Limbo lower now

HoneyB 1132

Honey doing the limbo

I’ve decided to stop modelling to “higher.” The whipped cream shot in my previous post will be the last you see of my “bits” for a long while. Cries of relief all round, I’m sure.

Don’t get me wrong, these shots were a lot of fun to create, and mucking around in the studio with Rich at weekends with a bottle of wine was immensely relaxing for both of us. And the images were kindly received which was a pleasant ego boost for me too (not that I needed it - my ego is supersized already), but…there is always a butt…

I didn’t shoot pussy shots to get comments, I didn’t shoot them to shock, or arouse others or be “out there” and I didn’t shoot them because I thought they were art either (I have no idea if they qualify as art and frankly I don’t care.) I didn’t need adulation (although that is always nice, but I’d much have my ego stroked for my writing thanks, not my groin.) So why did I shoot nothing but erotica for the best part of a year? Did this photographic genre reflect my personality? To some extent yes, I do have a saucy British side, and I can be incredibly rude (naughty-rude rather than verbally offensive although no doubt I’m guilty of that too) but horny porny Lin is not really who I am (unless you get me completely plastered in which case all bets are off and BTW I totally deny everything.)

If I’m being completely honest with myself, the real reason I shot erotica was a psychological reaction against my cancer. It was a rebellion, a way of fighting it. Porn was my weapon. Exposing my ass (literally) to my disease was my way of saying “fuck you Big C, I’m going to beat this, and there’s nothing anyone or anybody (especially my crappy body) can do to stop me.”

But then I got nuked and took six months off modelling. Incapacitated in hospital, and then at home, I had nothing to occupy my mind and so I started to study photography and the reasons behind it, and consequently I changed. I’m not saying anything as corny as “I grew”, but I did discover new and exciting reasons why photographs evolved, why photographers thought as they did and the reasons behind the creation of their art.

My lifelong obsession, my raison d'être if you like, has always been a fascination with people, who they are and why they think as they do. Nude photography (and indeed all photography) is fundamentally about people. A photograph (good or bad) will tell you way more about the creator of the photograph than it ever will about what the photographer thinks he is showing you. You just need to know how to look. My six months off modelling, which was largely spent reading about photography, really gave me a good kick up the ass and made me re-evaluate who I was and what my priorities were. It taught me as much about myself as it did about the photographers I was studying, probably more. And most importantly, along the way I learned to really see a photograph. And that new understanding fundamentally changed the entire way I looked at the world. It changed Lin, the person.

Do I regret that explicit modelling phase, most of the results of which you’ve never seen and now probably never will? Not for one moment. For one, the making of them will make good stories. Secondly they were fun, as well as a way of losing myself and forgetting the psychological and physical crap I was going through. Thirdly they tested the limits of what I was prepared to show of myself to the world, and if you don’t experience your limits, explore that side of yourself, how are you ever going to know what makes you tick?

But I don’t need that weapon any more. I don’t need to fight my disease because I’ve accepted it as part of me. I’ll always love modelling (particularly the wackier stuff) and I’m still going to do it because helping to create photos (note I’m not using the word “art”) is a lot of fun, and it makes Rich and I happy to spend time together mucking around with a camera. But my desire to model no longer goes deeper than that, I’m afraid. Fun should be enough of a motivation, at least for me.

For me personally there are more important things to do than use my dodgy modelling as therapy (although it does work) and there’s much more to life than showing my hairy old crotch to the world. I don’t have time to be ill. I have more important things to do: Living (one day at a time), breathing (in and out), writing (little and often) and most importantly, loving. I’m rather good at that last one, even if I do say so myself.

HoneyB 1148

You can never have too much Honey.

Titillation Tabloids

Sorry, I should have posted this a couple of days ago, but I got sidetracked drooling over new kitchen colour schemes. Gotta get my priorities right you know.

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Yet another from the thrashingly good Serious Hat Series

In case anyone out there missed it (unlikely), F1 boss Max Mosley won a legal action against a Sunday newspaper over claims that an orgy he took part in had Nazi overtones.

