Girls, help me out

I really want you to get behind me on this. Before I start, I want to stress that I’m going to be making generalisations. Even I can find exceptions, but I’ll be using evidence for my arguments that what I’m saying is largely true, and I’m really asking for feedback on this one.

Current stats on alt.com, this is better than other sites because I think generally women are more involved in alternative sex sites because they have more to offer them..

View Current Broadcasts of: All (83) | Men (72) | Women (2) | Couples (man and woman) (5) | Couples (2 men) (0) | Couples (2 women) (0) | Groups (0) | TS/TV/TG (4)

When I clicked through, the one woman online by that  time had 72 viewers, the man at the top of the list had one, the rest none. I always use that as a very direct illustration. Women don’t watch as much porn as men- you knew that, right?

Even here in blogland most people come upon my blog by certain search terms- that’s why I use the tags! I exist within a world which already has it’s rules and standards and expectations. I can’t have things my way. But I really want to tell you how I wish it could be.

The reason women don’t search for porn is due to experience. It excludes us, we have to search too hard to find something we’d like, even then we’ll have encountered countless gynaecological pop ups in the search for fetish art or classy erotic photos. I know men who feel the same. The woman who likes cheesy gynaecological porn is about as rare as that one woman watching the guy in the cam room. (And that woman is probably a man)

I really absolutely don’t want to see an orange hard-faced man having sex with a girl two generations younger just because he has an unusual ability to keep hard during the photo/camera session. And if I see it I turn off the pc and go watch eastenders. I don’t need an up close biology lesson or another picture of a girl getting a facial.

There is a problem which leads to a fundamental division I can’t do anything about. It’s hard to fight my corner, my argument for “erotic art” when it too often comes under a banner which automatically includes everything from basic hustler porn to bizarre and unpleasant hardcore which most people search for because they’re looking for revulsion or something to ridicule.

Just as the meek naturist couples often have to share space with oil basted exhibitionists- they feel the same, if they were to try to show people how innocent it is they’d have to take them to a place where they’re more likely to see public masturbation than anywhere else in the country and their argument would be instantly invalid.

And that’s how I feel. For all this time I’ve been trying to work out how to reach women. I so want to spend my days telling girls how to take amazingly erotic photos of themselves which they and anyone else they can choose to show will find stunning/ sexy/ empowering. Because I know that women feel that their sexuality has to be hidden. They don’t want to be associated with a kind of pornography which is about abuse. Many guys visiting prostitutes don’t ask if the girl has been trafficked-  or so many of them wouldn’t be, they don’t ask for credentials of the girl in the videos they look at.

There’s a fantastic article in the guardian about the differences between the viewers of male and female strippers. It’s a perfect illustration of the polar extremes.

I want a middle ground so that average women (not swingers, not those responding to the desires of their partner) can enjoy erotic images without being visually assaulted by things that will turn them right off) Scarlet magazine was great- informative, clever, erotic, it’s gone. Thank god for Ann Summers and internet sex shops.

Women are never going to find me, if they do they’ll be frightened I’m a guy wanting to perv over their photos.

I want a world where women understand that guys will always look at girls and that’s no threat, but where we can meet them half way.

I’ve asolutely nothing against porn, nothing against nudists, nothing against swingers. I just want my audience to reach further than that into the wider public. Somewhere between those and the high art world is everyone else, my target market.

But if it doesn’t happen soon I’ll give up the commission part of my work, give up social networking and concentrate on my own work which I’ll sell through galleries.

Is there any hope? I don’t know

Of muses and men

I’m dissatisfied today, it happens.

I was very interested in a forum discussion about muses yesterday. I don’t think I can have one in the way it’s generally perceived as I generally have no erotic interest in the subjects of my work, but it got me thinking about the difference it would make to what I do if I was involved with a man.

There has only been one man in my life in the time I’ve been in this specific field of art and I can honestly say he did have an effect on what I did. I enjoyed having a man to think about when I was creating the pictures. In the buying stage and the photographic stage I started to think about what he would find erotic and incorporate it.

It’s fun having someone to run scenarios by and see if someone else likes it- someone who would be interested that is. If I was to call up my girlfriends and start describing a secretary bending over a desk or a girl reclining in lacy panties, they’d soon stop picking up the phone. Maybe it’s better now I’m just doing what I like.

