Just shut up and draw.

This week I gave a presentation about my project to offer drawing classes on body image and sexuality. It was well received, and I was hugely relieved, for I have long wanted to do this but haven’t always known how to go about it. Nakedness and sex are taboo issues for many, but I am discovering more and more that it is also a relief for many people to open up about these topics and share on them. As it has been for me drawing the body and writing this blog.

I still have a lot of work to do to really make this happen, but I’m at a point in my life where the fear of failure (or success) that was holding me back has finally become less uncomfortable than the discomfort of NOT doing it. There’s a great quote about that somewhere… I will find it someday and attribute it to whoever wrote it… but for now, I’m living it.

I’ve been so busy with this over the past couple of weeks that I hadn’t been drawing anymore, and when I pulled my pencils out last night and started on a new image, I was – like – hugely relieved! I love to draw. I love to concentrate on what I’m doing and forget about everything I worry about or worry about not worrying about or wonder about or regret. It all passes away and I’m just focussed on copying as faithfully as possible the image before me onto a clean new paper to give it new life through my hands. Sometimes I even feel like I’m caressing or massaging the bodies I draw, whether it’s mine or someone else’s… it’s not about owning it or changing it or reviewing it or evaluating it… and I can’t say that I am “turned on” by these images… it’s not at all like the kind of sexual excitement or arousal that makes you want to possess someone. It’s much more like a kind of detached compassion that takes over when I’m scratching away at the paper and looking back and forth between my drawing and the photograph. It’s a very peaceful thing.

I came across somebody else’s blog this morning who’d mentionned reading MY blog and she was trying to do a self-portrait but it wasn’t working. So I wrote her back and explained it to her simply, which I repeat here because I want everyone (in the entire world) to try it out too! If you have a digital camera with a timer on it, you can take pictures of yourself without the discomfort of posing in front of someone else. That in itself is a valuable part of the process. Then, if you can stomach looking at the pictures, you can choose one you love (or hate) and print in as large as possible (around 8×10) on any printer… black-and-white is fine. Then you can TRACE the image… yes, tracing is allowed, no matter what your highschool art teacher said, it COUNTS. And it will spare you alot of frustration trying to get the proportions right and allow you to focus on looking at the image while working on it, which is where the change of vision and perspective comes in along with a sense of peacefulness and quiet. But telling you about it doesn’t count. You have to feel it, experience it, experiment with it and see how it feels. And no, it may not be instantaneously joyful; like meditating, it’s a process, a practice, an unexplainable phenomenon that is therapeutic in an invisible (yet visible) way.

Please, just take this as an invitation to try something new. You don’t have to be “talented” or “artistic” or “creative” to do it… it’s more like about turning something inside-out or upside-down to see it differently. And if you try it, please let me know how the experiment goes… I’d love to hear about it. And the “Just shut up and draw” title isn’t meant to be an insult to my readers… it’s a reminder to me about the activities I prioritize, and why there’s no drawing on today’s blog…

xox Victoria

Double the Tenderness

I have not been drawing much lately, so I’ve posted a favourite piece from my first blog series in 2006. This image was drawn from a photograph I found on a porn site that I thought was quite tender in spite of everything else it was surrounded by… like a little candle in the darkness, standing out from the rest with its glowing sensuousness. 

I wanted to put it up today to honour my friends with same-sex partners… whether they call themselves “gay”, “queer”, “homosexual”, “lesbians”, or just plain old “lovers”… it doesn’t matter. Whatever you’re comfortable with. Personally, I’m not much for labels… people are all people and deserve to be treated as fully human no matter what.

The male body image photo project I’m working on has put me in contact with straight men, gay men, and even some transgendered men… and some men who dress as women. I went to a club in the gay village a couple of weeks ago to see one of our models for the EXPOSURE project dance on stage during a contest to chose a “Miss —” of the season for the club. I went with my good friend and artistic-partner in this project, another woman, and at first, we were the only females in the whole place. We sat close to the stage and watched the place literally fill up (on a Wednesday night!) before the show started, and the actual show, put on by lovely dressed-as-women-dancing men, was alot of fun to watch.

