merry kinkmas

Two things about these images.

First, yes, I know I’m going to a very special hell when I die. Obviously. But there’s something appealing and fun about coming up with such odd things.

Second, this is why I kind of love Lego photography.

I had the idea for the first image, set it up, snapped it and walked away. Then some marketing part of my mind kicked in and thought that, y’know, there’s probably an audience for the same sex/leather daddy version of this image. A quick swap (and no small amount of angry muttering as things kept falling over) later and I took the second picture. And I was done.

What happens next? Eh, maybe cards next year? Or at SEAF? I dunno. But I dug the hell out of the process.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

let’s get critical

I fancied myself something of a poet when I was in college. I wrote a lot, hit a bunch of open mic and went through the standard cliched Bukowski phase (because of course). When I moved to Seattle in 1999 I imagined that here I would find my artistic transformation and take over the scene. I got published a couple of times, which was cool, but after a while I just drifted away and got bored. Shades of things to come.

But I think of it all now and again, particularly in terms of constructive criticism and the best bit of advice I ever got as any kind of creative person. Something I still use to center myself and wish I had the chutzpah to pass on in the proper setting.

Long story short, I was a member of an online writer’s forum and I had just posted my Epic to a criticism group. Looking back, it was an angsty bit of twaddle full of adolescent rage and “You don’t understand MAN!!!!” rhetoric. At the time, though, I thought I’d cracked something and the praise would just come pouring in.

The first comment has stayed with me to this day, decades later.

“I’m glad you got that off your chest. Now go write a poem.”

Of course I was furious. Didn’t he get it? Didn’t he see? OMG!!!! I had feelings!!!!

But eventually I calmed the hell down and I thought about it. And while, at the time, I was still quite smitten with what I’d written, I began to see it for what it was. That it was trite and monotonous and, ok, yeah, fine…

It wasn’t a poem. It wasn’t good.

But maybe next time…?

In a weird way, I think this is the best constructive criticism I’ve ever gotten. I’m serious. It didn’t faff about talking about the imagery or the emotions involved. It was blunt and it knocked me on my ass and it made me think. Eventually.

And I think about it now whenever I’m in any kind of creative group or community that doesn’t have room for constructive criticism. Where everything’s great and everyone’s amazing and, oh my god, where did you get your ideas to post yet another picture of a naked girl by a waterfall? Again?

On the one hand, everyone has different goals in their artistic journeys. I get that in my fire spinning groups. I’m pretty content to flow and call it good while others will practice for hours at a time to perfect every move. Hell, there’s room for fine art and coloring books, selfies and studio photography, Bob Ross and Pablo Picasso. Who am I to critique someone who’s just having fun taking pictures? Hell, honestly I wouldn’t like people to inundate my Instagram feed with unasked for criticism.

On the other, I think a little criticism would do us all good as creative people, especially in groups or communities dedicated to the arts. It doesn’t have to be mean or dickish, but a little bit of bluntness maybe? Or even the freedom to respond to someone asking “what do you think?” with something other than just a polite “nice!”

Or, more frustrating to me, being silent because, as we all know, if you can’t say anything nice…

I’d like to say something honest. I’d like to say something constructive. I’d like to say that I can’t make out the model in the chaos of the background. That the photo isn’t “mysterious” so much as I just can’t tell what the hell is going on. Or that it’s minifigure on moss. That the colors are great but how is this different from the last picture? Or the pose is great but the composition could’ve used some work.

On the one hand, the artist doesn’t have to do a damn thing about any of it. But maybe the next time they approach a concept, something will resonate? Or maybe someone else will read it and think of it the next time they plan a shoot? And maybe we can all develop thicker skins and grow?

Just by being honest.

looking back on burlesque

The other night at my regular fire spinning gathering, I was talking with a friend I’ve not seen in months and I mentioned burlesque in passing.

“Don’t you miss anything about burlesque?”

This being a very amorphous group with people coming and going I didn’t actually get a chance to answer, but I did think about it.

And to be honest I do miss parts of it. But not necessarily the bits people think about.

 

Kitten LaRue, Burlesque Through The Looking Glass, Triple Door

 

It’ll come as no surprise that I miss the spectacle and grandeur of the best of it. Productions by Verlaine/McCann or almost anything at the Can Can would leave me breathless. Or the performers who brought such a strong dance background that what they did could transcend “just” burlesque.

But I also miss the joy of the people who couldn’t perform and owned that shit. I shot for Indigo Blue’s Academy of Burlesque for about five years, which was a mixed bag. There were experienced performers and neophytes. Some could rock the stage, some had never even considered it. And oddly enough, the students who knew their limitations and embraced them were phenomenal and memorable. Hell, I remember an act from the very first graduation class ever simply because it was so simple, silly and joyous. They may not have had the chops, but it was clearly fun, which was the best.

