Feminism Without Clothes

A phenomenon I like to refer to as “one-sided intimacy” occurs when you choose to make yourself- or part of yourself- visible on the internet.

By both blogging and modeling, I’ve given people a small glimpse into my life- I only share what I want to share, but it makes people feel as if they know me.

Except that I have no idea who they are.

I’ve gotten long letters deconstructing modeling, feminism, sex, and the views I’ve expressed here.  I’ve been asked out multiple times- when it happened the first time, I wrote a blog entry about my boyfriend, partly in the hopes that it would express that I was clearly unavailable to various would-be internet suitors.

Online, boundaries are dissolved.  I recently received a long, very detailed email from someone wanting to explore my orgasms with me.  When I responded that it was my policy to only discuss the quality of my orgasms with my current partner, he responded, “I completely hear you…in fact, I’m the same.”

People who feel that they know me also sometimes feel that I’m obligated to share more with them.  “Why are you moving to Seattle?”  None of your business, internet stranger.

Many fail to realize that this is my persona, not me- people who read this blog on a regular basis have an excellent idea of who Candy Poses is, but not who the person with the name on my passport is. 

So, we’re both strangers to each other, in reality.

 

 

January 2007, David Le Beck.   

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My last post talked about bad things I had encountered from photographers.  I’ve decided to start a series of posts highlighting some of the wonderful photographers I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the span of time I’ve been modeling.  There are many of them- this may take a while.  If you’re not mentioned, it’s not because you sucked, or were sexist, or didn’t leave a good enough impression on me- it’s most likely because a girl’s only got so much time and energy.

Spotlight: Melvin Moten Jr.

When I approached Melvin to model for him, it slipped my mind that he had been commenting- and arguing with me- in my blog for at least several months.  I approached him knowing that he doesn’t pay models (unless you’re Kumi- and I’m no Kumi).  It is very, very rare for me to approach someone who does fetish photography unless I’m seeking out paid work.

We talked on the phone, and eventually decided to meet up in Detroit for the Dirty Show.  He said that he was, at the moment, interested in shooting work dealing with gender.  Excellent, I said.

We ended up shooting in the icy basement of a former convent in Toledo.  After shooting with Gary Mitchell for three hours at the group shoot taking place there, I entered the room where photographers and models were gathering and walked over to a section of a table I had claimed for my makeup and lingerie.  I looked up, and there was someone standing next to me, smiling.  It was Melvin.

The photographs in this diptych were the last taken during our shoot together.  As you can see from the goosebumps I’ve got in these photos, I’m freezing.  Melvin kept telling me that he was just going to take a couple more; lies, all lies.  I remember thinking, “these better be worth it.”  Of course, they were.

Thanks, Melvin.

 

 

 

Melvin Moten Jr., February 2007.    

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This blog entry will probably cost me work.  This is about the sexism that I’ve encountered in my career as a nude model.  I make it a rule to not badmouth photographers in this blog, because I know that they are my bread and butter.  But it’s about time that I talked about some things that I have encountered.

I was recently shooting with someone- hustler style nudes.  Yes, sometimes I shoot those.  He said, “face me.”  I did.  “No, the other way.”

He meant face away from him- ass towards him.  Photography gaffe, anyone?

I finished up a shoot with a photographer once, and we watched together as he downloaded the photos from his camera to his computer.  They came out well.  I said something about how knowing how to pose helps a good deal, and we started talking about what makes a good model.  He said, “some of these models, I don’t know how they get boyfriends.”

He meant that some of the women who paid him for content for their portfolios were too ugly to get boyfriends.

Multiple times photographers have told me that they envied that power women have over men- that sexual power that Cleopatra had.  That it makes us more powerful than men.

You know what?  That implies two things: that men have the power to begin with, and that a woman’s best way to empower herself is to use her sexuality.  Not, you know, her intellect.

When I do leave this career, it won’t be because I get too old.  It will be because I’m tired of what goes along with the territory.  I’ll be tired of photographers being surprised at my ability to carry on conversations about multiple topics.  I’ll be tired of being viewed by some people as someone who just has to stand there naked.  I’ll be tired of all the implications that the label of “nude model” brings upon myself.

It’ll be because I’m tired of the fact that other feminist blogs won’t link to this one.

It’ll be because I’m tired of my feminist mother not being proud of me.

It’ll be because I’m tired of sexism, and because I don’t know how to fight it from where I am right now- besides in this blog.

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I’ve decided that if you leave something stupid in my blog, I’m either going to delete it or make a post mocking it in an entry called, “That was stupid; here’s why.”

That was stupid; here’s why.

The following comment was made in my blog:

“I enjoyed your photos and ideas.

I hope your family doesn’t murder you.
(I’m told there are about 5,000 “honor killings” a year in the Muslim World. )

and I thought MY family was a drag!

Good luck”

That was stupid.

Here’s why:

1. I live in the United States.

2. My family isn’t Muslim.

3. My parents know what I do.

4. And even if the three above statements weren’t true (and, keep in mind, all of these facts are present in my blog; you don’t have to read very far or very hard to find them), not all places in the Middle East are full of honor killings.  Not all (not most, in fact) Muslim families would kill their daughters for doing what I’m doing.  Have you ever been to the Middle East, or talked to a Muslim before?

That was stupid.  And that’s why.

 

 

Martini, December 2006.   

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Does this image offend you?

 

 

  

It offends me.  This ad from the designer company Dolce and Gabbana was recently pulled from the Spanish market.

It offends me not because it implies a rape.  It offends me because it implies a rape not to create art and make people think, not to create porn and get people off- but to sell something.

Does anyone out there honestly think that Dolce and Gabbana is out there to do anything besides sell their products?  And, what better way to do that then to present a sanitized and glamourized interpretation of a rape?

