ESOTERIC EROTICA, The Realities

My book has been printed and has arrived and I could not be more happy with it. The paper I had printed on is perfect, and definitely does justice to it's depths of colour. It promised rich blacks and it delivered. Also, form the paper it's printed on. I feel that it made the lower quality images (the disposable ones) look much more romantic and beautiful.

I think the order I finally decided was pefect. It starts with the Initiation of a young male ingenue, a member of the rugby team who I then drag into my world of esoteric erotica and unique decorative aesthetics. The images of him start out fairly simply, but as the book progresses he becomes more and more consumed by the fiery ornamentation and carniverous flowers that my other subject have already surrendered to. It ends with his complete and utter immolation.

Immolation is a word that consumed me throughout this project. Previously I had understood it as a religious term, an act practiced by buddhist monks who set themselves on fire and sacrifice their bodies for Nirvana. But in reading Justine by the Marquis du Sade I came to see it very differently. There is a scene where Justine watches two young men in flagrante and the language used was incredible. It speaks of the young man immolating himself with his lover's prodigious penis. The use of what I considered a religious word in this context very exciting for me, and I fixated on that exchange. I decided that total immolation would be the climax of my book.

I feel that as the book progresses, even though it flickers between reality and fantasy throughout the entire narative, it intensifies towards the end, displaying more more ornamental images, people lost in the realms of their own deification. This book saw the rise of a device I had previously unused, vast amounts of doctored arrangements of fake flowers, particularly wreaths of red roses creating floral halos that really remind me of arse holes.

I thought carefully when making the layouts about where the gutter would go in the double page spreads. I felt that it had to interact with the image in some way. For instance, in one the gutter separates  two lovers, physicalising the emotional barrier between them, previously unseen or unsuspected. One double page that I am proud of is of the male ingenue bending over revealing his muscular buttocks. The gutter falls right down the parting of his cheeks and in order to view the whole image the viewer must physically push the pages further apart, which I feel mimics the real life action when one desires to view a man's arse hole. There is another double page of a goddess with her arms spread wide. with the gutter falling directly down the centre of her body. Her arms are positioned on the page in such a way that the viewers thumbs or fingers may be resting on the girl's wrists, so in a sense, it is the viewer who is pinning down this Goddess, spread eagled on the page. "It is only the sacred things that are worth touching." Also, on the double page of the twins, it was somewhat accidental but it amuses me to see that when the pages are together, the twins' lips touch, much like their pornographic counterparts.

All in all, I am exceedingly happy with my book, and can rest easy in the fact that I will be able to take pleasure in it for many years to come.

INTRO EROTICO

It is said that experiencing orgasm is like experiencing death. La Petite Mort. During the climax of arousal, we transcend our bodies and come to know the Hereafter. I ejaculate in order to communicate with God. This is how I come to understand myself. By thrusting my convulsing body into His hands I satiate my carnal desires and further explore my own soul. I know that I am God. I know that orgasm is part of my autolatry. This is an exploration into the mystery schools of my own consciousness.

If mainstream pornography can be compared to a major religion, then what I intend to uncover are the esoteric mysteries of that orthodoxy.

The growth of the sexual being from birth until adulthood is what I intend to study. This is comparable in many ways to the growth of the Christian church. From infancy to the age of around twelve(early adolescence) our manias are a melting pot of fantasy and imagination, we worshipped many things, many different people. We could feel beyond what now know, purely because we had no ties to any sordid realities or conventions. Romance could be felt but not quantified, it wasn’t material. Love was in abundance. A parent plays the role of the Messiah, bringing an ideology to our infant hearts. The concepts of relationships and families, monogamy and dedication are introduced and begin to germinate. The message is clear; Love, untouchable, all consuming love is message, the common goal, the aspiration, and with love comes the arousing spiritual connection between people. It is erotic, but not in the sordid way we assume. It is metaphysical erotica. It is a spiritual stirring, a movement of stars.

But then comes the fascist institutions of commercial pornography to give us new direction, new meanings for love. If our infant souls exist in the realms of early religions and cosmic mysteries, then commercial pornography plays the role of the Roman Catholic Church, taking a message that was preached to us by a messiah and twisting it for its own ends. The Roman Catholic Church seized power by taking elements of what we knew and suspected and believed and contorted it all together, making it one of the most powerful institutions the world has ever known, much as commercial pornography has. It provided us with a new mania, that of sex, carnal, animal sex.  Now this in itself is not unjust, or reprehensible, but we begin to invest too much of ourselves in it. Catholics preach love, forgiveness, loyalty, all admirable qualities, but with it comes dogma, close mindedness and hatred. Commercial porn teaches us to explore our own sexual beings, it lets us know we are not alone in the world of erotic thought, and gives us access to a higher form of fantasy and arousal, but it also breeds forms of sexism, increasing senses of entitlement and dissatisfaction, and above all, it limits us. When one practices the act of masturbation to excess, one becomes less reactive to the touch of others.

