Bob, I couldn't agree with you MORE!!! We don't need any more stereotypical images whether male or female. Trite, cliche, boring! That is why we need to address content of photographs even on this very technical alt.photo list. I personally feel that what I put into image is my responsibility--do I make the world a better place for having made the image or not? I know this is a probably dated theory of art being didactic or socially instructive/constructive, but it is my personal ethics. Yes it is a can of worms, and the nude is so personal that it hits all of us in the gut where we are in issues of gender, sex, self-awareness.
I researched Dugdale's book after its mention on the list and I, too, found his images stereotypical and a bit dull, but thought maybe they were better in person. Some were nicely evocative. I'm tired of perfect bodies, whether female or male homoerotic. I much prefer real bodies, love handles and cellulite and dimples and stretch marks and all those wonderful indicators of a life lived.
I do wonder why it is, too, and it seems you are totally correct in saying, that homosexual artists also produce stereotypical, objectifying images?
I also saw so SO MANY "GENERIC" figure studies of men that it was rather
disappointing. By generic I mean that the photographers had simply taken
cheese cake poses which I first saw in the 50s as a child or in the 70s as a
fashion photographer and put men in the place of women, It was shown at a
West Side New York Gallery so it must be art...right? I mean, seriously,
the beefy boy sitting backwards, naked in the saddle, while beautifully lit,
looks EXACTLY like a pin-up I saw in 1955 on my older brother's wall except
then it was a "Cow Girl". There were also a number of very young men
stripped to the waist looking at the camera with the "Come hither" look.
Exact steal from what most of the young male photo assistants were asking
their female models to do in the 70s in hopes of going beyond photography..
Yes, yes, yes...I know it falls under the politically correct umbrella
of "Exploring male eroticism"...well Explore it already but to make cookie
cutter images formerly occupied by women, I think, is reinforcing yet
another stereotype and, perhaps, just as demeaning to men, regardless of
their sexual preference, as we now acknowledge it is to women.
Well, here goes...
CHEERS!
BOB KISS
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