You have to hand it to them- it worked.  They got the attention they wanted, and their name out there.

You can say that people who create pornography with non-consensual aspects to it are in it for the money- I agree; of course they are.  But Dolce and Gabbana sells purses, not sexual fantasies.  They have no need to use something like rape as a promotional tool, of all things.

 

 

D. Brian Nelson, January 2007.   

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I have made a horrifying and, most likely, inevitable decision.

I am now going by the name Candy in my day-to-day interactions with photographers. 

My parents had the wisdom to give me a perfectly good first name, and I, not realizing that I’d actually do modeling as more than just a couple of shoots a year for fun, decided to abandon it.

I went with Candy.

Now, not using my real name was wise.  However, choosing to use Candy in its place- not so much.

Can you even be a feminist with the name Candy?  I’m not one hundred percent sure.

 

 

Martini, December 2006.   

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There seems to be some confusion here regarding my “rules” about what I won’t and will do.  Multiple people have commented on my “no pink” rule.

Except that there is no “no pink” rule.

There was such a rule, once upon a time.  But no longer- if pink shows, it shows.  I do spreadshots.  I even pretend to masturbate in photos.  I’m not sure where people are getting the idea that I have a “no pink” rule, even though I’ve blogged about not having such a rule anymore.  Is it lack of reading comprehension, or poor writing on my part?

At any rate, I thought that I’d clarify this.  And, of course, provide proof, ironically in black and white.

 

D. Brian Nelson, January 2007. 

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I make submissions of models to US Playboy — but do NOT make submissions to Hustler and Penthouse.  I choose to create images that show the glory, beauty, and glamour of female models — NOT their birth canal.

Recently a photographer posted this on a modeling messageboard that I frequent.

Playboy is many things, but one thing is for sure- it does not intend to show the glory, beauty, and glamour of female models; not in the way that that photographer means, in any case.  It’s porn.

Playboy is porn that you can feel not quite as guilty about buying, because you can pretend that it’s not.  Just like the website Suicide Girls is porn- not “empowered punk-rock pin-up.”  Porn.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.  Under this category, a lot of what I’ve done is actually porn, and that’s okay with me; I’m unsure whether or not I would pose for Playboy or Penthouse, but that has nothing to do with actual content and everything to do with the magazines themselves.

I think that the Happy Feminist summed it up much better than I could regarding exactly why I’d be hesitant to pose for Playboy, or a similar publication:

Playboy, while preaching a philosophy of sexual liberation for both sexes, is all about infantilizing women.  Posing naked is not inherently degrading.  But walking around with a cotton-tail on your ass and bunny ears, while gushing about how doing so is the greatest honor of your life, is a bit degrading.  Having the nude picture of you posted with a little cutesie yearbook entry about your likes and dislikes written in bubbly handwriting is all about portraying you as unthreatening and powerless as possible.  Being one of three girlfriends fawning over 80-year old “Hef” while begging him to put naked pictures of you in his magazine and struggling to abide by the curfew he sets for you — also degrading.

I’d rather do erotic work, er…porn, that involves me wearing a strap-on in a basement in Toledo, not a bunny costume in a mansion.

 

 

Melvin Moten Jr., February 2007.   

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So, I was sitting in the Detroit airport this previous Sunday, innocently eating a hamburger, when I overhear something on CNN- something about an abstinence-only speaker in Maryland making students chew gum.

I burst out laughing.

“It was a novel class exercise: Ask a room full of Montgomery County high school students to take turns chewing the same piece of gum.To demonstrate how sexually transmitted diseases are spread, a visiting speaker invited students to share gum in health classes at four county high schools in December and last month. School officials said a total of about 100 students participated in the lessons, although some declined to chew the gum.”

Oh, more than 100 students participated in the lesson.  I know this, because I grew up in the Washington, DC area- and I participated in the lesson.  (No, I did not chew the gum).  I graduated from high school in 2003, and attended health class, where I was lectured about sex and gum, in 2001.

I’ve even blogged before about this very same speaker, and another metaphor involving tape that was used to illustrate the dangers of sex.  I forgot about the gum and the laxatives. 

“Julia said the speaker also asked for volunteers to sample squares of chocolate, one of which, they were told, was actually a laxative. The point was to illustrate the uncertainty of knowing whether one has contracted an STD after a sexual encounter. Four boys volunteered, she said.”

By coincidence, Scarleteen, the extensive sexuality and health resource for young (and not so young) people is currently kicking off a fundraiser.  Scarleteen is another topic that I’ve previously blogged about.

Growing up in the era of the internet, I found Scarleteen while looking for advice that, somehow, was not found in lessons involving gum, laxatives, and tape.

So, go show that you support giving teens information that doesn’t belittle their intelligence, and that you’re against lessons in public schools that involve sharing gum.

Because misinformation and already chewed gum are both gross. Go ahead and make a donation to Scarleteen.

 

Photograph by Martini, October 2006. 

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I recently returned from a weekend spent in Detroit and Toledo; I attended a group shoot and the Dirty Show on Saturday.  I worked with some amazing people, and got to meet some I hope to work with in the future.

Gary Mitchell, Andi, Boyd, Iris Dassault, Melvin Moten Jr., Restrained Photo, Vivian Ireene Pierce, James Graham, Johnny Flamethrower, Chip Willis, Lochai, Dan, Cherrystone, Kat Love, JJ Plush- consider your names dropped.  My apologies to anyone I’ve overlooked.

Not a whole lot of feminist commentary in this entry, I know.  Stay tuned: tomorrow’s will involve chewing gum and STDs.  Really.

 

 

Photo by Jeffery McAlister, January 2007.

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