But I must admit that there was a sideshow that was equally fascinating, and both of us couldn’t keep our eyes off of it. From the moment we walked in until the time we left almost 2 hours later, there was a couple off to the side of the stage, a ways away against a wall, that were making out. Really making out. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen two men kissing before, and the passion and the tenderness they were putting into it was quite moving to see. And they didn’t stop! We both wondered why they would do this in public, if it was a thrill for them to be seen, or if they were completely oblivious to everyone and everything around them in the noisy bar. It was quite a show. They were sitting in front of a pinkish wall that was illuminated from behind, so they were silhouetted very clearly, and although the place was packed for the show, no one ever blocked the view between us and them. Honestly, I was quite touched to watch them kiss and caress each other; it was very, very sensual (and they were both beautiful, young, shapely men). I didn’t even feel a twinge of discomfort or judgement, just interest, and emotion.

In my rather heterosexual lifetime, I have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to explore another woman’s body; which was very much like meeting myself “in the flesh”. It was not an ongoing, intimate relationship, but a close friend who agreed to enter into this sacred space with me to learn more about ourselves and each other, and to honour ourselves as women…. which truly, seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do at the time, and for which I am very grateful. Perhaps allowing that line to blur for myself has made me more accepting of what other people feel or choose, or simply are… honestly, imperfect as we all are, who is anyone to judge what other people choose to experience?

Years ago when I was separating from my husband, a friend of my was also leaving her husband, because she had met and fallen in love with a woman. I was close to both him and her, and I watched helplessly as they struggled to make this break and adjustment as carefully and lovingly as possible, but naturally fears were stirred up and egos were bruised in the process as people rushed to take sides and protect those who were hurting. From the sidelines, I was anxious to see it all blow over and hoped they could remain friends. Ideally, I just wanted everyone to fully accept, and understand each others’ needs and position. Easy for me to say as an outsider, but to me, there was no deception or hidden lie… the truth was simply that she had fallen in love with another PERSON who touched her deeply, and she had to move on. As painful as that always is, the fact that the new person was female too was not an issue. Love is love, and it’s a mystery.

Impaired Satiety

There goes Victoria with her dictionnary games again… what the hell does “impaired satiety” mean?

 Well, impaired means that something has been compromised; that it’s not working as it should.

 And satiety means: n.  The condition of being full or gratified beyond the point of satisfaction. So what is impaired satiety? It is when the body no longer knows when it has had enough. I came across the expression while studying books about eating disorders… in particular, bulimia nervosa… when people overeat regularly, they lose contact with the feeling of being satisfied or having had enough.

I know that feeling. I have been a compulsive eater off and on my whole life… my eating habits change according to the level of drama in my mind, and the drama increases exponentially according to how badly I eat! It’s a vicous cycle, whereas eating more gently and reasonably also have the subsequent effect of making me more gentle and reasonable… which would be what, an “unvicious cycle”? How about a “beneficent cycle” (found that on the Internet… not bad).

So. Beyond the eating disorder application, I immediately thought of pornography. Sometimes, I spend long lonely hours on the Internet, writing, blogging, answering emails, sending out new emails, researching this that and the other thing and just plain old reading news, blogs and other people’s stories. I don’t have a TV so it’s not only a place where I work, I also go there for entertainment, diversion and connection with far-away friends. I do not surf porn sites, I’d rather draw sex any day, but I must admit I often think of the people, particularly men, who do regularly watch porn, because although I’m not here to judge that, I find it extremely sad. Because real sex is so much better. Real people, real touch, real emotions. Pornography is just like fast food; cheap, exciting, sweet, salty, greasy and easy. Immediately satisifying, but it just brings you down in the long run.

Someone asked me who my audience is for my web site and my blog, and I answered that I can only guess that it’s very mixed. I have received alot of very positive (and highly appreciated!) feedback over the years from a wide variety of people, men and women, young and old, straight and gay. I guess I’m trying to reach out to the prudish, like I was; people whose sexuality is inhibited, and perhaps feels lacking or stunted, to let them know that there is much yet to explore and it’s all okay! But I must admit that I also think of the guy who’s jerking off in front of the computer while his wife or girlfriend sleeps, or whose loneliness can no longer be appeased by a real person. That’s why it’s okay with me if this site finds itself  mixed in with pornography sites… it’s like putting a crisp fresh leaf of lettuce in with the hamburger, or lighting a candle to offer a glimmer of hope in a very dark place.