And as much as I loved the Triple Door, I missed the intimacy of places like the Pink Door. I hated having to shoot on the floor and management could be flighty, but the pictures were amazing.

 

Aerialista, Triple Door

 

I miss the variety of some of the venues. The ones that would bring in opera singers, aerialists, actors or even (ugh) performance artists to break the sameness of evening. Burlesque, burlesque, burlesque… and now a blues singer? Cool!

I miss the good emcees, whether classy like Jasper McCann or crass as fuck like Armitage Shanks. The ones who gave the audience a chance to breathe before the next Big Number. And I miss the time Jasper helped me mess with my parents when they came out west to visit me one time.

I made a lot of friends and I miss them. But I couldn’t share their enthusiasms anymore and it was painful to have to bite my tongue.

Belle Cozette, Pink Door

I miss the weirdly wonderful surreal experience of backstage or post-show conversations. It’s where the ephemeral and the mundane collided. Beautiful women, scantily clad, it’s a teenage boy’s wet dream… and they’re talking about the weather and holy fuck, that coworker? Or talking with Vienna la Rouge, a gorgeous and amazing performer, at the bar at the Pink Door about traffic. It was rarely about anything truly bizarre but it never felt normal either? So it was wonderful.

I’ll admit that selfishly I miss having a pool of talent to work with in the studio. But can you blame me?

Jesse-Belle Jones, in studio

Beyond that, I don’t miss anything. Granted, a lot of that is a function of having been intensely active in the scene for six years. I was on and off stage. At some points, I was going to more shows in a week than most people would see in a month or two. Familiarity bred contempt, weariness, boredom…

I don’t miss the de rigueur nudity or the hype. It’s too much like being shocked to see a fight at a hockey game, and the odds of that happening aren’t as good there. The odds of a fight are more like 90%. Or the crass, long-winded emcees who relied on that hype.

For that matter, I don’t miss the performers who only brought a willingness for a certain, specific form of exhibitionism and nothing else. Half-assed props, flimsy costumes and no choreography to speak of? Pass. Hard pass.

I really don’t miss the hypocrisy of such an “edgy” scene. You know, the kind where everyone wants to push buttons and test boundaries until they’re the ones who are offended? I saw a lot of that there.

I don’t miss the feeling of obligation to go to every show.

And ultimately I do not miss the culture of extreme politeness that seemed to preclude any kind of criticism. That everything was OK. Don’t believe me? Go check out Dan Savage’s review/critique of three shows in three nights from 2010 and then go read the comments. I love the people complaining that he didn’t go to have fun but, oh my, to be critical? How dare he!

Vienna la Rouge, Re-Bar (backstage)

Don’t get me wrong, for all my grousing on this topic, I neither expected nor wanted every performer to have Juilliard training or corsets covered with Swarovski sequins. But we are talking about an artistic community whose only real barrier to entry is a six week course. After that, you can perform for a long time.

On the one hand that’s great and encourages steady growth in the scene. On the other, would you see a band that had only ever played their instruments for six weeks? Really?

I think I’ve been in karaoke bars that had higher standards.

Would I go back? No. I did go to a show to support a friend of mine three or so years ago, but apart from her act, it was so ritualized and anemic. You know. Tits. Except my friend’s, which was about her breast cancer, so… kind of different emotional arc there.

Of course I miss the spectacle. But now I shoot fire. Hell, I play with fire. When I want to. With no expectations and no need for an audience.

Perfect.

fake nudes

I’ve got to get this off my chest.

My name is Chris and I’m bored with nudity as a transgressive act. Or even as an inherently sexy one.

No no, I like the view. This isn’t about being prudish or me trying to pass myself off as someone who has transcended such carnal needs as lust. Nonsense, I’m another lump of hyper-evolved protoplasm with the same biological drives the rest of y’all have. I want to procreate so my next generation of offspring will thrive. NYAR!!!!!

But I’m no longer that hormonal teen who hoped for a lingerie catalog to sneak in to my bedroom for… personal growth *cough*.

What bugs me is when nudity is the hype… and that’s it. Yay hot naked girls!

It’s what turned me off of burlesque towards the end. The emcee would announce that the audience might see some boobs and all I could think was that not only had I seen plenty of boobs before, I’d actually seen those boobs before many times and… well, what else was there beyond that? Ideally there would be talented performers with well constructed acts. Realistically, there were fewer of those than the swelling ranks of performers who took the stage hoping that nudity would disguise the terror in their eyes as they gamely aped the moves they’d learned from others before the audience cheered.