Mosley never denied that the sado-masochistic sex session with five prostitutes occurred, but he denied that it had a Nazi theme. The paper's story was based on a secret video and photographs from one of the women who took part in the sex session. The High Court found that the paper had indeed breached his privacy, that Mosley showed no evidence of Nazi leanings, and that it was just a typical S&M session between consenting adults. The judge said privacy should be expected for “consensual sexual activities albeit unconventional." Hurrah, justice for Mosley! Paparazzi journalism caused his wife and children major humiliation and wrecked their lives. As he said, "It also shows that that they had no right to go into private premises and record adults engaged in activities which are no-one's business but those of the people concerned."

When is it in the public interest to reveal a person’s private details, regardless of how famous they are? Are kiss and tell stories wrong? When does investigative journalism cross the line into invasion of privacy? Should paparazzi journalism be banned? Is it even proper journalism to begin with?

The press argues that such stories are in the “public interest” of course. Paparazzi journalism is big money. The British media is a fetid cesspit of amorality, manufactured and maintained by the readership, but this area of photography and reportage is the only part of the magazine and newspaper world that actually makes a profit. The western world has an insatiable curiosity for reading the sordid details about the personal habits (be it diet, sex, whatever) of their fave celebs. I’m no exception here. I find Edward Weston’s rather adventurous love life as interesting as his photographs, which means I’m no better than the rest of the general population in my desire to know the seedy personal details of my icons. What does that say about me? About any of us?

Most celebrities concede that some invasion of privacy, especially from paparazzi photographers, is inevitable. Sometimes it can even be good marketing. Darryn Lyons, founder of celebrity photo agency Big Pictures (the biggest in the UK with £7m a year turnover) never feels guilty for his paparazzi job. He says “If celebrities didn’t have my machine behind them, who would go watch their movies? Anyway, unless you want to be in a dungeon getting whipped, you shouldn’t be worried by us.” I guess Mosley was right to worry then.

As a highly dodgy model who would have a great deal to lose if her raunchier photographs were ever “named and shamed” by the popular press, I’m afraid I’m firmly on the side of privacy. I turn down magazine interviews if asked (two last year from women’s magazines) and I’m militant about protecting my personal i.d., for my family’s sake if not my own. Of course there’s a limit to the level of privacy one can achieve with a public blog and one’s ass plastered all over the blogosphere, but I do what I can.

Every individual has the right to a personal life. A man should be able to be whipped in private if that’s what floats his boat, without fear of reprisal. It’s the whole essence of what privacy is about. If Mr Mosley wants to waste his money on hookers then it is entirely up to him and none of our business. Some skeletons should just be allowed to stay locked in the closet.

Journalism should respect the principles of integrity and decency, not just think about lining wallets. The UK media would do well to report real news, rather than concentrate on the modern cult of fame and celebrities, and we would do well to mind our own business.

l-von-b-08 1224

Whipped Cream?

Erotica: The thinking Person’s Porn

Too often, I have found that people label what they find offensive or crass "porn," while anything they find sexy gets the more romantic label of "erotica." One person's pornography is another's erotica!

Sage Vivant

HoneyB 1128

It’s taken me a whole two years, but I’m finally persuading Rich to dabble in the dark side. He’s finally having a bash at shooting erotica (with models other than me, I mean.) You’ll note that I don’t use the word “porn” because Rich says he doesn’t do porn, and he gets VERY annoyed if I refer to his work as porn, which I do, frequently, because frankly I don’t see much of a difference. What’s in a label? If a photograph turns you on, does it really matter what it’s called?

Well, apparently it does, according to Rich. He says that it’s like looking at the difference between implied nude and real nude – erotica implies the sexual act rather than shows the sexual act. It’s all about getting the balance right between fantasy and reality.

On the other hand I would describe erotica as high-class porn, shot with dramatic lighting and lots of visible emotion and sensuality. It’s sophisticated porn, but with a story, feelings, a psychological element, although the purpose is the same: to get the viewer hot ‘n’ juicy.

By now most of you will be asking, does anybody actually care whether an image is classified as erotica or porn? Well yes, most photographers DO care very much. They want their images to be erotic so that they are perceived by the general public to be photographers not pornographers. It’s all about photographers being concerned with themselves, how they want to be seen and how they see themselves, whereas it should be about what they shoot. Many photographers are too concerned with how they appear to others (they must be thought of as “respectable photographers”) and not enough with using their skills and imaginations to push their boundaries and realise their erotic creative vision. Is it edgy? Can I shoot edgy but not porn? Is it classy? Does it show too much? Not enough? Is it tasteful? And so on…too much worry about the self-image rather than the end-image.

