I would add this, which comes from weekly horoscope 540, the Jan. 7, 2005, written in Paris.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
With success comes responsibility — and that responsibility can far exceed the apparent rewards, and even what you have the power to control. But you do have your influence, and it’s running pretty high right now. While you have a platform, make sure you state in clear terms what you think is right. As someone whose conscience bears far too many burdens, you’re someone in a position to spread the load of life to people who are far less obsessed with ethics, but who will respond if they hear something sensible. In other words, relax, and let others help you get the work done. Let this be your formula for success.
Belle, good for you. Against towers, for commonsense. All good.
You can stand down now. We come in peace, earthling.
Belle, optimism/pessimism is beside the point. “Positive thinking” is using fire to fight lava. Wishfulness is not cognition.
Belle opines: “I think that as a race humans are capable at this juncture in their evolution to ignite and sustain the cultural shift of which you speak, and it has already been fast-tracked enough that you and I will see it flourishing in our lifetime, and rejoice it in that of our children. Kinks to be ironed out…of course.”
I’m delighted you see this. Please be sure my name is on the invitations to the opening of the Department of Peace, the fusion of the NEA and the Department of Commerce, and the re-opening of Boeing/Lockheed as a giant amusement park.
It’s not pessimism, Belle. I am perfectly fine with the implosion of the Gaze. Let it roll.
Belle, it depends on how you consider photographing men. I photograph the occasional subject other than myself. A few times a year I have other photographers take pictures of me, and I use these. See the Planet Waves edition of, “Pornography as the Mirror of Denial.”
I consider all of the mirror abstracts to be self portraits.
The real ‘answer’ is that blue is about my relationship to women, and to myself; that at least is the original concept and one that I have been developing; it is an exploration of the interior feeling of female beauty and of my many responses to it. I am more inclined to expose myself as a male subject than other men; my own maleness is intriguing to me in subtle ways. Women reply to the listings for subjects a lot more than men do (by a factor of like 100 to 1). This may be my energy, it may be the world, it may be the nature of my work, which is not about the physicality of sex but rather the psychic interplay of sex, relating, seeing and being seen.
This being said, I did a session with a male model and Simone the other day, which is under the current thread of the Book of Blue; and the article Mysti is referencing is called, “A Page from Book of Blue,” which can be searched with quotes and should turn up for you. Well it’s not in google – anyone can write to me and I’ll send the URL.
I have a good strong curiosity about erotic experiences with men. It’s difficult to find ones that match my particular erotic wavelength even a little, but it does happen from time to time. I prefer that they be male lovers of my female lovers. I am sure that will lead to some photos. Look around the site and you will find the occasional one from this genre. There are many archives, pages and pages of them.
“I know cross-culturally there are bound to be huge differences, but as a whole I think the male breed has moved forward…”
Hmmm… do you? Interesting. Which culture inculcates men with nurturing, earth-preserving, boundary-opening values? Which one bonds ambition and energetic organizational energy with playfulness, adventure and sensuality? Hmmm… I’m lookin’, lookin’. . . What I see is more than 1/4 of the planetary economy invested in weaponry. Another 20% in so-called ‘medical technology’ to ameliorate the damage done by that weaponry. Seriously, not seeing a “huge difference…”
That said, I will allow as the BoB is a move in the right direction – and will also concede that there’s tons of male porn on the Web. It’s the only way we have to represent taking Vision *inside* the body at this point – which, like all sexuality, is a metaphor. And that metaphor may actually accumulate into a cultural shift in a couple of thousand years.
Question: do we have a couple of thousand years? Answer: not so much.
Back to my ringside seat on the Grand Dissolution. Popcorn, anyone?
Belle, Eric does have a couple of men in the BoB; and deeper in the Book there is an amazing series of himself and a lover in Brussels (do I remember the city correctly?). I think that is going to become part of the subscription area.
Mostly men are trained to consider themselves the viewers, not the viewed; and when allowing themselves to *be seen,* lose a certain amount of control. Giving up that control –around other men– is fairly dangerous – they have a tendency to slaughter one another in those circumstances.
I have been working on some solutions to the propensities for violence built into the so-called ‘male gaze’ (which is more like ‘the male-being-seen’). But I am realizing the scale at which these solutions need be carried out is just about half-the-species wide.
Gentlewomen, start your engines.