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].
Phil Pool - Art and Protest 