It makes me wonder what would happen if photographers just stopped thinking about their self image for a moment, and let their emotions fly? If they stepped outside their personal comfort zones, indulged their imaginations and see what happens? Personally I would love to see the results. I suspect the photographs produced would be awesome.

Unfortunately there’s no chance of Rich doing that (just yet anyway) as he’s rather shy, and truth be told, he’s taking it slowly because he’s new at this genre and (by his own admission) erotica requires a completely different photographic puzzle to solve. With Rich, it’s forever about lighting above all-else, and he says that’s something he needs to develop over time. It’s easy to do the dramatic single light from the side of course, but trying to induce a more sophisticated emotional mood through light, without crossing the line into porn (which for him is unacceptable) is proving a consuming challenge.

It’s not all about lighting of course. The pose and expression of the model is important, but it’s also critical to think about the story. A successful photograph is about the message above all else. This is where it gets complex because viewers may perceive erotica and porn differently according to their own subjective opinions and personal tastes. In particular, men and women view erotica differently because they think differently. If women get turned on by ideas and more psychological elements of the scene, men are more visual, so the secret is to ensure your story appeals to both. In order to achieve a powerful erotic photograph, all these elements have to come together at just the right time, for that split second, in order to create that image which will push the right emotional buttons of your viewers. Erotica is all about stimulation of the mind rather than the body, and leaving that viewer desperately wanting to see just that little bit more…

One thing is for sure, if photographers stopped obsessing about what is acceptable and tasteful so much, they'd get a lot further with their erotic photography. Ultimately the classification attributed to your photograph is unimportant. What is important is that you stop worrying about what others think of you because all that will do is get in the way of your creative vision.

Let your mind go and your photography will follow.

HoneyB 1129

Images are of HoneyB of course. Rich isn’t sure if he "crossed the line" into porn with that last shot. Personally I think he worries about lines too much. Just keep shooting, and the rest will take care of itself.

Another week off blogging

More parentheses abuse. (Poor little brackets.)

Yet another week when I didn’t write anything profound or useful. Oh don’t get me wrong, I’ve been writing aplenty. It’s been half term here, and my sons have been at home. The oldest is revising for his entrance exams to senior school, and my other son has been given an exceedingly long and torturous English project on the topic of his choice, which I am apparently required to assist with.

My younger son chose the topic of Mario for his project, comprising the history of Mario, the origins of Mario, life’s profound meaning of Mario, the symbolism in Mario, the inside leg measurement of Mario and so forth. I don't play computer games at all, but I sure know a lot about Mario now. (I really despise the little critter - he ruined my week.)

When I’ve not been engaged in teaching English to a rebellious, stressed-out nine year old or doing tax (zzzz...) I’ve been (in no particular order) : baking birthday cakes for the boys whose birthdays are within 4 days of each other (I only conceive at one time of year, but let’s not go there), wrapping presents, cleaning up decapitated furless mice skulls (my cats have been on a mammoth hunting bender this week), lamenting my loss of hair (it’s falling out bigtime - at this rate I will be doing an Orixx shortly, only I’m twenty years older and thus I won’t look remotely as pretty) and generally trying to stay upright (vertigo rules - not alcohol induced unfortunately.)

Am staying away from the camera, due to very strong resemblance to aforesaid decapitated furless mouse skull (I fear I may crack the lens) and the only thing Rich can photograph that won’t make you (or him) throw up, is my ass.

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So here it is, my ass, I mean. That’s my peony too. Pretty flower, huh? I had to literally glue it to my ass to make it stick. All in the name of Art, of course. Double sided sticky tape really chafes when you rip it off, let me tell you that. Still, it saves money on a Brazilian wax I guess. Yes this photograph is HIGH ART. No I don’t care if you think it is cheap, trite, tacky porn. I really, truly DO NOT care. My ass is my Art. Live with it. (Did I mention that I’ve also metamorphasized into a raving loon this week?)

