The filth; and I don't mean the police.

Alright... new combinations of image sources. I must say, my photo-history class has gorgeous material I'll have to mine. Unfortunately, this is inevitably a slow process. If you cast yourself backwards within the blog, adrift and listless, you'll find that I used to post many more historical photographs than what's represented these days, but they were mostly taken from archives of "found" photos; archives that I've now largely abandoned.

I was feeling reticent to address the presence of the pornographic material, yet again.

But then I thought, no; I've written frequently enough about nearly all of the photographs that I've been posting lately. Why should these be excluded from examination, discourse, analysis? The same critical procedure granted to all images I view as interesting.

And unfortunately for those of you that truly find them objectionable; this is a problem. Because I rather enjoy them. I understand that inevitably a percentage of readers will fail to find them sexually titillating; but is it so inconceivable to simply find them interesting as subject matter? A thoughtful objection might revolve around the perception of a heteronormative agenda. If so; I'll keep this in mind. I'm not opposed to a widening of perspective. A caveat, though, is that this is not my field, nor do I wish it to be. In other words, the projected path has the possibility of deviation, but not the promise. Sound good?

Probably not. C'est la vie.

[And to equivocate even further, I myself have gone through long periods in which I specifically avoided this kind of imagery. I didn't want to think about it; mostly due to loneliness, at that time. So, in that regard, I do sympathize. Still, if you're in a period of your life in which you rarely get the opportunity to be intimate with another person, you can certainly rest assured that, to my knowledge, sex still isn't much like this for what I consider regular people. Which we all already know. Sometimes it becomes very difficult addressing writing toward an abstraction of a reader. Sexual orientation, marital status, age, political affiliation? I mean, my regular Saudi visitors (hi, guys) have their own thoughts and opinions on these matters. How do I remain sensitive to their... this is an impossible train of thought. Regardless, the internet must have some form of... I mean, we're global, online. Right? Are you guys teenagers? White-collar professionals? Students? I'm not trying to belittle or berate you. I'm just curious.]

Pornography as an environmental cursor.
After watching an hour-long lecture (alright, playing in the background) on effective "networking practices," (essentially in-depth analysis of Linked-in, Facebook, and Twitter; meaning irrefutably that, in terms of self-promotion and professionalism, I simply do not exist) I found myself realizing that these images create an implicit categorical or meta-level rejection of traditional "safe advertising" environments. Um... you have noticed, presumably, that I attempt to treat this as a precious, commercially protected space, no? I mean, aside from beer commercials, which have never done anything bad to anyone, ever.

Although this stance can be very simply challenged by acknowledging that these images, by their nature, can almost not not exist as product, and that by posting and propagating them, all I'm tangibly doing is providing free advertising.

So be it. If advertising insists on attempting to capture my interest with subtle allusions (or not-so-subtle, as the case may be) toward the sexual act, then god damn it, I'll just look at that act. Why half-measure? I've never understood advertising's smug assumption that they can siphon off the inherent interest that most people have regarding sex, but without having to face any of the ugly realities; at least of its form after commercialization and commodification. Not sure what I mean? Well, for an off-the-top-of-my-head example, the history of violence and coercion involved in the filming of sex. Another would be the more recent (within perhaps the last 15 years) integration of these impulses and emotional resonances into a viable commercial model. Choking, slapping, the ubiquitous demeaning and often cruel nature of practically every spoken word uttered aloud in commercial pornography. When they bother to speak. Most of the time, it's barely recognizable as human behavior, and I feel like a very old person in worrying about what an idiotic child (or adult) could "learn" from watching these uncritically.

Regardless.







A general question, and one more specific: why transition into explicit sexual imagery, and secondly, why the emphasis on fellatio?

Answer one. I don't know. Sources of appropriated images, somewhat. Change of pace. An inevitable desire to display a less racially homogenous representation of erotic work.

There is certainly erotic work widely available that conforms to the censorship restrictions found in Japanese erotica, but for a reason I wouldn't be able to specify it tends to be extremely uninteresting, photographically.

Does it really make a difference?

Answer two. Coincidence? Not quite true, but almost. I like it when I can see the performer's eyes. That sounds creepy, and perhaps a little insane, but the images I've gathered of orifices and appendages interacting becomes, in isolation, like some kind of mechanical catalogue, and moderately grotesque. I'm not setting out to dehumanize this stuff even further.

(Can you tell why compiling a collection like this isn't as much fun as you'd think it would be? This material can get depressing in an instant.)

Lastly, on the horizontal cut applied to vertical images. Practical necessity. However, it also encouraged me to take a little time appreciating what was happening in portions of the image that normally I wasn't focusing on much. For a little while I thought they might be interesting in that perhaps they (one half of the whole) would be completely non-graphic. Does that change their value? However, in study, I found there wasn't an un-explicit half. The implication of the act is usually enough to tip your brain right away that this isn't a normal image.





That's all I've got. Enjoy!

(And don't worry; we'll take a break from this for a while now.)

[Final image note: that last one seems rather sweet, to me. Perhaps it's just because they're holding hands. So romantic.]