Age – Phil Pool – Art and Protest

We are tasteful – it’s not porn – or, why are there no vulvas in my photos. Pubes…

I’m asking myself this question – I don’t want to create porn, or perhaps even worse, soft porn, but why are there no vulvas especially visible in my photos. Vulvas, and arse holes, are not (do not equate to) porn, they are just parts of our bodies.

Very few people with penises come forward for my projects, but they neither show off nor hide their cocks and balls. So why are the Vs hidden.. Are they hidden, or did they just not end up being seen.

I guess it’s because vulvas are, largely, hidden. To see them closely in photos it’s going to be necessary to choose to do so – to ask the person to open their legs or to bend over. If my subjects wanted to sit or pose, legs apart, they would – not many have.

It’s an active way to see their genitals which is not relevant with penis owners. To see them, there mostly needs to be an active attempt to show them. Or, actually, the shots would need to be of actions that would inevitably, obviously, show them – like some yoga poses.

I observe on the naturist beach that far more women keep their knickers on even though their genitals will always be less visible than those of men just by being between their legs. And when they don’t wear knickers, unlike the men who have little left to be revealed, most keep their legs closed. It’s not unintentional – I’ve watched women turn from laying on one side to the other, with their legs clamped together, rolling log like.

It wasn’t always like this. Women were mostly not sat, legs wide apart, but they weren’t clearly clamped together. I wonder if it’s the lack of pubes. Obviously the near ubiquity of the baby-bald look is fading as many women say fuck that, but it’s still very common.

I wonder if, without that wonderful, soft, fur, which inevitably blurs the lines of the outer lips, the embaldened (sic) are now feeling exposed in a way they cannot avoid without legs near crossed. Pubes don’t do anything to disguise a penis and balls so perhaps those of us with them, just get used to the exposure.

I wonder why I feel cautious about suggesting poses that would tend to be more revealing – I’m hardly prudish. I think it’s possibly as I have such an internalised self-critic that is telling me that people must think I’m a bit of a perv.. so I avoid any shots that might be seen as sexual.

I have made vulva casts, but they are hard work and I was helping a friend with her project – her vulva. I’ve been asked several times to cast people’s genitals, but can’t really locate my own reason for doing so – isolated, they are interesting but not ‘my’ art. Other than ‘Nipple Stars’ not much of my casting felt like I had a reason for it.

But I can’t escape my own shouts of ‘hypocrite’ at myself. A big point of this whole thought process is that bodies are bodies, showing a vulva isn’t a sexual act and, really, it’d probably be good if more were shown generally in ways that are not intended to be sexual.

What do you think? Comments [shitty ones will be deleted – this isn’t a democracy].

Sue, Tessa, Eva, Kimi, Katie, Carey and Lucy – Burlesque Stars.

My Ages project is well populated by people who do burlesque. Why so many? Based on what they have all told me, it’s a form of performance that allows for a body positive, sexual confidence, that is on their own terms.

It’s not that the audience and putting on a show isn’t important, but they are the stars of their own show – it’s for them, and for them to share rather than for us to take.

I’m intrigued too by the generosity and giving nature of the groups. It’s clearly a really supportive process for the learners and as they develop the shows.

I’ve heard a few times how great it is that burlesque includes a really wide range of ages and body types. All are stunning, beautiful people – not judged for their appearance. And, as part of that, it helps to show to others that their body types are wonderful too.

Going to a burlesque show, well I guess I don’t need to go often myself – I love the energy and the beaming self confidence and joy of the performers. But it can be a bit lacking in queer for me – which is odd given my personal tastes defo being for female body types rather than male. But somehow, it could do with a bit of a Queering.

The best part has been observing my participants performing for themselves, with me/us as welcome witnesses. I often feel that’s my role as the photographer, to create a situation in which the subject feels able to reveal something of themselves, something perhaps not previously revealed.

Being 50 something

This week I photographed Caroline in the garden of a house in which she has lived for many years. She won’t mind me saying that the house is in a poor state of repair. It’s a great looking building though and a beautiful garden.

Caroline sitting on steps in her garden.

Like many people in my Ages project, she spoke about gaining body confidence later in life and about how she’d felt shamed for her looks while younger. I guess the remaining sense of body shame may be a limit on the numbers of younger people who will get involved – not yet having shaken that off.

I really enjoy working with all of the participants, there is though something I enjoy more photographing people of a similar age to me. There’s an affinity, our skins have been exposed to life for a similar length of time.

Naked in the breeze and thin sun at the beach – again. Expected difficult futures call to us from the now.