Anyhoo, if you haven’t left the blog in complete disgust yet, I promise I’ll be back to writing more interesting and profound stuff next week.

(BTW, I have a crush on Paul Strand, notwithstanding the fact that he has shuttled off the mortal coil. Cool photography…way cool. He'd hate my peony, I just know it.)

Sex on a stalk (Part 2)

This is what Rich looks at when he looks out of his office window.
Isn’t she beautiful?

If, as Ed Versosky proposed a while back, plants can be portraits of the artist too (see? I pay attention, I learn, I remember) then my magnificent Fritillaria Imperialis is surely a portrait of me.

This is pure photographic plant porn. A spikey fluffy top with full, vibrant luscious lips opened wide underneath, displaying her juicy dangling, sexual organs to the world. This beats my love-ball shot hands-down for explicit erotica. You can’t get much more open-leg than this.

Don't ya just love it?
Mother nature - the original and best pornographic artist.

Now…who wants to stroke my Fritillaria?

Fritillaria Imperialis (Crown Imperial)

(Please do check out Ed’s amazing Mr Bamboo self-portrait at the above link – much more tasteful than mine. Sorry to drag you into this Ed.)

B.P.A.

(Big Penis Art)
This post grossed me out. I blame Mr Neasley.

I was asked a while back if I’d share my thoughts regarding photographs of magnified male genitals, which often appear on Deviant Art, Photosig and other similar forums. Now I’ve been putting off writing about this for ages, partly because I’ve realised that I don’t much like these photos either.

The question is why? I believe in wide comfort zones, I approve of tolerance and recognition for all types of art, plus I’m a heterosexual female for heaven’s sake. I’m a big fan of good male nude photography, and I simply adore the male member, so why on earth do I dislike looking at extreme-close-up penis shots?

Personal thoughts as follows (please feel free to disagree):

1. It goes against our taboos. Western societies are all about equality between the sexes. The erect penis is a symbol of domination, of overpowering of the woman, and is therefore unacceptable under modern moral code. And At least that’s what I’ve read, but I suspect many of you may know more about the social anthropology of this than I do. (And yes, this theory may be a load of bollocks - sorry, couldn‘t resist.)

The Cerne Abbas Giant, UK, believed to date from the 2nd Century, depicting Hercules.

2. In ancient history, and nowadays in some tribal societies, the penis was worshipped and depicted in art as normal and acceptable. However, in many Western countries (including the UK) it is illegal to show any image of the front of a naked man. If I showed an actual photograph here of an erect penis, I’d have the police on my doorstep within 24 hours, I guarantee it. Society’s hang-ups have now become the viewers’ hang-ups over time. I even have difficulties finding Mapplethorpe’s penis shots via Google.

Last week when we visited the Photographer’s Gallery in London, we visited their famous bookshop. I did look for Mapplethorpe’s work there (purely in the interests of research you understand. I don’t roam London looking for mighty wongas, sorry to say.) Sure enough I found his book, on the top shelf of the bookshop, about 10 feet up, too high for even Rich to reach, and it was monitored by a lone security camera pointing at the book. No kidding. It would take someone with balls of steel to pluck up the courage to browse that book, and I refrained from asking the tiny grey-haired little old lady manning the shop to climb up and pass me the porn. It wasn’t exactly being marketed as a warm and fuzzy reading experience, if you know what I mean.

3. It’s all in the lighting and composition. Big penis shots can be art too, but the photographer has to be talented enough to portray them artistically. There’s no eroticism in a clinically shot close-up photograph of genitals - where‘s the mood and the turn-on in that?

I do think that such close-up graphic shots are very difficult to do well, and only a few succeed. There’s Mapplethorpe of course, and Andreas H. Bitesnich has shot some absolutely magnificent erect male nude shots which are clearly art, and quite beautiful because they are well lit and composed. On the other hand, badly exposed snapshots of someone’s boyfriend’s penis, touted as “photography” really makes my blood boil. I guess this is a typically snobby reaction on my part against bad photography, and has nothing to do with the subject matter. Let’s face it, a talented photographer can make anything look good, even a pair of hairy balls.