To become truly enlightened of our sexual selves, we need to take the higher forms of self awareness we get from pornography and mix it with the esoteric ideologies of love and connection from our youth. We can form hybrids of dream, erotic fantasy and memory and access more than we ever dreamed possible. This way we can create newer and higher form of fantasy and can transcend ourselves and know our true Gods; ourselves.

In my generation, the pivotal role of Emperor Constantine was filled by computers and the Internet. Computers were created to allow us to have easier lives, to unite us in the way that Constantine did. The Roman Catholic Church used Constantine to spread their own dogma throughout the known world, he was their medium. The internet spread pornography everywhere and made it one of the most accessible forms of visual culture ever known.

Through images I will fuse together fantasy, memory and performance and compile a dossier of esoteric erotica. By this, I mean images that stir some arousing chord within me, despite perhaps not being overly sensual to others.

As an adolescent, being a transvestite opened many doors to me. Strange bars and nightclubs across Europe opened their doors to me. The clothes I wore were ridiculous; silk night dresses with high heels three sizes too small, so much mascara I could barely keep my eyes open. Middle aged men fell at my feet, offering up money and alcohol as though I was a deity. I felt that I knew what it was to have Power. I had power over these men because my body was unlike theirs. I was young, I felt I was free, I felt I was beautiful, and these twisted, gnarled old creatures wanted to drink in my youthful sexuality and feel rejuvenated, reborn. I was the new messiah, I became God.

Together we shall explore the mysteries of the flesh, the flagrant consumption of our own bodies.

Much like the doomed and virtuous heroines of the Marquis du Sade, this book follows the faltering steps of a young male ingénue into a world beyond his comprehension, culminating in his total surrender to la petite mort. From initiation to immolation, he is besieged by different mystery schools, each expanding him in mind and body until he comes face to face with the carnal gods.

The journey he takes is a mixture of memory, fantasy and erotic thought. May we make this voyage together and come to love ourselves as no other person could.

INGENUE

Together we shall explore the mysteries of the flesh, the flagrant consumption of our own bodies.

Much like the doomed and virtuous heroines of the Marquis du Sade, this book follows the faltering steps of a young male ingénue into a world beyond his comprehension, culminating in his total surrender to la petite mort. From initiation to immolation, he is besieged by different mystery schools, each expanding him in mind and body until he comes face to face with the carnal gods.

The journey he takes is a mixture of memory, fantasy and erotic thought. May we make this voyage together and come to love ourselves as no other person could.

COVER GIRL

In producing a cover image I wanted to combine all the glamorous thing I love together whilst also keeping the image simple and clean. I feel like I was chanelling Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Theda Bara, Donna Summer, Divine, Ursula the Sea Witch, Lindsay Kemp, all with Klaus Nomi lips and a hairy chest. I wanted to become an icon of feminine beauty, I wanted to become a face like Garbo, or Marilyn. The simpleness of the cover will increase the impact of the highly elaborate images within it's pages.

THE WEEPING MARLENE

One of the other biggest female icons in my life is Marlene Dietrich. I find images of her so captivating, particularly the George Hurrell ones. This is my own attempt at further deifying Marlene. I produced my own goddess and gave her the cheekbones and the cigarette of Marlene. She lies in an ocean of white roses, the last of the great queens of the silver screen.

SEX PIG

I find this picture amusing because to me it is a very obvious joke about some of the phrases used in gay bondage porn, phrases like "sex pig" and "cum pig". It's taking this half abstract, totally degrading concept and transforming it into a glamorous portrait. I took elements of Miss Piggy from The Muppets and mixed it with my own glamorous sissy boy aesthetics. I particularly enjoy the bright pink painted nipple coming out from the pearls. Also, the interplay between red and green pleases me.

KIDS

The aim of this shoot was to produce pictures that were both innocent and provocative at the same time. I wanted these two to fight and wrestle in the garden with the intensity of two young boys play fighting, but because of their age, stature and dress, it would become an exercise in masculine sexuality and testosterone. I chose to shoot with a digital camera to get that old family picture feel. I remember seeing pictures of myself when I was in the midst of some make believe game, totally inhabiting a different body, only to be confronted later with a bizarre photo of me looking like me in fancy dress.