If you never stop eating junk food, you can’t really taste the healthy food or feel it’s calming effect on your body. If you never stop feeding your mind with cheap, meaningless sexual images, how will you actually feel the tenderness of a truly loving caress when it comes your way? Or how will you find the state of mind in which to offer such a caress, if all you have seen goes straight to the slamming? Loving sex, like healthy food, is a nourishing, fulfilling and extremely satisfying aspect of being fragile and human. Like good health, loving relationships are built one thought, one look, one word, one kiss at a time… and life is so short… shouldn’t we savour every single bite?

Teenager-mom heart-to-heart about pornography

Until you’ve actually had a baby, you cannot have a CLUE what you’re in for… and it’s the same with sex. I remember my shock (and absolute THRILL!) the first time a male hand slid behind the zipper of my jeans to touch my pelvis, and lower… and although I’d been doing some heavy duty making out until then, I had absolutely no idea how fabulous another person’s touch could feel on my private parts. I guess I am one of the fortunate young girls who truly was a virgin before that happened; from the stories I have heard from girlfriends, it’s not quite the same when you have already been touched way before you were ready or willing.

After reading about the negative effects of too-accessible pornography on children and youth, I sat down with my two teenage boys and told them we were going to have a talk about just that. They were pretty cool about it… they knew I knew they looked at porn (although I don’t know how much) and they know I know something about it because they know that I’ve drawn it, although I can’t be sure about how much of my work they have actually seen either. My attitude up until now has been to keep this work discreet, but not completely hidden; they know I draw and photograph the nude body and they know I do something about sexuality, but what exactly…?

Perhaps not surprisingly, I did most of the talking. I wanted them to know that I have an aversion to pornography even though I love sex. I wanted them to know that it wasn’t “real”… in the sense that what they could see was only a tiny part of the overall experience; that these images were most often actors showing extremes and that there is alot more involved in actual relationships. I think they know that… but that doesn’t take away the arousal aspect of those images to young men who are most likely raring to become sexually experienced young men.

I asked them about sex education in school… they said it was mostly biology but that one of their other teachers was much more comfortable talking about it on occasion, which of course made her “pretty cool”. They smiled alot, I guess they were uncomfortable, although surprisingly, I wasn’t… I started wondering why I hadn’t spoken more openly about it with them sooner, but then, just a few years ago they were much “littler” boys. It felt good to open the door to this kind of a discussion… I hope they know now that the door is open if they need help understanding something or just need to talk. I told them funny stories about the questions I’d asked my mom, and my surprise at the discovery of the real experience when it finally happened, and the complicated emotional confusion no matter how good the circumstances may or may not have been.

Like I said, I did most of the talking, but they listened and shared a bit about where they were at and were quick to point the finger at their older brother who was of course, paving the way for them with his 18-year-old sexual savvy. They even reassured me that they would have easy access to condoms because he left them lying around alot. I just encouraged them to go slow, to really listen to their gut feelings and to be even more attentive to their partners needs, desires, and readiness.

Not being a boy, I have no idea what kind of effect this discussion had on them. But knowing my once little boys, it’s hard to imagine that they would not be as tender and decent with their future lovers as they have been in the most innocent ways with their mom.

This Poem (made me cry)

Another lovely poem by Bill Noble to accompany another beautiful image of complicity between him and his lover. This one really struck me because I am still reeling in the wake of reports I’m reading on the effect of pornography on children and youth. I had another heart-to-heart chat with my teenage boys about it (sex and pornography) because I so wanted to impress upon them that there exists a whole other, deeper, intimate side to sexuality that is completely missed in “those” images. For anyone sexually unexperienced stumbling across this blog who is, wondering, hoping, dreaming that there truly is something more… there is! Warm thanks to Bill and Desiree and Comstock films for allowing me to draw and share their images (and Bill for his lovely poetry). These generous people are truly elders* who are teaching something usually unspoken or unseen about sex and love to younger generations.  xo Victoria

 *in Canadian Aboriginal culture, the word “elder” is used with great respect for the older people who carry on traditional spiritual teachings to the younger members of the community.