4. Floppy winkies are icky. I’m sorry, but “yuk.” If you’re going to shoot big penis art, please please shave your balls and shoot a boner. Make it big, make it proud. Make it a potent symbol of your manhood. Big glistening slongs are magnificent, an example of man at his most primitive, sexual and potent. Combine this with good lighting and composition, and you will have mighty powerful art.

5. Most people are not used to looking at Big Penis Art, so it is outside their personal comfort zones.

When I first saw Hotel Room Nudes a couple of years ago now, and viewed Don’s close-up female bum-hole shots (as I call them) I was completely repulsed. It took a year of regular exposure for me to accept them, and even now I have to remind myself occasionally that they can be art, albeit not necessarily to my taste.
Homophobia on my part? Yes, almost certainly. I do think biological conditioning has a lot to answer for. Extreme close-ups of any woman’s genitals (including mine) can be a bit of a reach for most heterosexual women, entirely understandably too.

As for me, over the last couple of years, since I’ve become interested in nude photography, I’ve come across thousands and thousands of photographs of women’s genitals, and I’ve taught myself to recognise them as art. Self education? Brainwashing? Either way, if you actually looked at photographs of men’s genitals every single day, my guess is you’d get used to them and accept them as normal everyday viewing, pretty darn quickly.

IMO, there’s no difference between acceptance of male or female genitals as art. The same argument applies to both. You too can teach yourself to expand your comfort zone as I’ve done. You can learn to accept that which you find distasteful as normal. You can even recognise it as art and learn to like it. I guess the question is: do you want to?



This is not me! (Hurrah!) But is it "dodgy porn?"
Hmm...once upon a time I would have thought so...

How to prove you can never be too old or too stupid

An excruciatingly long and sordid tale of the seedy world of a middle-aged female accountant.

As part of “the top ten things to do to prove to yourself you’re still alive after having brain radiation,” I resolved last week to do something out of character, something outrageous, something that I hadn’t done in a very long time. So I decided to visit a sex shop.

Now the last time I went into a sex shop was 22 years ago. What can I say? I’m a middle-aged boring accountant, for God’s sake. I’m supposed to be repressed. Nice English girls don’t do that sort of thing, what? (Incidentally, I don’t watch porn either. Sorry to burst your bubble folks, but I require something with at least a hint of a plot.)

So anyway, last week on the way back from a particularly torturous Company Tax Update Lecture, I called in at the local sex shop. Once upon a time, before the UK became a totalitarian state, the sex shop used to be in a quaint little stone-clad shop in the centre of town, with pretty net curtains, a charming green wooden door and a bell that “tinged” when you went in. In fact it could just as easily have sold muffins rather than ye olde rubber dildos with pink ribbons and bobbles on. Mmm…bobbles…fond memories…

Anyway…where was I? Oh yes…well nowadays the sex shop has of course been chased out of town by righteous pitchfork-bearing yokels, and has been forced to relocate to a large grey anonymous warehouse on an out-of-town industrial trading estate. It’s now a large grey steel building, with no windows, a dirty tar-macadam parking lot, and the entire thing is surrounded by eight-foot high barbed-wire security fencing, that is patrolled at night by sniffer dogs. Maybe the dogs are there to protect the sex toys – who knows? All I can tell you is that it doesn’t leave you with a warm, romantic feeling driving up to this place. And having your vehicular details recorded by a row of large security cameras doesn’t do much for the inner erotic glow either.

Now I can model fine art nude, I can show my nakedness to thousands of folks on the internet without a second thought, but I have NEVER felt so self-conscious as I did that evening, as I parked up and walked into the store. A single, middle-aged professional female dressed head-to-foot in tasteful faux-fur, with fifteen video cameras following my every movement. Big Brother was watching this strange old accountant with deep fascination.

Once inside, I was so petrified with fright that it took a while to actually get my bearings. The place was vast. Grey walls, red carpet, one or two old guys wandering around aimlessly. It was very dark, and I couldn’t see the other side. As far as I could tell, the place was mostly full of dirty movies. Rows and rows of porn stretching down the aisles as far as the eyes could see under the yellowy dim light (which was no doubt intended to both simulate a sultry and erotic feel for customers, as well as saving electricity, as this highest quality establishment was clearly run on a shoestring.)

