Pornography as a mirror

Reflections on our reaction to nudity in the public space

Since I’ve been using the Substack platform, I’ve been posting photo notes on my page in addition to publishing writing. It’s been a cool space to do that because unlike Instagram, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of censorship rules outside of the explicit-photo-click-thru warning, much like Tumblr uses. You won’t get your photo posts taken down, but there will be a veil of text over your image asking if you want to view the explicit photo before it just pops up on your screen. I appreciate that.

If you’ve been following me for long, especially on Instagram or Tumblr, you know that I post an array of erotic photo content, from 1940s burlesque snapshots to Helmut Newton fashion photography to screenshots from hardcore pornography to Nan Goldin self portraiture. Something that I love about curating, even somewhere as informal as the internet, is that you get to connect images together by putting them in a shared space with the same presentation. With HOLLOW, I’ve always enjoyed posting imagery that is considered art alongside found erotica that would be considered pornography. There is a natural juxtaposition that occurs when you present a collection of images together, & that’s really where a curator’s voice emerges.

By giving each image the same manner of presentation - sliding a photo into the Instagram grid amongst other art (or non-art) on the page - a theme begins to develop throughout the collection. Similarities & differences between all the imagery come into focus. There is a relation. What are your thoughts? What draws you to one image but repels you from another? How does your point of view impact how you view & understand an image? What assumptions are you making about the image? What assumptions are you making about me, the one who posted the image into a public space? These are the reflections of the viewer that are completely individual & subjective. I often think of curation as a presentation of imagery that prompts the viewer’s imagination & also challenges them to think critically about consuming images. That can be as simple as showing appreciation for something by showcasing it, or maybe there is a deeper meaning that the curator is acknowledging. You could interpret the juxtaposition between imagery on HOLLOW as an elevation of pornography into a (quasi) art space, placing it on the grid next to something you could see in a museum, like an Imogen Cunningham photograph. There are a myriad of interpretations. But isn’t that interpretation more a reflection of yourself as the viewer than anything I was ever trying to say? Maybe I just appreciate art, sexuality, the body, psychosexual exploration… Maybe that’s all I’m ever saying with my posts.

Anyway, since posting nudity on Substack, there have been some really interesting reactions to some of the posts. There’s one post in particular that has circulated the platform & gotten a lot of attention from people who do not follow this page or know anything about my point of view. They are seeing the image & reacting. I think the last I checked, the post had 55 comments. This is the post:

I want to share some of the discourse that’s been going on in the comment thread of this post. The reactivity to this image has been making me think a lot about how pornography is such a mirror. How people react to imagery like this is much more a reflection of themselves than the image itself.

Here are some selected comments:

Had to put Margaret on blast a little bit because the double comment is really funny to me:

Here is someone trying to humanize the image amongst all the negative reactions. I think that’s such an interesting impulse:

My favorite comment though is actually this one:

Love that. What is this otherwise about?

I’m going to assume for a second, just like others assume onto this photo, & assume onto me as the poster. Maybe there’s shame, guilt, & other emotions that are triggered when viewing nudity. There’s the folks who will privately consume porn & then adamantly disagree that nudity or sex should ever be talked about, shown, suggested… They react with anger at the very idea that it should ever exist in a public space, like it’s not a part of our every day culture, our experiences as human beings, an ancient practice that has permeated throughout time & culture.

How is that reaction to suppress indicative of your own suppression in our society? What do you see in the mirror when you’re looking at an image like this.

To me, the most ironic thing is that this type of discourse is going on about this particular photo. It’s such a conservative photo, all things considered. It’s from the 1950s. It’s artfully done, it tells a story in the scene… she’s looking outside, maybe in the driveway, has her lover come home? Who is she waiting for? There’s no full frontal nudity. There’s some ass, a nipple, she’s wearing some basic lingerie. It’s just so interesting to me that this is the image that’s really got people riled up about it infiltrating their public space (the Substack notes section on a Monday morning).

Some of these comments are so out of bounds, though:

“It’s porn. That woman is somebody’s mother. Women deserve more respect.”

I could talk about this comment for days. For one thing, that is 100% a misogynistic man who wrote that. She’s somebody’s mother? You know that? Or you assumed that because that’s your expectation of women & you’re projecting that onto this photograph. If she is a mother, then she deserves more respect than this photo credits her. Why do you think that? Are mothers a monolith who can no longer express their sexuality? What are your expectations of mothers? What are your expectations of women? What does respecting women mean to you?

I find all this so amusing because what some people don’t know is that I am a woman. To me, HOLLOW is obviously from a woman’s point of view, but many people assume I’m a man. I find that interesting as well. I like to see the reactions people have to my articles, the images I share, etc. wielding their assumptions about me & my point of view. This guy was obviously a warrior for women in the comment section, defending their honor nobly. Smells like a Madonna-Whore Complex to me, but what do I know? I’m judging you based off of one comment you felt compelled to make on a nude photo of a woman from the 1950s.

Anyway, I certainly don’t speak for all women. I could discuss feminism with everyone reading this & we’d all probably have different point of views to share. But despite my individualism, I am able to stand on my point of view as a woman, because that’s something I cannot escape. It’s innately who I am, how I see things, how I experience the world. It is my lens for seeing.

What I see in the mirror when I look at this image is a beautiful woman posing in the window. She’s touching the blinds seductively. Her pinky finger draws a line to her lips. She is waiting for her lover to come home, to exit the outside world & enter into the portal of this room to be with her. Despite the veil of secrecy in this image, as she places herself behind the walls of the room & behind the blinds of the window, there’s also an exhibitionism. The slits of the blinds aren’t completely closed. They aren’t even pulled down over the whole window. Can anyone see in? Can anyone see her naked breasts exposed in the space between the blinds? Can anyone see the naked front of her, framed by the shape of the garter, the window sill, the frame the blinds make across the bottom of her stomach. I don’t know, it’s a beautiful photograph. I guess I’m somewhat secure in that. 🪐

Editor’s note: This article was first published on Sep. 18th by Hollow Terrain and is reshared here with permission from the author. If you like this piece, be sure to check out Hollow Terrain for more.

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