Thursday, July 31, 2008

Male nudes


Sometimes people wish for a male nude site, and I consider doing one, but then I look at something like playgirl.com, and it just seems subtly wrong...

I am not entirely sure why. But I think it's something about: sure, a man can be decorative, just ask any woman who've walked past fit workers with their shirts off. But a man can't be aware that he is decorative and still stay... manly. So how can he pose for pictures nude.

Also, maybe for the same reason, maybe for another, it seem much more difficult to me to do a male nude site and have it remain largely non-sexual. Heck, it's tricky enough to balance it with Domai, but for males I have the feeling one might have to back off even more, maybe into arty BW pictures. I'm not sure.

The question is, if Playgirl is doing it wrong, how do you do it right, and can it be done?

----
Update: there's "fit", and there's "parody of man".

Pascal sed:
PlayGirl is the "modern woman's" Playboy. It's deliberately sexual to the stretched limits of softcore, with the penis being as much as possible a phallus, and the man being as much as possible a heap of steroid-inflated muscles with a sex-object face. I mean, cripes, this site could just as well be called "PlayGay", and there would be nothing to change!

"It just seems subtly wrong", you say? Well, yeah, if your definition of subtle is like a molten iron pizza being "subtly hot".
I'm sorry, but that site is SO remote from a male Domai, that it really rubs my masculinity the wrong way! "Um, let me rephrase that..." - (George W. Bush, World Master & Baiter) ;-)

How to do it right? Peace of beefcake! Do the opposite of the PlayGirl method, just like Domai does the opposite of the Playboy method. The pointers from Alex sound sound (they feel right) for a working basis.

It's pretty simple, really: if it feels like it would perfectly illustrate a Roman sex slave catalogus, then it's done wrong. If it feels like the Garden of Eden, where nudity is supremely natural, people are people, and sex has its own place but you have to do some guessing work to locate it, then it's done right.

Laurie, it's not just that these men are glancing towards the camera, it's the WAY they're glancing. If your experience is lacking in that domai...n, I suggest you invest in a random Playboy issue as educational material. Compare the photos there with what you see on Domai. And then imagine the same kind of difference in male nude photos.

On the International Naturists Association's website, there's a daily photo which I never miss. Be warned, some of the men and women you'll see there are totally un-sexy! And then, some are impeccable. But they'll always be in a non-sexual context, which can give a very proper starting point. They have a TV network, and some of their newscasters do take great care of their body, but it's light-years from PlayGirl.

Today's America-influenced world culture, I feel, is saturated with convoluted ways to intensely focus on sexual while playing innocent. The epitome of this being the clearly satirical visual jokes in the Austin Powers series. They're practically porn that avoids showing genitals. And it IS supremely funny, precisely because the best humour is that which refers to ourselves and the world we live in. (This is why most jokes are about sex, money, politics, driving, and family.) If there wasn't such a huge quantity of torrid innuendo in Hollywood, the Austin Powers series would just be a boring bunch of crude jokes. But in today's rampant hypocrisy? It's a powerful caustic satire. A festival of sexual symbols strictly within the allowed boundaries of cinema. Therefore ridiculing them along the way.

It's mind-boggling, but true: many images from Domai would be far more likely to be labeled as "porn", for the sole reason that they don't titillate by craftily playing hide-and-reveal. They neither flaunt, nor wriggle around to avoid facing you. How DARE they!

Eolake, I think the link to that article on systematic bad taste in porn should be a permanent item on your blog's main page. We keep returning to the same conclusion: the truly taboo thing is nudity when it refuses to be vulgar and squarely pornographic. Because it doen't fit into the neat and simplistic world system of the effed-up sex-obsessed bigots.