I edged nervously round a huge dangly rubber mask, which appeared to have a giant black nine-inch penis instead of a mouth, and approached the shop counter where the storekeeper was buried behind the financial section of The Times (The Times ? In a porn shop? Surreal.)

“Um, excuse me,” I enquired in a rushed, squeaky kind of voice. "Um…do you have any…um…you know…glassware? I need something for a photographic shoot next week. I’m a model. My husband is the photographer. In fact he’s very well known for fine-art photography. It’s all very tasteful, you know, so I really would appreciate your guidance.”

Of course I was babbling incoherently at this point. Completely shitting myself if we’re being honest. My heart was pounding, I had absolutely no clue what I was saying, and only sheer bloody-minded determination not to be labelled a total wimp was keeping me from turning and running as fast as I possibly could.

The owner of the shop slowly lowered his newspaper and observed me. He looked about my age, very distinguished and intelligent. He looked me up and down slowly and impassively, taking in the Italian fur, the high heels, the briefcase and the beetroot-red blushing face. To his credit, he didn’t react at all. His eyes remained completely expressionless, but I noticed that his lips twitched ever so slightly.

“Glass dildos, end of aisle 3,” he announced in a deep, slightly bemused voice, and then disappeared behind the stock prices again.

Emboldened by the normality of his acceptance, I actually relaxed a little. Maybe this wasn’t so bad? In fact, it might be kind of fun. Hey, maybe middle-aged professional women did this all the time? Maybe my accountancy colleagues popped in here most nights on the way home from work too, after picking up the milk and the ready meals for their partner? Oops dear, better not forget the giant rubber penis mask too.

Aisle 3 was very exciting

Anyhoo, I sashayed down the narrow DVD aisle, knocking aside Bertha’s Big Bulbous Bazookas, Martha’s Mighty Mammaries and Big Bertha III: Revenge of the Mighty Wonga. And then I reached aisle 3. I stopped. My eyes widened. Well, quelle surprise! What an impressive display of plumbing supplies there were! Balls and strange shaped objects for orifices that I never even knew existed. Talk about a rapid education. To a 40+ has-been like me, this was an extremely steep learning curve. I felt rather out of my depth, to be honest. So you’ll appreciate that I was delighted and very relieved to see something I recognised amongst the vast and bewildering display of debauchery, the one NORMAL everyday object amongst all this porno paraphernalia. And it was elegant too.

A large glass bottle-stopper, with a narrow neck and an exquisite blown-glass ball on the end, with a single real goldfish suspended within the glass orb. (Actually it might have been a plastic fish but it certainly looked real enough.) It was laid in a beautiful blue velvet and silk cushioned box. I was enchanted. I experienced that well-known inner erotic glow of woman’s “must-have-shopping-lust.”

“Ooh, pretty glassware!” I thought. “That will go nicely in my bottle of chardonnay at home. Perfect for dinner parties. That will certainly impress my guests. Right, that’ll do. I’ve seen all there is to see. I’ve completed my mission. I’m no longer a middle-aged wimp. Now let’s get out of here. FAST.”

So I flung some cash vaguely in the direction of the (by now openly laughing) shopkeeper and fled home at warp speed, still shaking from the adrenalin rush of my success. Once back safe in my home, I needed an urgent drink to calm down, so I uncorked a bottle of our finest chardonnay, and popped little Goldie in the top. A perfect fit. Very snug. My fishie looked gorgeous, tasteful, elegant, shiny.
I toasted my victory over fear, pronounced myself “a survivor” and “truly living life!” and mentally pictured myself showing off my elegant glassware purchase to my yummy mummy pals at our next posh dinner party. Mmm. Truly I was a woman of the world.

I wandered into the living-room to show Rich.

“Erm…very pretty…er…you do realise it’s a butt-plug, right?” he said not unkindly, struggling desperately to keep a straight face.

Oh. My. God.

Remind me NEVER EVER to think of myself as intelligent or educated again. Clearly I know nothing.

And yes, of course I’m still using it as a wine stopper.

What kind of girl do you think I am?