THIS POEM ENTITLES THE BEARER  by Bill Noble

 

It does. It entitles the bearer

to one (or more) of those long languid mornings in bed

where everything she’s wanted to talk about

for weeks and weeks

gets talked about, where we’re so entangled

she has to slip a hand under the covers

to tell whose legs are whose.

It entitles the bearer to sex.

Not just any old sex, but exactly the sex she wants,

exactly when and how she wants it.

And then it entitles her to turn the tables.

 

This poem brings with it a bottle of champagne,

a dinner so good that the bearer’s mouth begins to water

just reading this poem,

and a dessert that shall be left to the bearer’s imagination.

 

This poem permits—even encourages—asking.

 

This poem grants long walks in beautiful places

and short walks for the succulence of enchiladas.

 

This poem dispenses celebration—

for the life the bearer is creating for herself,

and the right to remember the joy and power of that

any time she wants. It crooks a finger

to welcome her to that new life,

which is already here.

 

This poem entitles the bearer

to love. And it is a permanent reminder that love

is both a noun and a verb,

transitive and intransitive,

reflexive, or not, whether proclaimed teetering on the Matterhorn

of passion or breathed at the feathery edge of sleep.

 

This poem entitles the bearer to everything she deserves.

And a few things she hasn’t even imagined

yet.

If love is timeless, loving sexual contact can be too!

As I get older, it’s becoming clearer to me that we really know nothing about anything until we’ve actually experienced it.  And we’re never really prepared for it until we get there. I just read a most disturbing report about the impact of Internet pornography on youth and children by two Montreal reporters, Isabelle Maher and Martin Bisaillon - if you read French, please look it up. They are sounding an alarm that needs to be sounded loud and clear to make us (adults-parents-society) wake up to the devastating impact that overly accessible porn-as-sex-education is having on our children. So today I want to focus, as usual, on love expressed sexually, by honouring some people who have long been making an effort to make a difference.

Bill and Desiree, whom I had the pleasure of illustrating together from a photo-still (above) are people who care enough about sharing positive images of sexuality to share their own private moments of passion with others. Both have written for sex-positive publications, and Bill writes lovely erotic poetry that I have already included and will continue to publish on this blog. Last year they shared their story through interviews and scenes of lovemaking with Comstock films, a couple-run company that makes DVDs of real people having real sex, and I was fortunate enough to be able to see their particular DVD and use stills from it to create drawings. Thank you  Joan Price for putting us in contact, to Tony and Peggy at Comstock for allowing this precious collaboration, and to Bill and Desiree for continuing to spread their love!

I have long been disturbed by most of what typical pornography has to offer, but I remain convinced that we cannot just make it disappear. Even if we manage to hide it better from our children, they are still essentially sexual beings who need to learn about themselves and this deep, tender physical contact with others… hopefully when they are ready to and not before. As the authors of the report recommended, it will take alot more presence, communication and open discussions between parents and children on the subject of sexuality to insure that they can truly learn to enter into intimate relationships. But there is a case to be made for appropriate visuals to accompany that; and it’s up to us to make sure that films, photographs and other imagery showing respectful, consensual sexual contact is available at their level,  according to their development.

Interestly, the Comstock collection is for adults, and this blog is for adults, but after reading the statistics on the quantity and the quality of pornography that youth and children have been consuming on the Internet, I am convinced that the same youngster, coming across these images, would find them “refreshing” as many readers have commented. Which will soon bring us back to the Intimography site, which is slowly developing behind the scenes…

Honouring the feminine at every age

My sister recently sent me one of those many email jokes that makes you laugh, but then makes you think… and the phrase that struck me most was this one:  “As a woman, my worst nightmare would be… finding out that PMS (premenstrual syndrome) doesn’t exist after all, and this is just my personality.” AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

Okay, I laughed, because that would be scary. I have known PMS, and now, in my early forties, I am at the age of perimenopause:  the period of time before and for a year after the final menstrual period during which time ovarian hormonal patterns, experiences and sociocultural roles change. Irregular cycles develop at approximately age 47. Perimenopause probably begins several years before that, in women with regular cycles, whose ovaries are making higher amounts of estrogen and tending to make lower amounts of progesterone. Like menopause, this is a normal part of a woman’s life cycle.