Anonymous insisted...
"We only find them beautiful because of sexuality."
Then do you consider that a horse, a dolphin, a swan, a tiger, a sunset... are also sexual to us? Nature's full of things which are very beautiful to us. And even put us in a romantic mood, but not towards THEM.
Sure, a woman is intrinsically sexual to any hetero man... whether she's naked or not! But what makes Domai unique is precisely that it rejects the typical deliberate emphasis on the sexual component of women. Without trying to smother it either. "Simple Nudes" is just that.
One thing that makes those nude women more beautiful to us than the examples I've given, apart from the sexual component which is simply left to be, no-more-no-less, is that they are people, with faces, and souls showing through these faces. While the typical Pamela Anderson (there, I've said it: Miss Playboy par excellence) would be better off being a robot, for such vacuity of soul and total switchability of bodies is just horrible to consider in a human being. Object-women, and God forbids that they ever be more than that, more than the warm flesh equivalent of an inflatable doll.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Domai is very sexual. Your dislike of a male nude site proves that you are unable to view things in terms of inherent beauty apart from sexuality. If sexuality is removed, you should be able to appreciate a naked man's beauty as easily as a woman's.

Alex said...

Is Domai very sexual?

Domai seems to me to be "asexual". The poses for the most part are chaste, in the sense that they are not sexually provocative. To me this comes through the expressions on the faces on most of the models. They seem content and relaxed for the most part. True the site looks at natural beauty, not following cliched model statistics, but also not straying beyond a "pleasant" range of sizes.

Domai isn't "sexless" like the art nudes, where the form is examined in a mostly inhuman way. Artistic nudes tend to reduce the model to a texture or shape, and often seem to demand athletic figures, or hyper real (aged, overweight) models.

Even looking back at Page 3, they are only verging on sexual, playful poses and suggestive clothing, heck even Maxim and FHM seem to be more sexual.

Playgirl seems to be heading the way Playboy does with the semi aroused states. Now I don't think a typical Greenaway male nude is the way forward either, unless you consider the books in "The Pillow Book".

Playgirl (based on their website intro pages) is also looking at Hard Bods, akin to Playboy going for silicone/well endowed. It is after an ideal rather than the wider "goodlooking" category.

I find playboy models with their disconnected pouts, or lustful slack jaws to be part of the "downfall", and playgirl seems to match that with the deep stare, and predatory glower.

To do it right?

1) build Trim to muscular
2) penis dangling through idly erect
3) face saying "oh, hi!" not "Right Now"
4) location - pastoral, beach, cliff, lawn, familiar room

To do it wrong (not Domai)

1) Charles Atlas
2) lubed and primped
3) "I don't care" or "you're mine"
4) hotel room, hot tub, girls locker room.

There will always be time for Edward Weston, Howard Schatz et al. There will always be a want for a Penthouse, Escort, Playgirl.

For the rest of us Domai and Domen lift the day.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes, those are also my thoughts so far. (Though I wouldn't even use semi-erect.)

The over-buffed bodies and the looks, exactly.

For some reason I think there could also easily be space for more Fine Art Nudes than on Domai. Somehow the male figure, being more complex, lends itself to it better.

Anonymous said...

I would not be as interested in a male nude site. As a woman, the female nudes inspired the feeling of female beauty in myself. Seeing male nudes, well, I feel much more inspired by the male form (in men not my partner) when they are partially clothed . . . . seeing male bodies at work, for instance, is truly beautiful. Nude guys glancing toward the camera, like Eo said, somehow it just seems ..... wrong. Hmmm, gotta think more on that.....

Laurie

Anonymous said...

Why wouldn't you use (semi) erect willies? There's all sort of erect nips on Domai. Erections don't have to be sexual. We do wake up with one every morning...

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"Erections don't have to be sexual."

Could be, but that's what they signal.

Laurie, if you have future observations on this, do share.

Anonymous said...

There is no difference, but you are not gay so you think it wouldn't be right. It's obvious that domai is sexual by its very nature. We only find them beautiful because of sexuality. Otherwise the sight of something so obviously utilitarian (like a Jeep) would stir nothing in us. The human body, male or female, is a totally practical thing and our brains trick us into desiring the opposite sex because we need to reproduce in order for the species to survive. There's nothing artistic, beautiful, or noble about it.

