On Nude Photography

Many links in this post go to images which are definitely not safe for work!

I like to think that I am neither a prude nor a sex maniac; that I can appreciate both the erotic and the sensual in art. To me "nude photography" is very much on the sensual side of that scale, a delight for the visual sense but not providing the titillation of the erotic. It is about form, lighting, and the presentation of the human form. As humans we find the human form beautiful, aesthetically and sexually attractive, but I think we've lost our way somewhere between the two.

I've heard all too often that "men get turned on by the visual/physical," and "women get turned on by the intellectual/emotional." Were I generous with my words I might say that this is a crass simplification, but really I find it to be a horridly false stereotype of a gender binary. This binary is likely self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating thanks to our society and its media, and it is this matter which brings me back to nude photography. You see, I am trying to learn about nude photography — the composition, the lighting, the techniques — and I don't care about gender of subject. That's not to say I am bisexual (though Kinsey might argue there is some bisexuality lurking in all of us, sexuality is an irrelevance for I do not see why appreciating a form artistically necessitates a sexual response), but I care about the image I wish to capture and present; the natural beauty, if you will. Just as there is a huge difference between the words "I am in love with you" and "I love you" there is a world separating "I think you look sexy" and "I want to have sex with you".

Today I read an analysis by OkCupid comparing gay and straight sex, and it should surprise nobody that their research found about 50% of women had had or would like to have a sexual encounter with another woman, but under 20% of men would do/have done the same with another man. I'll leave the explaining as to why this is the case to the psychologists and anthropologists. Personally I think this is culturally pressured rather than a "hereditary behaviour" and I think this sexual behaviour spills over into the world of photography with numerous manifestations.

In trying to learn about photographing the body I have relied rather heavily on the only model I have access all the time: myself. I am male. I do not look at myself and think much of my physical form — I'm just a bloke! — but I don't have a body image problem where I can't look at myself in a mirror. "It could be better, I'm sure, but it'll do in a pinch." Male and female bodies are different shapes and textures, and with this in mind I went looking for some nude male imagery to serve as inspiration or teaching example so as to better direct my own experiments. Sadly what I found drove me to this rant you are now reading. I post a lot of my pictures on Flickr, and so after a fairly humdrum experience trawling the wider Internet I searched there. What did I find?

• groups that at first appear to be just about "nude photography" but once you delve into the depths they are gender-exclusive (I want to say "sexist" but that has other connotations which I'll get to later):
  • What we WANT you to post: only your very best fine art nude photos, the photos you think will inspire others to create great work, the photos that show your reverence and respect for the female form, the ...
  • High Quality Art Nude / Erotic — high quality pics of woman Nude or sexy lingere and heels
• groups that aren't gender-exclusive in their descriptions, but can you find a male nude anywhere? Example screenshots 1, 2, 3.
• groups that are male-specific, but given a hard-on is a sexual act it is difficult for me to think of many of the pictures posted to be "nude" rather than "purely erotic". Example 1, 2... and countless more! But there are a couple of counter-examples which are like gems in the muck that use humour or composition to not come across as something purely carnal.
• men censoring their faces such as in example 1, 2.

Gender exclusive nude groups I can quite understand for a gender binary exists and some people simply do not want to look at someone who has the same plumbing as them without a covering layer of clothing. I do feel there is an inherent underlying sexism though, possibly in part driven by the skew that OkCupid found and by the statement "men are turned-on by the visual"; men aren't attracted to men in our society, and women aren't attracted to the physical form of men, so what's the point in showing them either erotically or artistically? Or am I being too charitable and in reality there is more exploitation of women going on in a media of "Page Three" girls and "lads mags" being a tits-and-ass-fest? (my thoughts: yes, there are a lot of people being exploited by that industry, and that this is true of much of the adult entertainment industry)

The final point, of men censoring their faces so as to retain anonymity, reinforces a form of sexism in nude imagery. It is surely not the case that a woman gains standing through baring all but a man could suffer something detrimental? The situation appears to be even worse when looking at erotic imagery: in this day and age of "Web 2.0" where user-contributed content is all the rage, it is all too common to find erotic pictures of men anonymised while pictures of women are clearly identifiable. I've seen examples of this across the board, and it is exceptionally common on alternative dating websites where a typical male profile picture is of his erect cock and a typical female profile picture is more sensuous. Strangely this goes against the commonly-spoken "wisdom": are men displaying their phalluses because it is successful at attracting women? Is this because men are showing what they want to show, or is it because women are choosing based on liking what they see? Similarly are men actually being attracted to the face and form of the women, or is this what women think they want to see, or is it what they want to see of themselves?

Debating and deciding what the hell is going on here will probably take an eternity, and really doesn't get me much further in my quest for learning about nude photography and, specifically, the male form. Yet it strikes me that there is a sexism in which modern Western society discriminates against the naked male body. If girls are suffering under popular media's presentation of "what women must look like to be beautiful and do to be noticed" then perhaps the boys' equivalent is perhaps "men not being wanted or allowed to look beautiful", be it through a fear of being seen to be homosexual, or a photography and art industry dominated by the male gaze, or a gender binary that has gone quite mad, or otherwise.

Whatever the underlying causes might be, I went and got my camera out, set up my lighting and backdrops, and started practicing. But this isn't over...