Thank you Dr. Jerilynn Prior for the definition, and for SO much more… and please visit her site. She’s doing great work!

I didn’t give a DAMN about menopause until I got close to it. As my mom and my aunts went through it, there was talk of symptoms and discussion of therapies, but I tuned them all out. Then, I was a young woman, a strong woman, an attractive, confident CHILDBEARING woman and I didn’t want to think about aging or changing… to busy anyways! Why talk about this on a blog about sex? Because it affects me (as a woman, with a body, who has sex…) and just about everyone else… if there is a woman in your life, she will go through hormonal changes. I write about this now because it strikes me how related sexuality is to our aging bodies, but again, in our Western culture, we have separated the wholeness of  a person, a woman, a lifetime, into categories attached to attractiveness. That’s another thing that annoys me about porn… the black and white age divisions… the titillating virgin girls, the “regular” women, and the “mature”, “old”, “cougars”, “MILFs” or “grandmothers”.

How utterly degrading to the female body, and to the evolution of the female gender! In our Western culture, run by commerce and advertising, the female body is literally seen as useless or disgusting once it has moved beyond the age of seduction, and yet, in other cultures (much saner than ours…) the passage through menopause is celebrated as a movement into maturity, wisdom, and a different kind of female strength than that of the same, younger woman. It’s like a lifetime achievement award, a recognition of many long years of learning and growing, of giving birth to not only children but projects and entreprises and nurturing them all as they grow. That’s just what women do; it’s what we’re made of; it’s who we are, collectively and individually.

The hormonal ups and downs make sure that we get the work done. They make sure we’re horny when it’s time to make babies, and tired when it’s time to go within. They force us to peel off the outside layers to discover and share what is at the core. Men need to go there too, and some need women to accompany them there… and they love us because we are this way; because we have no choice but do to our inner cleaning work when the time comes. Because, due to our natures, we have no choice, even when more stable personalities can sweep everything under the rug we must come clean and move forward.

I have felt a bit like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the past few years due to these mid-life hormonal changes, and I sometimes buy into the very right-brained judgement that says ”it’s all in our heads”. But it’s not. It’s in our bodies, our hearts, our souls. It’s part of the beauty of who we are. Some of the best moments come after the storms.  And some of our greatest strengths exist only because of our vulnerabilities.

I’m having a huge fucking party when my menopause comes. My gorgeous, able-bodied adult children will probably blush at my birth stories and wince at my proudly photographed stretch marks, but it’s okay. I was busy doing the same things they’re doing at their age… and I didn’t get what my mom was going through either. Aging is not a downfall, it is growth, and we miss out on recognizing the beauty in evolution and maturity. A different kind of beauty than the innocence of youth, but something that we all need to recognize more in the people around us. If you see a woman with a scowl like mine in this picture, give her a hug, she’s probably gestating some new way to save the world.

My Birthday Suit

by BeeJay

One topic that Victoria hopes to encourage through this blog and her other works is a changed attitude towards our bodies. By that I mean what we personally consider beautiful and sexy and healthy: you know, what the media/Hollywood/Madison Avenue say we probably don’t have in the first place. They are more than willing to tell us what to think, see, and BUY what we should consider attractive and desirable. After all, we are just the uneducated masses who don’t know any better, while they are the elite masters of the universe. Okay, so cynicism is part of my DNA…sue me.

For men that personal image issue can be no less harmful than that experienced by women. We’re supposed to six feet tall or more, perfectly weight and height proportioned, and hung like the proverbial horse. We all know the drill: blond, tanned, the required six pack abs, the flawless muscle tone. {Insert raspberry sound here}

We’re not, and that brings me to the heart of the matter. I’ve been taking part in a project of Victoria’s called “Exposure” for a little over two years now, and this work is intended to help transform the image we men have of ourselves. In the simplest form, we participate as models for her and her partners to photograph: they share the photos with their subjects and exhibit them as well. The idea is to allow us to see the good within, to feel the beauty within us. We can do artwork based on these images, or have artwork done, whatever allows us to grow as we need.