I stared at the sea for ages, watching to see if it’d be in a mood to let me in safely… It seemed to suggest it might be, but as is often the case, I misread its beaconing waves. It near spat me out, but I have learned enough by now that I can get out fairly unscathed.

And now, the clouds have parted and the sun is warming my naked body as much as the keen breeze is chilling me. As is so often the case, it’s a day for being alive – naked by the sea, in the sun, in the wind. And no one else seems to have agreed with that idea – I have this late June day on Brighton beach pretty much to myself.

A photo of Brighton beach looking west from the naturist beach, late afternoon, the pier is in the distance. — Brighton beach

I have just written a brief note, a health warning, to a friend who would like to take part in my Ages project. I don’t know how old she is, 50s I guess.

My warnings now are still a reminder that it’s recognisable, naked images on the internet. But more than that, they are that the project may make you think, and perhaps more than expected.

One of the participants recently said “I thought I could just write some stuff and be ok ….but …damn it….. you made me think lots…(which is a good thing) a muscle i haven’t flexed in a while…so i want to contribute in an honest and truthful way x”

Being involved will draw out feelings, memories and expectations and fears for our futures and our nows. Generally, that is a good thing and especially longer term. Shorter term though, and especially for people who are already dealing with lots of unresolved issues, it can be a tougher ride.

There’s a bit of conflict for me with the project now. Ideally, I want people to write about their now, pretty much at the same time the images are taken. But in a couple of cases, the process of taking the photos and reflecting on that and about their lives, some the participants have needed more time.

And, of course, that’s the most important thing and something for me to note – the participants are the project as much as my ideas about it and the images. If I painted I’d need to work with paint as the material as working against it makes a mess. With images and creations drawn from people, the artful part for me is to work with their needs, worries, ideas, inspirations, laughter and so on.

My values include avoiding doing harm, and trying to be caring, to always try to draw the breeze towards creativity. Ages started with me, with talking with Titch, and perhaps it’ll keep growing – in what ever way it grows.

Fox the System…Fix the System Not the Women – by Laura Bates

I’ve been reading Fix the System by Laura Bates – it’s compelling, hard reading and as she notes, much of what it contains will be no surprise to women but will be alien to most men.

I’m not that far into the book and I deeply get her rationale that the vast ocean of very different ways that women are subject to sexism, must stop being seen as a series of incidents (not ignoring their individual impact) and instead be recognised as aspects of the patriarchy and set in a colonial, abelist, economic and social structure. It’s a structure that endlessly recreates itself, making slots for women to fall into and for men to stand over whether or not they like it.

Those words, fix the system not to women seem really apt to me. I’ve been using them a good deal recently in terms of my views of neurodiversity and the NPNPD (normal persons narrow perspective disorder) based society that dominates. It says it values diversity but tbh, I don’t think it actually understands that any other ways of mind can be anything but pathological.

It, the NPNPD is not just a stasis, it’s nothing like so passive. It must fix us or sideline us as our very existence is a significant challenge to it’s own definition of reality. Like the TERF who pleaded with me that the very existence of people who ‘claim to be women but who are always really men’ threatened her whole notion of self as a woman – we were making a mockery of her existence. . which I said was crap.

She couldn’t see beyond the binary of men and women and in that binary, all men are a threat, always. Her whole social construction pivoted on a clear line between one and the other – to move between the two destroyed her model and it was everything to her. In that context, I understood her horror – if we kicked the turtles out from beneath her she will fall forever.

Usually in life we don’t fall forever. And a jump from a belief to questioning that belief doesn’t lead to much more than standing there wondering why you had not stepped down before – the ground is solid and there is more space than there is upon a high horse.

I don’t think men will wake up just like that and just ‘get it’ that the patriarchy is wrong and dismantle it – it’s not an isolated structure, it sits among and intertwined with others and all farm us and shit their food into the hulk of capitalism.

Us neurodiverse lot are going to have to shout though and demand to be heard – we need to put the disorder into our disorders. I am ceasing to be ok with being fixed or ‘failing’ – it’s failing in a society that does little but harm.

One thing leads to another

My Ages project is getting going, 4 pages ready now and one not far off. As always, working with new people and ones I don’t know well, is brilliant. Its a great joy to me to be so trusted with people’s thoughts, their desires, fears and anxieties and their bodies. It’s interesting to me that even in the short time that I have been doing them, there has been significant change in the life of one of the participants.

Its also been good that being involved has enthused some people with all sorts of thoughts and ideas for future projects.

Censorship on Instagram continues to wind me up, but at least with one of the images from Ages of Eva as a mermaid, the censoring was just to cover her nipples with some fairly apt clam shells.