Alex said...

Now there's a comment I don't quite get. "Otherwise the sight of something so obviously utilitarian (like a Jeep) would stir nothing in us." Are you saying Jeeps stir nothing in us?

See, there is some styling in utility vehicles, take a classic 1960's Unimog, is there not something there? Look at a mid 70's Gold Eagle Jeep, is there not something there? How about the styling of the Austin Gypsy?

There is something in the styling which says something. Is this sexual? I hope not.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, do you really connect beauty and sexuality as the same thing? Personally, I've never gotten hard looking at a lake.

Really, the only thing sexual about domai is the fact that they're nude. And the only reason we associate nudity as sexual is because we have to take our clothes off to have sex.

Anonymous said...

"And the only reason we associate nudity as sexual is because we have to take our clothes off to have sex."

I don't think this is 100% correct. The reason we associate nudity as sexual is because we are normally clothed. This makes nudity interesting, and it has sensitized us to seeing certain features of the opposite sex.

If we stayed nude most of the time, like other species do, we would not associate nudity to sex. It would take something else to trigger that. A certain pose or something.

Anonymous said...

Well yeah, that's partially what I meant. You explained it better.

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

PlayGirl is the "modern woman's" Playboy. It's deliberately sexual to the stretched limits of softcore, with the penis being as much as possible a phallus, and the man being as much as possible a heap of steroid-inflated muscles with a sex-object face. I mean, cripes, this site could just as well be called "PlayGay", and there would be nothing to change!

"It just seems subtly wrong", you say? Well, yeah, if your definition of subtle is like a molten iron pizza being "subtly hot".
I'm sorry, but that site is SO remote from a male Domai, that it really rubs my masculinity the wrong way! "Um, let me rephrase that..." - (George W. Bush, World Master & Baiter) ;-)

How to do it right? Peace of beefcake! Do the opposite of the PlayGirl method, just like Domai does the opposite of the Playboy method. The pointers from Alex sound sound (they feel right) for a working basis.

It's pretty simple, really: if it feels like it would perfectly illustrate a Roman sex slave catalogus, then it's done wrong. If it feels like the Garden of Eden, where nudity is supremely natural, people are people, and sex has its own place but you have to do some guessing work to locate it, then it's done right.

Laurie, it's not just that these men are glancing towards the camera, it's the WAY they're glancing. If your experience is lacking in that domai...n, I suggest you invest in a random Playboy issue as educational material. Compare the photos there with what you see on Domai. And then imagine the same kind of difference in male nude photos.

On the International Naturists Association's website, there's a daily photo which I never miss. Be warned, some of the men and women you'll see there are totally un-sexy! And then, some are impeccable. But they'll always be in a non-sexual context, which can give a very proper starting point. They have a TV network, and some of their newscasters do take great care of their body, but it's light-years from PlayGirl.

Today's America-influenced world culture, I feel, is saturated with convoluted ways to intensely focus on sexual while playing innocent. The epitome of this being the clearly satirical visual jokes in the Austin Powers series. They're practically porn that avoids showing genitals. And it IS supremely funny, precisely because the best humour is that which refers to ourselves and the world we live in. (This is why most jokes are about sex, money, politics, driving, and family.) If there wasn't such a huge quantity of torrid innuendo in Hollywood, the Austin Powers series would just be a boring bunch of crude jokes. But in today's rampant hypocrisy? It's a powerful caustic satire. A festival of sexual symbols strictly within the allowed boundaries of cinema. Therefore ridiculing them along the way.

It's mind-boggling, but true: many images from Domai would be far more likely to be labeled as "porn", for the sole reason that they don't titillate by craftily playing hide-and-reveal. They neither flaunt, nor wriggle around to avoid facing you. How DARE they!