My first entry a few days ago was accompanied by a drawing of me. Victoria drew this portrait a little over a year ago based on some photos she took two years ago when I visited her. That first experience was admittedly both uncomfortable and enlightening. I volunteered for it, so any discomfort was of my own creation and attitudes. The enlightenment came when I realized that it really wasn’t a big deal, that in the end it didn’t matter to me what people saw or how they felt about it. With Victoria’s great help, after that I began to do simple pencil drawings of those photos and others she sent me, and with those images, I grew enough to really begin to love myself for the first time. Choosing to express the opening of my mind through art truly began my journey down the road of self discovery, and it is one that I am loathe to leave.

Since then, I’ve photographed myself over four hundred times, all in the nude, all in living color. These acts of self portraiture excite me and give me a distinct pleasure. The poses are not the same each time: I only have a few seconds between shots with the self-timer, so trying to be creative is important. Whether I choose to merely pose or go further and grab the family jewels while posing is purely a function of what is going through my head at the moment. Yes, I do get a hard-on when doing this, wouldn’t you? A perfectly natural reaction, as one artist friend told me. I certainly don’t think of these pictures as pornographic either, rather I think of them as portraits of an intimate nature. What is now funny is that it doesn’t bother me if someone, somewhere, gets off looking at my nude picture. Male, female, hetero, gay, no bother. I certainly didn’t feel that way just a few years ago; in fact I would have probably recoiled in horror at the thought.

Over time, I have felt more liberated and alive when I have done one of these photo sessions. If nothing else, I feel more exhibitionistic each time, more willing to flaunt the conventions that have caused so much grief for our civilization. We all have beautiful bodies, what is wrong with showing them? There is no real harm to us personally; the only harm is that others see in the naked human form in and of itself. It is in this repression of others that the harm lies, for if no one thought there was any harm all that guilt would just fade away. I would be ecstatic if that were to happen: we might truly begin to live as rational human beings for once.

I’ve been a bit of a nudist for decades, although I don’t consider myself to be a “naturist.” I have been to nude beaches, sunbathed nude, and always sleep in the raw, even in the winter. I have never thought of myself as being public in any way, instead those actions have been done while alone or in private. I never thought of sharing my body image as I now do, rather it was with great shyness that I was nude at all.

No more will I ever feel that way. Now it is a matter of making a statement that says I am proud of my body and I love it, as it is. I am not ashamed anymore, since there is nothing to be ashamed of.

 

A male perspective; enter BeeJay

It is my pleasure to introduce you to one of my earliest on-line contacts and definitely my most loyal correspondant ever throughout my blogging career, a warm and faithful friend, BeeJay. Blogging can be a lonely venture but there is nothing more satisfying than reader feedback to keep you going. I have invited several guest bloggers to join us here regularly, to open up to more perspectives on the endless topic of sexuality. Enjoy! and please encourage them with your own interventions should you feel so inspired!   xo Victoria

 I don’t know what I’m going to say here, so this may be much more of a stream of consciousness thing than you’re used to. Victoria asked me if I wanted to write about sex from a man’s viewpoint, and while I can’t write with her grace and elegance, I’ll at least try. We have been long-distance friends and correspondents for several years now, and she’s been bugging me to write publicly as well. I told her last night that I finally felt old enough to write, although that’s probably debatable.

 A little about me: I’m 50, single, hetero, and live on the west coast. What do I know about sex? Not much, or perhaps far too much. I don’t know everything of course, which is where the first answer comes from, and the second comes from having an encyclopedic mind that remembers everything. Only Victoria knows why she asked me to write…

 How do I define my views about sex? Not the easiest thing for most people to do. For one thing, I find that I must love my partner in some way, even if we’re just getting started. What do I find to love? A caress, a glance, a passionate embrace that has no boundaries. Whispered thoughts, gentle movements, a scent that excites. A mood, perhaps an action that creates an atmosphere of love. There is much to spark the flame and within the physical there is much the mind will love, and that drives me even further into my lover’s arms. “Making love” is so much better than “fucking.” Sex is more than procreation for me, as you might have guessed.