It’d be great to have someone to stand in front of a mirror with and see what works so I could do sketches for some more boy/girl paintings.

If you see me in the sex shop buying a big blow up man- he’s for practise posing with. And to prop up looking out of my bedroom window to deter burglars like some people have them in a car.

That’s a brilliant idea! (Brilliant ideas like that are probably why I’m single) If you see this post it’s just short of a miracle- I’ll think better of it in ten minutes and delete it!

Ok, I give in

I admit it. I can paint men. I just don’t want to. These are drawings from life class in art college many years ago.  Acrylic on paper, no idea why I can’t paint in acrylic now, guess I just got out of the habit.

I can’t wait to get myself back into a life class. Because my models aren’t professionals I take photos to work from. I can remember what it’s like sitting still for all that time and I can’t ask someone to do it for free, but just looking at these makes me remember what a different process it is to working from photos.

I just hope this time the models in the life class are female

Bad art….. Guilty!

I’ve just had the funniest hour of my life. Regretsy is genius, there’s no denying it

And…. I’m on it. Oh yes I am.  A few posts down in the art section.  I don’t have a photo of the painting so I can’t even prove it.

When I’d seen regretsy before I’d actually wondered i they’d come across this most hideous article and they did. I didn’t even bother disguising my contempt for it in the description.

It was a year ago, I’d had a really frustrating conversation with someone who told me I was never going to be successful until I started painting big pictures of cocks. Monumental cock pictures were where it’s at, apparently. It was just after erotica 09 and I was really fed up with feeling that I had to appear sexually available to sell my work.

As it happens, I am sexually available but not to just anyone! I had one guy on facebook who just wouldn’t leave it. No matter how polite I was he was articulate but really offensive and wouldn’t accept that I wasn’t interested in him and didn’t want to answer any more of his questions.  at the same time I was trying to extricate myself from a doomed relationship and part of me just thought I should almost shed my skin, start again, leave the art behind.

Somewhere in my back catalogue I had a photo that had been taken for a laugh and I committed facebook suicide. I painted it on a blank canvas in 45 minutes and posted it up in art groups. The caption said something like “I’ve had enough, I’m committing facebook suicide- do your worst, report me!”

And they did.

And I bounced back with a better plan and now I don’t get the amount of grief I used to. I got my marketing all wrong at the start.

And I still don’t like painting men.

It goes back to what I was saying yesterday about what people find erotic. That’s just why I did it, it’s hilarious!

If I did I’d get myself on as a regretsy regular. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve got a funny sense of humour but I love my spot on there. And it sold my revolting painting! And I bought some wine.

Cheers!

Looking at dirty pictures

I don’t use other photographers’ work or copy other painters but sometimes when I’m working I think I need to change something, it’s usually a facial expression or maybe the hands aren’t quite right. At those times I put in an image search and I get lost for hours. It’s something I tend to do really early in the morning. And I never keep to my brief. One erotic photography site leads to another, sex blogs, sites for women, sites for men, adult forums.

Sometimes I see things I wish I hadn’t. I’m amazed the spectrum of sexual preferences out there. How UN”erotic” are some of the things which turn people on. We’re a truly astonishing species. I’d love to elaborate- but I’ll spare you the details…

Apologising for the naked ladies everywhere…

It’s so grey and rainy today, I’ve got all my daylight bulbs illuminating my work area and it’s still so dark and grim I ust can’t summon up the will to paint so I’m just going to write a bit about my life in the real world. Yesterday the man came to read the meter and put a card through the door saying he’d be back this morning.

Recently I rearranged my house so there’s no route through straight to the back door and everyone has to come through my front room, kitchen, and studio to get there. There’s no back gate and the meter is just outside the back door so short of hiding everything I’m doing and taking everything off the walls I’m about to deal with anything from confused embarrassment, wide eyed voyeuristic interest and a barrage of questions (see previous posts)

I rarely get a hard time from anyone who actually sees me and what I do in close proximity, the mystery is taken out of it. I’m clearly not painting in the nude, or a man pretending to be a girl so that’s half the battle.

But maybe I sometimes do feel a bit apologetic about it. Contractors and salespeople are generally male so I don’t get any real hostility or suspicion from these strangers who come into my house but I do have a sinking feeling when I know I’m going to have to say something. I wonder what this one will be like.