After a while it felt like a kind of “lowest common denominator” of sexiness, this institutionalized expectation that seeing a naked woman was inherently shocking and titillating and thereby trumped anything else about the work. Ignore the subject or the emotion or the narrative because we’re looking at tits, people! It’s bold!

Really? Is it?

After a certain point, can’t we admit that we’ve all seen enough nudity in our lives that the fact itself is no longer shocking?

Or that we aren’t inherently shocked by seeing pictures of what we can see and know of ourselves? It always cracks me up when I collaborate to have to label risqué photo references as not safe for work. The warning is fair, yes, but that nine times out of ten, I’m not sharing a picture of anything the models can see of themselves in the mirror. “Fair warning, Jenny. This picture has some nudity…”

So yeah, I’m kind of jaded when it comes to the sexy and kinky. I mean, you spend six years shooting burlesque and another five years adjacent to the kink scene, of course you’ll have seen a few things. Over and over again. To the point of ridiculousness.

So I try to ask questions.

Why is this sexy? Is it sexy because it is inherently, universally sexy or is it something that we’re being told culturally is sexy and it’s easier to go along with it rather than make waves?

Like porn. How much of that industry’s troubles stem from the fact that they’re not producing what people really want and instead produce something that the most people kind of want with the least amount of hassle and embarrassment? Do we really want those Olympic level fuck fests of bad acting and clearly uncomfortable positions in eerily empty bedrooms? Or two (or more) people who have clearly found a moment of lust and go at it for three minutes like a Bernie Mac routine?

Like strip clubs. The strip club a couple blocks from my house (the sign up top is outside it) has a sign that says “No Teasin’, Just Pleasin'”. But that’s their business model, isn’t it? Look but don’t touch. Enjoy talking with “Candy”, who’s real name is Joan but you’ll never know that and isn’t it hot just watching what you can never have, gentlemen?

Like the photo sets a friend and I swap back and forth, ripping them to shreds for bad costumery, incompetent staging and the most lifeless “hot” poses ever… but they’re naked and they’re supposed to look like they’re making out so, hey, it’s obviously sexy!

Like a hot naked girl.

Don’t you want to see the girl of your dreams? Naked? How about if she just stood in front of you with all the inherent warmth and dynamism of a mannequin? Would that still be sexy? Really? Because clearly that’s all that matters.

That’s right take it off, take it all… ummm… actually… can we walk that back?

And yet we live in a world that has an erotic carp calendar (the link is work safe). Really. Because hot girls are hot.

Look, nudity without context is Grey’s Anatomy. Not the TV show, the medical tome. Nudity without intent is the Visible Woman. It’s just what’s there when people don’t wear clothes and the audience isn’t looking at them in a sexual context. Like life drawing or modeling for medical conferences or being backstage at a theater, there may be a moment or two nervous discomfort but pretty soon you get used to it.

Despite what Republicans would have you believe.

To make nudity sexy, you need conviction and context and a lot of the erotic photography I see lacks that. It’s just hot girls and aren’t you shocked by looks that we’re pretty worn out when Suicide Girls first became a thing?

I’m thinking about this again because the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival is accepting submissions again and I’ve always been of two minds about it.

On the one hand, I definitely think that there should be more exploration of the erotic arts and a safe space to share all the myriad things we find titillating, even and especially when they are not universal. We need to be able to talk about our sexuality freely and openly.

On the other, having attended a couple of times, I’m left wondering if it has to be naked all the time? After a while isn’t it kind if deadening to see, yep, another cock and balls. Another bit of pubic hair without a hint of humanity. Woman tied up like side of beef, yep. Again. It’s funny to consider how frequently these erotic images feature only one person at a time. Not sex or a relationship or even the interplay between two people, just one body frequently after something has been done to it: arms in bondage, ball gag in a mouth and that’s it. Probably because he viewer is meant to see themselves as playing a part in the image without the artist’s participation. It’s just the audience and the subject of the photo… and that’s not creepy at all!

How cool would it be to just imagine what’s going on? Or see the real, wonderful, human story without seeing every damn thing? I want to see the process of bondage, not the end result.

For the record, I’ve shown and sold at SEAF before and I’m chuffed as hell that not only did I do it with a fairly tame image, but it was purchased by a photographer whose work I admire greatly.

the peep

And I’m submitting again this year with a couple of ideas I’ve had rattling around in my head. I have no idea if I’ll make the cut but I’m really curious to see what happens.

Beyond that, I want to see what I can do with and about this. I want to see what I can show without showing or seeing too much.

Live! Nude! Girls! Need! Not! Apply!