I just discovered the most amazing erotic blogger. Her journal's name is Pretty Dumb Things, and and although she might be pretty (that part is left to your imagination) she is certainly not dumb; she is an incredible wordsmith and erotic storyteller. To wit:
Sometimes when I’m lying under Donny, one or both thighs resting on his shoulders, or when I’m on my hands and knees in front of him, his hands spreading the halves of my cling peach ass, and his cock is drilling my pussy with pile-driver precision— sometimes at those moments, I think to myself, why am I doing this?
Why, I wonder, do I give him my body, my pussy mostly, though I suppose he enjoys the other bits and parts too—the shakey-shake of my ass when he drives into me from behind, those subtle and seismic movements like jostling pudding under plastic wrap, the swing and release of my breasts when he fucks me on top—why, I wonder, do I do it?
And speaking of Donny... Marie Osmond's teenage daughters are self-proclaimed, unrepentant bisexual "sluts," according to their myspace declarations. The girls' bawdy pages are much to their mother's dismay, who had her own dicey turn as The Female Mormon Paragon of Virtue. Remember her post-partum freakout? Osmond is now blaming Internet porn for the whole mess. I blame her sexually repressed doll collection. More here.
If only Marie had read Good Girls And Wicked Witches: Changing Representations of Women in Disney's Feature Animation, 1937-2001. It's a new book by Amy Davis. I haven't read it yet, but I'm so intrigued! The blurb says: "...Davis re-examines the notion that Disney heroines are rewarded for passivity."
I always said, Tinkerbell rocks! I've put my copy on reserve at the library.
My last link of the day for you is "How to Take Better Dirty Pictures" by Mike and Mandy, which is subtitled "Mikey’s Guide to Photographing Naked Babes." —Some darn helpful quick 'n' easy technical advice.
As you can tell by Mikey's subtitle, it does have the air of the well-intentioned but not exactly radical feminist male photographer... yet I sympathize with his good intentions and appreciation for all bodies female!
What I found myself thinking, however, was how you would change his wording if the subject was the male nude, and the shooter was female? Or, what if a woman is photographing herself, or it was the same gender on both sides of the camera? The tone changes, and it makes you realize the underlying sex role vibe.
The patronizing tone that can come into traditional photo-tips manuals is not all sexism, though. Here's the unspoken secret of shooting an erotic pictorial, or any portrait: the photographer, by necessity, often has to deal with the model as a kind of prop, as unkind as that might seem on first impression.
The model has to submit to certain requirements, that's just the way it is. Still, there's a degree of intimacy and respect to collaborating with subjects as equals, that takes more time but delivers remarkable results. In some cases, the model may be leading the shoot, too, but that would be a someone who would be equally comfortable on either side of the camera.
A lot of models aren't up for it, they just want a pretty picture, a flattering likeness. I mean, we all do, sometimes, eh? But the best photo shoots I ever did were more demanding!
Does anyone know of a quick dirty guide to turning your camera on yourself? I'm always trying to take photos of myself with mostly silly results.