Today’s Zippy, a grieving death notice:
Archive for January, 2013
Spain Rodriguez
January 23, 2013Porn / art
January 22, 2013(On male art, not really about language.)
Is it porn or is it art? Is this an exclusive choice?
Around the Globe, another in a succession of books of pornstars as seen by male photographers — a kind of crossover genre, using obviously beautiful male bodies in artful compositions, in this case by Benno Thoma (see earlier X Blog posting here). A set of shots on my X Blog here, including a contrast between Thoma’s presentation of model Brandon Manilow and a flat-out porn presentation of the same man’s body.
Another male photographer
January 22, 2013Over on AZBlogX, another entry in the long series on male photography: on Benno Thoma, with six examples of his work (on my X Blog because three involve full frontal nudity) and a gushing review of his work from the site Gay Influence: Gay & Bisexual Men of Importance.
Horror of the penis
January 21, 2013(About art and the body, not much about language.)
Over on AZBlogX yesterday, I posted a substantial piece on male nudes, reporting on an exhibition of them in Vienna that excited considerable controversy, due to a Pierre et Gilles poster used in advertising the show; the poster showed three young men, naked from the knees on up and facing the viewer, and the objection was to the public depiction of their penises. (Those penises, plus some others from Pierre et Gille and one in a sculpture by Ilse Haider, are why the posting went on my X Blog rather than this one; like some Austrians, WordPress has a horror of the penis.)
I then went on to look at a deeper objection to penises in art: an objection to *erect* penises. Hard cocks are apparently by definition inflammatory and cannot be displayed with serious artistic intent. There’s a small list of exceptions to this generalization: in particular, folk art, comic and fantasy art, and (overlapping with these categories) art showing erect penises *detached* from a body (here we sing King Missile’s 1992 song “Detachable Penis”). The remaining examples seem subject to constant pressure to re-label them as pornography rather than serious art.
Annals of phallicity: the light switch
January 20, 2013From Jess Anderson on Facebook, this mock pharmaceutical ad for the drug Viacura:
Scientific name: Mycoxaphlopin
Kinu Sekigushi
January 19, 2013(About male art, not mostly about language, though taxonomies figure prominently.)
Max Vasilatos has been sending me postcards from a collection of Kinu Sekigushi’s Manga Boys cards (2005), from his Manga Boys book of 2004. KS is a gay French artist living in Paris, apparently self-taught, creating manga/anime — sensual, homoerotic images — outside of the Japanese yaoi tradition of manga, but clearly influenced by it, as well as by the conventions of American comics (link). He draws very masculine young men in close to equal sexual relationships (though b/t coding — roughly “bottom” vs. “top”, see here — is almost inescapable in these matters), young men of complex racial/ethnic identity (as this is represented in the comics).
Annals of phallicity: the carrot connection
January 18, 2013A stock image of Bugs Bunny:
Like cartoon creatures in general, Bugs lacks genitalia or any hint of them — but he wields that carrot as a symbolic substitute (“What’s up, doc?” My carrot, of course.)
Earlier phallic carrots on this blog: the comic-book superhero, the (highly phallic) Flaming Carrot, here; and a phallic banana and carrot dancing together, along with the Holtville CA carrot mascot, here.
Keep your carrot up, dude.
Accent on Santa Skivvies
January 17, 2013A late entry in the gay Santa category, Dean Allemang at the Santa Skivvies run for charity:
(Dean is wearing only his Santa cap, sunglasses, his watch, the armband for the run, his nipple ring, his ring, his excellent striped briefs, and (not pictured here) socks and running shoes.)
On Santa runs, see my posting on gay Santas; in general, there’s no requirement that participants in these events be gay, but if you get Dean, you get gay (and a profound, and endearing, lack of modesty; unsurprisingly, Dean did the No Pants! BART Ride on Sunday).
Meanwhile, Dean commented on my “Do Californians have an accent?” posting, asking about a sentence-final rise in pitch that he’s been hearing here in California, referring to the feature as an “accent”. This will take some sorting out.
The H-fly
January 16, 2013(Another posting in a long series on men’s underwear and the terminology for it. The topic and the illustrations, while technically not X-rated, might not be to the taste of some readers.)
In my mail today, an ad from the 10 Percent firm, offering all manner of wares of potential interest to gay people, especially gay men, and featuring the Jack Adams Jock Brief:
As a follow up to the incredibly popular Jack Adams Jock Brief, the Jack Adams Army Fly Jock Brief takes the open-rear brief design and adds an all-new front pouch created specifically to contour while providing a functional fly. You’ll love the pouch design as it gives support. (link)
(The regular Jock Brief has no functional fly.)
The innovation here — how long it’s been around, I don’t know — is the *horizontal* fly, a non-standard feature for fishing out your dick to pee. (For a long discourse on functional and vestigial flies in men’s underwear, look here.)
Relativizer choice
January 16, 2013Two recent contributions to my files on restrictive relativizer choice (other than the classic which/that business and the use of that for human referents, both of which are objects of unmerited prescriptivist scorn): a who for human-institution referents and a who for (non-human) animal referents. In both cases, which or that is the prescribed relativizer, and the use of who is an extension granting symbolic human-like status to non-human entities.