of my best memories are of times when partners took the initiative, seduced me, surprised me, showed me something new, pushed my limits, or otherwise shook the scales from my eyes. Going back to item #1 I really need to own that I still believe way too much about sex that turns out to be utterly, well, incorrect. :-)

Details will have to wait for another, preferably cool, rainy Pacific-Northwest day when I can finally sit down long enough to collect my thoughts without interruption. (Sigh!)


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Once a Naked Blogger?

Posted by figleaf on Sun, 2008-06-08 21:10

In a post titled “Once a Stripper, Always a Stripper” Lux Alptraum of BOINKOLOGY says of a promo for a new HBO series.

“It’s being written by smart stripper Diablo Cody, and produced by a man named Steven Spielberg. Great, just what we needed—another reason to watch TV.”

Get it? Diablo Cody took her clothes off! That’s all you need to know about her. Isn’t it funny? She was a sex worker, and now she’s a screenwriter! That’s so cute!

It’s a laugh a minute, all right.

Read the quote in context here.

Yeah, I always wonder if my more political posts would get linked back to more often if a) I was ever right or b) if I’d never posted photos of my booty or c) both.

Shoulda thought of that years ago though.

Oh well, since I did and since Lynn Gazis-Sax and Sungold are still celebrating female desire week I’ve included three of the photos most often marked “favorite” from my Flickr photo stream after the “continue reading” jump.

(Oh yeah, and while the first image isn’t as not-work-safe as it appears, you probably still wouldn’t want to try explaining it to someone else from work.)


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To Make Your Own Bed Before Lying In It.

Posted by figleaf on Thu, 2008-04-17 16:49

And speaking of masturbation and acceptance, can I just say how completely surreal it is to watch a self-made masturbation video clip?

I’m exploring this idea that we’ve got so many misconceptions about ourselves anyway, and so many misconceptions about sex, and so many romance-novel-, literature-, chit-chat-, Hollywood-, television-, and porn-based misconceptions about sex, that (not to caricature any Libertarian readers) the answer might be to watch one’s self!

And no I’m not likely to share it, at least not at this stage of the experiment. (And maybe never since I’m pretty sure that’s not the point. It’s not that I wouldn’t at least consider it after posting about about the importance of acceptance. It’s just that I think other people seeing us probably wouldn’t be the biggest benefit.)

Definitely not what I expected. It’s not what I expected in a good way, or a bad one, just not at all what I expected. Which in a big way is a big point about reality and porn. I may or may not have more to say about this (at least more to say directly) depending on levels of interest. Otherwise I may just fold it into more general conversations about porn vs. reality. If you’ve tried it and care to share what you got from watching I’d like to know what you think or thought.

[Whether reassuring or exasperating, the image behind the “Read more…” link is not otherwise related to this post. :-) —fl]


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