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July 28th, Two Thousand Three: In which erotic art is edge play.
Likely, from an outside perspective, it already seems like someone
who exposed herself to the level I do, artistically and creatively,
is ranking pretty high on the exhibitionist spectrum. But normally,
I don't really feel like I am. Given, I'm very emotionally and
sexually expressive, and I don't have any issues with nudity,
mine or anyone else's, and don't understand the cultural problems
we have with same.
But in all honestly, for me and for most people who work in this
kind of genre, whether the work is artistic in intent or execution
or not, there are usually a lot of little protectives in the mix.
For some, it's pseudonyms and makeup, for others it's staying
softcore or not showing certain parts of the body, including one's
face, for others still it's being secretive in one's community,
family or day-job workplace about what one does outside it.
In my case, it's having a certain amount of control over my environment.
It's in purposefully shooting for my audience (which is why, graciously
handled or not, something like what occurred with someone like Cat Schwartz can be, on principle, such a violation -- and linking to it feels
weird to me, no less); in doing what all of us do who model or
photograph aas far aas posing and shooting the body in ways which
flatter it most. It's in things like good lighting, like set styling,
and doing kinds of grooming I tend not to bother overmuch with
in daily life -- makeup, hair styling, shaving or waxing, in being,
in general, a bit more femme in look and manner than I tend to
be offscreen. It's in being my own art director, editor and publisher,
as well as my own model (and when I use models, in letting them
okay shots before I publish them). It's in keeping some aspects
of my sexual life to myself, either as a hard and fast rule or
situationally, based on what feels okay to share and what I and/or
my partners want to remain private. It's in having aspects of
my whole life, daily life, or "offscreen" persona that stay here
with me and my IRL friends and community. Ot's in not exploiting
my sex life or doing certain sex acts, using certain kinds of
language or postures or personas because I know they'll equal
subscriptions, even if they aren't me or aren't what feels most
natural to me. It's in how I market and the type of audience I
market to, in what sort of work I do and how I do it. In short,
there are really quite a lot of security blankets I cuddle up
with in the visual (and written, though less so) work I do most
of the time, even if it doesn't look that way -- or those protections
are the same as most people use in daily life not doing this sort
of work at all -- and I eschew some of the more common ones.
It's hard for me to, in general, classify what I do visually as
to whether or not it's sex work, because it really depends. Nudity
alone does not equal sex or eros, and my intention isn't always
to arouse or gratify sexually. And when I'm working, during some
shoots, I am sexually aroused or engaged myself, while during
others, I'm not in that space at all. But in some regard, what
I do is edge play; creatively and sexually. I'm not shy in confessing
that in my sexual life, I'm no stranger to edge play -- a lot
of my more pivotal and intense sexual experiences and relationships
have been about pushing past my boundaries or existing limits,
about taking emotional and sometimes even physical risks (not
big safer sex ones, mind you, so no need to get any panties in
a wad, there).
But in what I do visually, I feel like a lot of the risk I take
is going without a lot of the usual artifices and protections,
about being a woman fully directing and producing in this genre
while at the same time being the one both exposed AND exposing.
About being a woman doing same well past the near-adolescent age
which is often represented as a physical prime and ideal and not
hiding or looking to downplay my age or experience, who is real-sized
and sans surgical adaptations, who is queer, sexually forthright
without being salacious or playing a character I'm really not,
who shows aspects of sexuality that aren't always so palatable
or pretty or surface. About working in this genre as an artist,
above all else, and trying to do so when the majority of what
else is around me in it is primarily about money and marketing
and posturing and fetishizing whatever variance or diversities
one has when they exist at all. You get the picture.
I put up a series today that I took not intending to publish at
all. Somewhat regularly, I'll just spend an evening or an afternoon
taking shots to experiment with lighting or poses or approaches
to evaluate how I feel about them, and see what new things I can
do in the future with upcoming planned shoots. When I do that,
I don't bother prepping at all, I just plop down in my usual day
clothes and daily state, pretty darned unvarnished. In those settings,
I might also get active sexually in a more uninhibited or unrefined
way than I usually would; less aware of the audience who might
see them because I don't intend for there to be one. The shots
I did last year dealing with a rape flashback (the Drown series) I was having were in this vein; me working with emotions
and not planning to publish so that I felt totally free to really
express and explore them.
Like those, every great now and then, I opt to go ahead and release
the shots publicly (though most or all are still only seen by
my subscribers) because there is something in them that I find
of enough merit or interest that I'm willing to be a little more
exposed or vulnerable than I'd usually prefer to be. In this case,
there was something about my lack of artifice (in not being very
groomed, in showing the remote in some, in engaging in an ejaculation
session rather spontaneously and explicitly, in appearing as alone
as I felt that day, in not posing with care for what it made my
body look like, etc.) and the candidness I found compelling, as
well as the quality of some of the shots. And in part, I think
I may also do that because it's a form of edge play to me. I'm
not an exhibitionist, so for the most part, I don't really get
off in any way from having or knowing others see me in what I
do. But some part of me, with something like this, gets a vicarious
thrill (though it feels quite scary, really, and that's where
the thrill is) from doing something that I know is a little past
my usual boundaries and that I don't feel entirely comfortable
doing or showing, and that thrill is both sexual and artistic,
which is an interesting (and often surprising) space to be in,
especially after the work is done.
And intellectually, it's exciting to me to push past my limits
some, because it has the possibility of opening me up to levels
of my work I haven't yet reached, some of which I aspire to, some
of which I can't even anticipate because I don't know where I'll
go with it all yet. But it's still a little scary and intimidating;
it's still a kind of edge play.
Which is a big part of why I like it: because I crave edge play
sexually, because I like the rough cuts as a viewer and purveyor
of art myself, because I want my artistic work to push past boundaries
and brave some of my limits, because I aim to always be brave
in both of those realms, both when they're fused and when they
aren't at all. |
