Self efrain

self refrain, originally uploaded by Marquise de Shand.

A post about nakednes

Today I will write a post about nakedness, as all though we all (clearly) have the potential to be naked and in turn are exposed to a great deal of nakedness daily, there has arisen a great drift between what it is and the IDEA of what it is. I'm pretty sure this blog is only being read by people that I know, but in case we're not aquainted I currently live in the R.O.K, that is the Republic of Korea. Now, to tie it back to the whole point of this post Korea is littered at regular intervals with jimjibangs and saunas where people of the same sex communally bathe together, something that has been part of sino-asian culture for thousands of years. Soaking in the green tea bath one Saturday, I took the time to observe those around me. The price of the sauna, around $6, ensures that these are a more inclusive experience than western saunas. Naked mothers wash their naked babies in little tubs, naked high school girls giggle in the showers, naked co workers scrub the week's detrius off each others backs. Everyone looked so at ease and it made me wonder, "Could ever work back home?" Or does western nakedness even in a same sex situation seems to have so much more stigma attached.

What I'm trying to get at is the gap that's been bridged in our minds to jump immediatly from nakedness to sex, and that although the two are inextricably connected, tits plus ass doesn't always equal the obvious. Yes ok, I know obviously me Tarzan, you Jane. Co-ed nakedness is inevitably going lead to a gravitational pull in certain loinal reigons (nb: can't really speak for the gays so much but know friends of this leaning are able to maintain themselves within a mono sexual arena) . What I want to talk about is nakedness in same sex situations and also the nakedness of children, nudity that should be spared from the aggresive sphere of sexuality.

It seems to be that women vocally blame their physical anxities on the basis of male scrutiny, which is bollock as women uphold the iconoclast of feminity all by themselves. I feel like a schizophrenic knowing that whilst the sane part of me embraces the calm maternal ebb of women bathing and grooming each other, indulging their sapien ways, the neurotic relishes the sight of any woman with a bigger belly or cellulite problem. I wish I didn't think this but the I get a knee jerk to my brain when my synapses detect an aesthetic defect, what a sad way to get happy.

One day when I was checking a student homework, I noticed an exericise where they were meant to draw a picture and brief description of what they wanted to be when they were older. This one girl had drawn a picture of her on the end of a cat walk, surrounded in turn by dashes to symbolise the barrage of camera flashes. Underneath the picture she wrote something like "When I grow up I want to be a stick so everybody will love me." The girl in question was a little bit chubbier than most of the others (which in Korea this can mean simply being a little rounder in the face) but this as a life ambition for an eleven year old made me feel sick. Being healthy is one thing but children are incredibly intiuitive, they know only too well of the fraken-business of boy modification and our attitudes of shame and loathing seep easily through. I can't remember where I read this but I recall a woman form rural Africa in a magazine talking about her body unable to fathom this idea of beauty. Her body, to poorly paraphrase, was "Made for working," and to her a good body was a strong one, absent of diseases.

Finally, I'm really annoyed at the sudden uproar about child nudity perpetuated by the British media because of the 0.000000001% of the population that might be harbouring peidaphillic tendices. When I was a wee un' I was allowed to run around naked (in fact encouraged, suffering from a terrible nappy rash at the time) as this was considered to be the 'natural' state for young children. My parents still have plenty of pictoral evidence of this period and have shown them to plently of friends, aquaintces etc. Now consider this case.....









Tierney Gearon is an artist who often uses her children as a subject in her work, as demonstrated above by this beautiful double exposure. It is not extreme by any means yet she has been accused of 'exploiting' her children for financial gain and infamy! Some people are sexually aroused by feet, horses and car exhausts (autophillia) but no one is going to lock them away because a few people get a kick out of them.

This also reminded me about the time our tutor raised the Lewis Carol controversy to make a point about changing values.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1087447/Was-Lewis-Carroll-paedophile-Discovery-cryptic-letter-raises-questions-authors-relationship-real-life-Alice.html


The immediate reaction of the seminar was to be aghast at the possible notion of a childhood hero being a paedophile. Taking naked pictures of children it seems has become synonomous with paedophillia rather than symptomatic of it. It was up to our tutor to expose the cultural back drop of Victorian photogrpahy, to show us that this practice was not uncommon and that perhaps the problem lies more inherently with us than Carol.

Anyway ass and titties.

They shoot horses, don't they?

I've been aware of this movie for a while, yet I only managed to get around to watching it a few nights ago. Personally, I found it fascinating. It frequently tresspasses into the territory of 'grim' which may just be one of my favorite cinematic genres. The basic premise is as follows.....In depression era L.A. a mogul tries to cash in on the desperation of the times staging a marathon dance competition with a cash prize for the last couple standing, an event that as the tagline puts it places human suffering as 'the ultimate spectacle.'

Apparently, competitions like this really use to take place with people dancing over 12 hours a day for almost a month. They were responsible for more than a few cases of nervous and physical exhaustion, moguls fleecing their competitiors for the gaze of paying crowds. Although the movie was made in 1978 (director Sydney Pollack) I love how all the glamour of the 30's and 40's becomes trashed with the sweat and grime of the competition. This is something lost to the actual movies of the time which were more focused on the original escapist feel of Hollywood; firstly from the depression and secondly from war.

I love the filthy sense of voyerism (naughty!) one gets from watching this film. Whilst the emphatic side of me felt the worthlessness my eyes became gorged on scenes such as the marathon race. This brief interlude intersperses the hours of dancing with five minutes of racing animalism, imagery that links the film back to its title. Jane Fonda rules this movie, her cynicism actually manages to make you feel nervous, the way her partners (Michael Sarrazin) naivity crumbles is also, sadly, moving.

A movie perhaps more relevant in these credit crunching times.

Welcome

gungirl, originally uploaded by Marquise de Shand.

SO

So, it begins. Don't come for cohesion and don't come to stare at the beast. Just let one piece fall on top of another and witness creation.