A tasteful still-life of ye olde modelle’s elegant hand-blown glassware

Damn lies and statistics

For someone who is an accountant by trade, I’m completely hopeless at keeping an eye on our Fluffytek statistics. So it’s been about four or five months or so since we actually bothered to look at the bloggie stats, number of hits, regular readers and so forth. But I was feeling blue and at a bit of a loose end today, and I finally decided to crunch the numbers.

Holy crap! Where did all the people come from?! No I don’t believe in quoting figures, but wowee, do we love our lurkers or what?! Thank you little lurkers, from the heart of our bottoms. You certainly know how to cheer up a dodgy ol’ model. What I found particularly funny was the obvious huge spike in viewing figures after the day I posted my dodgy porn shots (sorry, I mean “tasteful art.” Of course it was. Whatever else could it be?) So, fellow nude bloggers, if you really want to boost those flagging viewing figures, nothing gives your blog that added "zing" quite like an extreme-close-up graphic shot of an old model’s nether regions.

I’ve also been collecting personal opinions from other female readers with whom I chat. Kind of a survey about what readers like and dislike about the blog. Now please note that the survey is not of experienced professional models, I’ve instead been talking to average everyday ladies (some of whom are friends of mine), who just read and look at the piccies for fun, usually with their hubbies, and then want to try out the same sort of experimental photography at home.

It seems that my frequent apologies for our slightly more edgy pictures have also been unnecessary. Not only do women have a much wider comfort zone for erotic art (which is obviously NOT porn because it’s b+w, of course) than you would ever have believed possible, but it appears many of our female readers look at this blog just before they toddle off to bed with their beloved one. i.e. this highly tasteful art nude blog is actually contributing to people’s nightly steamy sessions in the boudoir. Now this might be obvious to many of you, but it’s news to us I’m afraid. Of course we naturally assumed that men read the blog for the big boobies, but it seems the ladies read it for the (rather infrequent) steamy bits. In actual fact, several confessed to really loving the images of some of the more adventurous models (not of me, thank goodness!) posing in a more…erm…seductive manner, so to speak.

Now you’ll appreciate that Rich is in seventh heaven about this. He loves women, pretty much all of them if we’re being completely honest. His greatest pleasure is making women happy. So the idea of there being a high female bloggie demand for tasteful-yet-slightly-raunchier pictures of women groping themselves, has really made our Mr Fluffy’s day.

He wants you all to know that he’ll do his utmost to…er…spice up your love-lives by dedicating himself 100 percent to shooting steamier pictures this year…He says that “tasteful erotic” must be his new calling. “Gotta keep the readers happy!” he says.

Thanks for that folks. I mean…thank you SO MUCH for giving my husband the perfect excuse to shoot dodgy porn in the name of art.

And that’s the last time I ever do a bloggie survey.

"Statistics can be used as a drunken man uses lampposts - for support rather than for illumination."
Andrew Lang



The delightful Amy, our first "higher" model. Apparently not our last.

Rant Number 1

Good morning and welcome to our new and exciting feature: Ranting Rich’s Friday Morning Rantathon. Our hero’s spicy and belligerent commentary on life, the universe and the meaning of Art.

I don’t get it!

I have often seen images that make me wonder what‘s wrong with people.

As an example I came across an image on Model Mayhem that reinforced this view. This shows a model perched over a toilet seat, wearing (supposedly) blood stained knickers with blood all over the toilet, her legs and toilet paper. The amount of blood is such that it’s not possible to think that it’s just the result of menstruation. So the viewer is left to wonder, has she been raped, has she had a miscarriage, is she haemorrhaging due to illness?

It’s obviously about pain and suffering, but its glossed up, well lit, and posed by a model. It’s not documentary, so I guess it’s about making a statement for the ‘Art’. Now I have had the misfortune of seeing a woman with that amount of blood and she did not look like she was thinking ‘oooh look at that’. Nor was she playing. She was clutching her stomach in agony.

There are a number of photographers and models who have commented about how fantastic this photograph is. It obviously appeals to them as an artistic statement.

There are also many ‘edgy bondage’ sites that show bound women being tied, beaten and bundled into the back of cars. Of course it’s all in the name of art and its harmless right? (Please note that I am excluding the erotic bondage sites from this description).

Well, let’s look at another class of image (bottom of this post), something so extreme and distasteful that MM won’t show it, Web Models won’t show it. It’s beyond the pale of what normal decent people could look at.