As you can see from my post photo today I’m pining because I’m not going to erotica at olympia this year. I’d have known so much better this year what to paint for that particular exhibition and I’m sad not to be going. I’d enjoy it so much more if I did it again. And I’ve never seen Dita Von Teese live, that would be so amazing. And the shopping, all those goodies I could use in my work. Shoes! Corsets, masks, feathers…. I’m sulking.

 

getting a bloke in

I don’t know why I’m puting off new photo sessions since I got my new camera. I have new props, two fantastic new outfits and still I can’t seem to commit to actually geting some new photos taken.

I’ve been making some sweet decorative little pieces on small canvases which I’ll list on etsy soon as they’re dry but what I really need is a new studio session. I was thinking yesterday about trying to get men involved again. My photo sessions with men have been unsuccessful, for different reasons. Mainly because I just don’t seem to know what to do with them. When I’m posing girls it’s easy, I’m projecting myself through them.

It’s like lingerie, girls have got endless options, guys look silly in anything but the most basic stuff, or they look great- but gay.  Same with posing them for photos or drawing. I can put them into basic life class poses but giving them the same look I give my girls is just so wrong. Funny, but wrong.

Men in my work are best used as accessories. They come with a partner who I direct around him and what happens to him in the photo session is just perfect for my work. The trouble has been that the couples have been self conscious and not believable. Girls who give me great erotic photos when they’re here alone stiffen up with a man there. Strange but true.

I have a friend who does a bit of cage fighting, I thought about going along and taking pics there. Men all angry and sweaty and not wearing much. It might give me a better idea of what to do with men without feminising them and to make them a more active part of the process.

Maybe I should get a naked man of my own instead of borrowing other peoples, but they’re so much nicer when you can give them back

Adult dating for girls

I was in bed last night after waffling on in my previous blog about the illusions which the internet gives men and I remembered this. I had a blog on adultfriendfinder, I found people there  intelligent and respectful but I guess that’s because I was only blogging there. I learned so much from being there but it was a limited audience and I gave it up.

I used to feel quite guilty when I exposed the reality of it. More than 30 women to every man, the models used to advertise the site as if pneumatic blondes with perfect glamour model styling need to pay for men to queue up for random encounters. The same as those little chat boxes which pop up on porn sites appearing to be instant messages from predatory models from lads magazines who live just round the corner and want to meet YOU.

It’s outrageous that the exploitation of men is allowed in this way. The truth should be at least in some small print. “these women are not actually representative of women on this site but some of them may be cam hookers so get your credit card ready, this screen is as close as you’re gonna get!”

So I decided that women should have to suffer the same level of disappointment. Here’s an advert I made some time ago for my new website. I reckon in a few months I’ll have thousands of women paying £30 a month. But it wouldn’t- there would be a public outcry if those lies were told to women. It’s no wonder men get so angry. I would too.

What’s a girl to do?

Erotic art, it’s a minefield. I really want to use social networking and blogging to show people what I do because it’s so very difficult to exhibit. If you’ve been reading before you know the problems I’d faced but it seemed that listing myself as married stopped the overtly sexual approaches.

Yesterday however I got a message from a British man who had seen my work in a group on facebook. “loving it” he said “very sensuous, love the style” So I thought, here’s someone actually interested in the art. I said he could friend request me if he liked as I welcome all kinds of feedback and post up lots of my work in progress over there.

He requested me. Then he found my blog and messaged me again. He said “is your work mainly for a female audience then?” And he BLOCKED ME! before I had a chance to reply to his enquiry or accept his request.

I’m shocked. Is it really the case that I have to either be single and friendly and constantly deal with men who think I’m asking to be propositioned in sometimes fairly extreme ways jst because I paint naked women and then get very angry when I’m not interested, or pretend I’m married do this to try and fend off advances and make them angry anyway.  I’m not averse to male attention when it’s respectful but I don’t like this at all.

If that’s the case then I just don’t know what to try next. Pretend to be a man? Any suggestions for a name….? Go on, if I’ve pissed you off, do your worst! I don’t mind, as long as it’s in public, not in a private message from a coward hiding behind a stock photo of a bodybuilder. Grrrr.