NECROMANTIC

These are images from a series I did about necrophilia. I developed an internal love affair between myself and Empress Alexandra Romanova of Russia, and I set out to try to find her corpse, and love her. I was exceedingly happy with what images I produced, and even more so with the body of poetry that went with it. I don't know, perhaps my compassion has had it's wires crossed at some point, but I find it very easy to see the beautiful and romantic side to necrophilia. In France, there was a man who was in love with a ballet dancer who died prematurely from an injury. On the night she was burried he dug her up and ravished her, and then slept beside her in the coffin and was discovered by the police the next morning. I think that is exceedingly romantic and poetic.

VAMPIRES

This is an image of me and Lewis at a fancy dress party where he was a vampire and I was a vampire's sacrificial bride. I really enjoy the effect created by dragging a photo along the scanner, I think it produces a disorientating atmosphere. In fantasy role play, I seem to always take on female roles, which is interesting since in physical relationships I am usually the more aggressive, or masculine.

ICARUS

This is an image of Icarus that I produced in conjunction with my short film The Invocation of Icarus. The film focused on trying to recapture the spirits of lost love through pagan religious rituals. This relies heavily on tribal aesthetics, starting to meander into vague native american territory, fusing with egyptian pharaoh sun god imagery. The symbol is of my own invention, having studied texts on symbology and demonology.

SISSY BOY 2

This is another sissy boy portrait. I think one way of making any boy look more masculine is by putting him in a dress, it reveals how different our bodies are to the true female figure. I enjoy the muted colours of the main image in comparison to the more vibrant ones in the border. At first I thought the image needed text in the top left corner to fill the space, but looking at it now, I see that it doesn't need it.

SACRIFICE

This is a boy who I am also completely in love with. I think his face is absolutely sensational. I feel like the only other person who would appreciate this boy as much as I do would be Pasolini. He has that look about him, that surreal, european 60s art house cinematic thing going on. My initial feelings for this was a male sacrifice, like the one in Medea.I think the rich colours really add to this image, and his androgynous face is exquisite.

WRESTLING

As a child, I was a big fan of professional wrestling. I enjoyed the ridiculous story lines and over the top acting. As I got older, I started enjoying the men as eye candy, and the exhilaration of flesh on flesh body contact. In fact, my first foray into pornography happened because I was looking up stuff about wrestling on the internet. Sex wrestling is still a genre I pay attention to as I find it fulfilling, both for my sexual needs and my nostalgic daydreaming.

Juan, the boy in the mask, was an incredible sport. I'd told Theo what I had planned, thinking he would tell Juan, but he didn't. Juan had never seen any of my work before. He was completely thrown in at the deep end and he rolled with almost everything I asked of him. I though he was beautiful and he was perfect for this shoot.

KAI

This is a recreation of a shot from my favourite childhood film, Lumikuningatar, which starred the first boy I ever loved, who played the role of Kai. I believe one of the reasons I am so in love with Jacky is that he reminds me of Kai. He has the same aura of constant youth mixed with a slight etherealness. His smile is endearing and he is an engaging, charming person. The border is a screenshot of the film, whose vibrant colours contrast well with the pale skin of the model.

KI'S DREAM

In this image I collaborated with fine artist Ki Jeal to create an image of her own erotic dreams. She had dreamed she was being penetrated by giant octopus tentacles, so she made one and I lit and photographed her. I enjoyed this and the theme of tentacle porn, which is a very lucrative genre of animated porn, hentai, particularly in Japan. The image is lit purely with red lights and I think produces a very effective erotic yet unsettling effect.

TWINS

This is an image I created that speaks about twins in porn to me. The model I used is an identical twin, but his twin is in fact not in the picture. I fused two pictures together to produce the illusion of of twins. In essence I used a real twin to create fake twins. I did this because I found it amusing, and also it reminded me of the trickery of the porn industry. They market lots of incest porn and porn featuring twins that don't have real relatives in at all, merely actors who may look vaguely similar. In essence, they trade not on reality, but on fantasy, which is what I have physicalised here.

BEDS

These images are of Lewis in my bed with red sheets, and in his, with blue. I noticed our contrasting bed colours early on in our relationship and thought it would make an interesting image. The text is taken from various writings I've been doing since being with him. The first was written after our first night together, the second about three months after. At first I was nervous about including this, thinking that it would be too intimate for him. My own feeling are on display, I am an exhibitionist, but I worried that he would not enjoy exposure. I reflected on it, and spoke to him about it, and finally decided to include it. I wouldn't like to think that my work would be compromised by my social life.