This could not be listed at any online modelling site I know of. It’s considered porn. There is no blood, no violence, no statement on society. It’s just about erotic self stimulation. And I suspect that my even showing this on the blog will shock and horrify models and have them cancel bookings with me in case, God forbid, I should ask them to do something like this. And if the image were a man and woman touching each other, OMG, how awful would that be?

So we have a situation that means that images which represent death, serious illness, abduction, kidnap and pain are acceptable, but the ones that represent erotic play and the one act that is required to create every living person on the planet, are taboo and frowned upon.

“I don’t do porn!” says the model, but I’ll show myself as a victim of rape, or suicide or anything that’s ‘arty’ but God forbid I shoot be shown as an erotic creature of love and desire. How twisted is that?!

This is reflected in so many ways in society, and in the art and media community especially. Consider Reality TV or some of the British soaps, which focus on the bad in society. I guess blood and gore have more interest, like driving slowly past a car wreck to see if you can see a body. But don’t even mention sex, unless it’s prostitutes, druggies and rape.

I do understand that the problem here is me. I would expect people to want to be represented by life, beauty, eroticism and sensuality, not looking like the meat on a butchers table. But I guess I’ll never understand the mentality of someone who won’t do erotic photography but will happily shoot or praise a photograph that makes them look like a train wreck.

Since when did bloody and violent glossy art become more publically acceptable than erotic art, and what does this say about the values of the society we live in?

Seasonal Fluctuations

‘Tis the Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.

I love the autumn. This is actually my favourite time of year. The leaves slowly fall, the conkers drop, the house gets cleaned thoroughly, the chimney swept, winter logs are brought in for firewood for the stove, the duvets and curtains get changed for snuggly winter weight, the autumn blackberries, apples and elderberries are harvested and frozen down for winter.

And women get horny.

Yup. It’s definitely the season for rampant sex. According to my friends, this is an entirely normal female seasonal fluctuation. Women get randier in the autumn. I’m not entirely sure why this is. Maybe it’s the drop in temperature that makes women want to snuggle up with someone warm ‘n’ sexy for the winter. Maybe it’s an inbuilt nesting instinct. Maybe it’s the leaves. But this…er… hormone blip is very real. Most women go entirely off the rails for a period of about six weeks. After that we settle down for Christmas, but in the meantime, crazy-sex-mad-laydeez rule O.K.

Females cannot be responsible for their actions at this time of year. Mood swings, irrationality, craving for chocolate, general nuttiness, and a heightened desire for retail therapy or wild partying (in lieu of sex if not available).

Rich of course, loves the autumn. There is a reason that my three kids were born at the same time of year (about nine months hence). After all, if the poor man only has sex for two months a year, it’d better be good right?

So I would like to point out that I cannot be held responsible for the next six weeks’ blog posts. We chix are not ourselves. Instead, we are ruled by hormones, and this means that our parameters of…er…”what is art?” may have a significantly wider personal comfort zone than normal. Today for example, I have spent an inordinate amount of time talking with two female friends about sex, corsets, designer fetish heels and love dens, and the best ways to be photographed in them! So you see, I may be a rampant and deranged middle-aged sex-vixen, but I am not alone.

So folks, if you wanna lure the babes, now is the time to strut your funky stuff. If you are thinking of expanding your family, autumn is the most fertile time to explore your wildest fantasies as often as inhumanly possible (really kinky sex every day for a month gets optimum results, I promise!) If you are in the northern hemisphere and you need to spruce up your photographic erotica portfolio, now would definitely be the best time to extract the most from your modelling subjects.

As for me, believe me, I will really TRY to keep the blog as clean and pucker as possible. After all, I don’t want the models and clients to cancel, I still want my friends to continue speaking to me, and I really do want the blog to remain at least slightly artistically highbrow (yes, I know, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that ever happening!) I just don’t know if I’m capable of rational thought. Maybe I should just hand the blog back to Ranting Rich until deepest winter arrives. Hmm…

Must…..keep…repeating……it’s all about the art……it’s all about the art……it’s…definitely nothing to do with art…..if it’s black and white it’s gotta be art…..oh dearie me.



The Glass Nipple.