While gathering examples of Michael Reh’s male photography, I came across several sites that referred to genital nudity as present or absent in various photographer’s work (so far as I can tell, there’s none in Reh’s, though he cuts the line very close). In genital nudity, the Adj genital is nonpredicating (His nudity was genital is anomalous): genital nudity isn’t nudity that has the property of being genital, but instead it’s nudity of the genitals, that is, exposure of the genitals. The Adj genital is interpreted via the N genitals — interpretation by evoking a noun is one mark of the type of nonpredicating adjectives known as pseudo-adjectives. (Resistance to modification by degree elements — note the oddity of very genital nudity — is another.)
Putting this aside, there’s the question of how to refer to the images that are banned in certain contexts (U.S. postcards, WordPress postings, etc.). Here’s I’ll restrict myself to the male body in these contexts.
For the Latinate usage have (or show) genital nudity, what’s banned is dicks (or parts of dicks) and balls (though pubic hair gets by). My recent vernacular usage are dick shots is close to this; it doesn’t encompass balls-only shots, but these are few (usually, if you get the balls, you also get the dick). The usage show dick(s) would work similarly, and both could be made more modest by using penis(es) instead of dick(s) (or its alternative cock(s)).
You can find the euphemistic-sounding have explicit nudity and have full-frontal nudity as well. The latter is clear enough, but insufficiently restrictive, since banned images can show dicks from the side or from the rear or merely protruding from clothing in one way or another, and none of these presentations is full-frontal.
The usage have genital nudity is itself a bit short of picking out the banned images exactly, since the depiction of assholes is also banned. (Butts are fine, and acceptable male nudes very often show them, indeed focus on them, but assholes — which are not genital organs — are out).
The usage are X-rated (which I sometimes choose) would cover things perfectly, but you have to know what merits an X rating in visual images to understand it.
So there are the choices, as I see them. We do need some expression, so that people who buy books or look at websites can be informed about what they might get — though I think that it would be useful to be able to tell people that they might be getting a lot of what I’ve called cock tease shots (which might be a plus for some, a minus for others). (At the moment I have no less vernacular expression for these.)
May 19, 2013 at 9:34 am |
[…] done two postings with his (sumptuous) images of Bel Ami pornstars, here and here, most with frank genital nudity, plus another posting with 15 captioned photos of his, all homoerotic but all […]