 It should be more than a physical interaction: I need to make it distinctly human, to have it be the occasion of two becoming one, sharing all they have to share. It should not be a mere “slam, bam, thank you, ma’am” as so many men seem to think it should be. That’s the worst it can be, and that is not for me. It should never be one-sided, never a matter of the man getting off and the woman wondering what the hell. As I’ve gotten older, my body doesn’t react the same way any more either: I love foreplay just as much as any woman does! A good warm-up goes a long way, both ways. I know I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but hey, you never know!

I strongly feel that sex is to be shared with a partner, and not something that is ‘taken’ from the other unequally by either side. It takes substantial amounts of intimacy, attraction, and love to make a transcendent experience that exploits no one and benefits all. It should also be a form of mutual respect that goes beyond anything else possible without intercourse: a chance to be in our own universe of our own making. Am I wrong in thinking this way?

 So: complete, overly sensitive mushball or something else? I’d like to think not, nor do I think I’m alone in feeling this way as a man, and as an individual who has changed much over his life. There is way too much that has gone wrong in the world to not seek a chance to change it.

 In the wonderful spirit of our blog mistress, please comment, and I promise not to be a shrinking violet in responding.

In the middle is the connection

Sex means so many things to so many different people. For some, it’s just a game, for others, it’s private and sacred. For some it’s an obsession, for others, a duty. Unfortunately, for many, good sex is too often just an unfulfillable fantasy and even more often we heavy-duty thinkers come to prefer our fantasies to reality when we feel unable to act on the dreams. My wish has always been that sex be a very real, respectful celebration of intimacy between people who truly care about each other… which does not exclude wild fun! 

What would happen if we took the focus on sex out of our minds and brought it into our bodies, then what? Would it result in uncontrollable, unmitigated debauchery? That is too often the instant conclusion we come to in “modern” society. Sex is most often equated with corruption, like nudity – especially in children - is automatically connected to exploitation. News flash everyone! WE ARE ALL NAKED UNDER OUR CLOTHES!!! Every single one of us: priest, nurse, clown, prostitute or rocket scientist… so why do we continue to make nudity and sexuality such negatively-connotated “sins”? Because we only focus on the abuse, not the beauty. Of course there are lots of historical reasons, too, but in this media-driven society sex sells, and that’s pretty much the only way that nudity and sexuality are ever treated,  especially visually -  to sell. Something. Anything. Everything.

That’s what we intimographers are fighting against. Bodily intimacy, sexual or non-sexual, can be pure, beautiful, and loving. WE WANT TO SHOW THAT. We want to, image by image, change the negative, exploitative pictures of sexuality that are burned onto our retinas into the beautiful truths about our bodies and or sexuality that we’ve simply lost sight of.  We are all born nude. We all have genitals. We are all drawn to be close to other people, emotionally and physically. Without contact we wilt like dry flowers. We were all conceived of a sexual act between a man and a woman.  None of that is going to go away. And love it or hate it, either is pornography… it’s too big a business.

But we can choose the way we see people and things, and the way we treat them. Today’s drawing is from an image taken from a porn site; as seen through the eyes of someone (me!) who believes it is also a visual representation of an act that can be shared with love! It’s like a translation… a removal of the ”dirty” veil that covers sex by drawing it into a loving reality.  My dream-fantasy that I’m finally acting on is to bring together as many images of nudity and sexual contact presented in a loving, accepting, non-exploitative way as possible… to create a new “body” of visuals about the body and sexuality from this perspective. That’s what the www.intimography.com site is for (even if, for the time being, it still gets sent back here).

I am working on this in between my day job and efforts to build an art-therapy practice for people with body-image issues, plus drawing as much as I can, and I need some help! If you are an artist with sexual images to propose, or you’d like to write about existing “intimate artwork” for the site, please let me know… right now I’m putting together a list of all the work significant to this cause that I can find and approaching authors for permission to regroup their images there. Please contact me if you can help! You can email me at  tendernesstowardssex@yahoo.ca

Thank you!  xoVictoria

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
~Henry David Thoreau