THE DEFEO ANGEL

Going along with my love of horror films we come to my tribute to the DeFeo family and and Amityville horror. Amityville is a place where the DeFeo family lived in a large house. The eldest son killed six other members of his family with a shotgun and was arrested. The next few families who lived in the house complained that it was haunted and this inspired a film franchise. I remember them as being swampy and not particularly scary. There was a great incestuous sex scene between brother and sister though, I remember that. But there was a doccumentary about the DeFeo murders I watched when I was quite young that terrified me. I remember it had fake CCTV footage of the son with the shotgun wandering the halls at night. There was also the reason he gave for killing his family which was decidedly interesting. He claimed an angel with black hands appeared to him and gave him the gun, instructing him to kill his family. It has since been theorised that the angel with black hands was none other than his sister wearing black gloves and working as an accomplice. I choose to believe the romantic notions of the former, and have created this image as tribute.

SAVAGE GRACE

Recently I've been having fantasies about being a glamorous middle aged woman with a young and beautiful son. I think this was part inspired by the Baekeland family and the film Savage Grace. Julianne Moore plays a beautifully decadent unhinged socialite who ends up having an incestuous relationship with her son, who later murders her. I feel like I would enjoy being her, except for the incest bit. There were lots of great shots of her dressed in a very elegant way walking around Paris with her young son dressed in a sailor suit. I think it's that bit that I want for myself.

Jacky Bushell is someone who I find myself in love with. I find him so beautiful, but so young to me, so I thought he would be perfect for playing this role.

WILDE ONE

I am very pleased with the pairing of these two images. The first I shot when I was 17 and is a version of one of the Stations of the Cross, the Pieta. It features Jack Rowland (the blonde) and he was a very important to me. He was the first person who ever allowed me to photograph them completely nude. I found him beautiful, with the body of a hero and the hair of an angel. We are exactly the same age and were born in the same hospital.

The text is a line from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, which I recently re-read and greatly enjoyed. I became quite taken with that line and knew it had to be included in my work. I think it works well with the picture of Lewis next to it, who I think has a really fascinating mouth and very full pink lips.

CHRIST

This is an image of Dagwell as Christ. I truly do find him to be an exquisite example of male beauty. I enjoy the use of photoshop here, as this was the first time I experimented with having a halo made of flowers. I think it truly adds to this image and it produces a simple yet effective icon of masculine attraction. He speaks to me of Tom of Finland, Pierre et Gilles and Kenneth Anger.

JOCKSLUT

Jockslut is a phrase which came to me when I was thinking of names for this body of work. It is a fusion of the phrase "cock slut" which is used excessively in gay porn and the concept of jocks, which is a very popular genre. I feel it is a perfect idiom for the kind of male imagery I produce. In many ways, I revere masculinity and male beauty, here, his skin is golden, he is posed as St Sebastian, he is a religious icon made out of gay porn, but in others, I enjoy objectifying men. I read a lot of feminist blogs speaking out in anger against the male gaze, and I find it an amusing slight subversion to turn the gaze back on to men. There is a famous quote which goes "Homophobia is the fear that other men will treat you the way that you treat women," and this I think is highly applicable to images like this.

SISSY BOY

This is an image of a non-female identifying person in female clothes. This is something I really enjoy. I like androgynous boys and girls, but I also like very obvious gender bending. I have mirrored the white sleeveless dress with my black dungarees to give the image contrast. This was also inspired by sissy boy porn, which is where men are forced to wear girls clothes as a form of humiliation and punishment. It's so bizarre, I love it.

PROJECTIONS

These are images of my muse Charlie Dagwell being projected onto my own body. I think that it is glaringly obvious what is happening but others do not think so. Many of my friends have shuffled through my pictures and not seen my body in these images. Or perhaps they are too polite to say. I have always felt a strong physical desire for Dagwell and these pictures are some of the only ways that I can have intimate contact with him. I do find it ridiculously exciting that a picture exists in the world of me with my dick on Dagwell's face. Horny. Or maybe, his face is on my dick.

LOSS

This is an image I shot when I was 19 of some friends on a night out. The boy, Emile, was changing his shirt, and one of our female friends was beckoning him to come to her. We were all aware of her unrequited love for him. Her gesture was caught in this picture and I find it so emotional, a tiny hand reaching blindly in the dark, groping for affection. Its almost pathetic in it's beauty.

Emile was the star of my previous book, where he portrayed Jesus and the text references some of the writing I did for that project. I have not seen Emile in a long time, and I miss him, so this image to me is a bout loss.

RAPHAEL

This is the Archangel Raphael, whom I summoned to give a blessing to my sister's new child; Raphael. I thought that it was a great and thoughtful gift, but she found it quite menacing and creepy. To me, he is a presence of love, of strength and of beauty. Again, this if a further exploration of blue, focusing on the stars. I shot this with a flash gun with the white balance on an odd setting for the whole image would have a blue cast, which I find very attractive.