Eolake, I think the link to that article on systematic bad taste in porn should be a permanent item on your blog's main page. We keep returning to the same conclusion: the truly taboo thing is nudity when it refuses to be vulgar and squarely pornographic. Because it doen't fit into the neat and simplistic world system of the effed-up sex-obsessed bigots.
Ah-ha, found it: http://www.cinebizarre.com/essay_eroticphil.htm

Anonymous insisted...
"We only find them beautiful because of sexuality."

Then do you consider that a horse, a dolphin, a swan, a tiger, a sunset... are also sexual to us? Nature's full of things which are very beautiful to us. And even put us in a romantic mood, but not towards THEM.
Sure, a woman is intrinsically sexual to any hetero man... whether she's naked or not! But what makes Domai unique is precisely that it rejects the typical deliberate emphasis on the sexual component of women. Without trying to smother it either. "Simple Nudes" is just that.
One thing that makes those nude women more beautiful to us than the examples I've given, apart from the sexual component which is simply left to be, no-more-no-less, is that they are people, with faces, and souls showing through these faces. While the typical Pamela Anderson (there, I've said it: Miss Playboy par excellence) would be better off being a robot, for such vacuity of soul and total switchability of bodies is just horrible to consider in a human being. Object-women, and God forbids that they ever be more than that, more than the warm flesh equivalent of an inflatable doll.

Amusingly, I'm going to give Anon some arguments against TTL: I'm "in love" with the classic 1970 car design of Jaguar... and I see in it something definitely reminiscing of gracious feminine (or feline? or both) curves: [1] and [2]. While most modern cars, no matter how "hot" to a typical car buff (like my bros), say nothing to me. I just don't give a ratchet's blot about a big-reared set of massively horse-powered stallion wheels that can go "vroom-vroom" in a few fractions of a second. But the classic Jaguar? Man, that's a moving (pun intended) work of art. It's the Domai of elegant cars when Cadillacs were their big-bummed busty bimboes.

Jes testified...
"Personally, I've never gotten hard looking at a lake."

Doctor P-4 can prescribe some Viagra to fix that... ;-)
Then all you'll have to do is think of the abundantly flowing Viagara falls.

TTL documentarised...
"If we stayed nude most of the time, like other species do, we would not associate nudity to sex. It would take something else to trigger that. A certain pose or something."

Been looking at cats lately, have you?
They're naked, they're very alluring, they're highly sensual, and yet they're nothing like rabbits in their daily life. Heck, they don't even hump your leg like some dogs do!
And yet, when they do have sex, ho boy, sounds like the Gardens of Allah are splitting wide open!
If I get to choose, I want to be reincarnated as a cat, physically complete, in a good home. With lots of jerrymice around for some good sportive tomcat fun. :-)

Anonymous said...

Pascal, you seem to have a scary obsession for felines and every kind of pussy. If I were you, I'd hurry and consult a good animal shrink before that next karma cums. I hear Dr Ape Primate in George Jungle is very competent.

Anonymous said...

Then do you consider that a horse, a dolphin, a swan, a tiger, a sunset... are also sexual to us?

No, I don't.

Nature's full of things which are very beautiful to us.

Very true. People don't fork out cold hard cash or its invisible electronic version to look at pictures of those things. That's the point.

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Anonymous said...

"I'm "in love" with the classic 1970 car design of Jaguar..."

You have excellent taste, sir. I'm a big cat person myself, with a Jag (or two) on my shopping list. I prefer British racing green and the dark blue colours.

The only problem with old Jags: You pretty much have to buy a mechanic to go with the car. Unless you want to take that as a hobby for yourself.

Alex said...

1970's Jags? Do me a flavour! XK150, preferably a convertable. Delish! Again, British racing green, or a cream/white.

The XK120, XK150 and XK-E all have very feminine curves. I think the XJ220 picked up that trend too, a car to ooh and aah at, but as sensible as a Ford GT40 or a Mercedes C111.

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

Your examples are nice, Al, but I stand with my true love.
Even if I have to sell myself as a chauffeur and mechanic to another Jag lover. ;-)