Is it possible to create art or imagery of a pornographic nature that does not focus on genitalia in any way? In contemporary approaches, this seems very difficult, given the prevailing pre-occuptaions, unless we enter the deep realm of fetishism, where actual nudity or explicitness is supplanted by the presence of very specific clothing or other interests (speech, action, domination, as opposed to exposure, penetration, etc.). The rationale behind this question is twofold: my long-standing interest in performative eroticism such as burlesque and striptease, wherein explicit revelation may or may not constitute the climax, and where tease and tension/release are skilfully controlled features of the act; and also, my desire to remove biological genitalia from the discourse surrounding the approval (or otherwise) shown towards any specific performer, performance, or depiction, and therefore confuse and obstruct problematic readings of a sexualised body, which tend to still follow traditional value judgements. (The argument over whether bodies ought to be sexualised in any context is, of course, another matter entirely. The fact that I have no problem with my own being presented in such a manner is the main reason that this blog, and the research currently surrounding it, exists).
As discussed in previous posts, I find the obsessive attention given to genitalia not only boring (the internet phenomenon of "dick pics", for example), but problematic, sensing often barely-veiled biological determinism at work (whether consciously, or unconsciously), with more Freudian overtones than you can shake the metaphorical stick at. In my own performative work (both artistic and paid-for), I have found myself viewing my physical being in the strange light of being at the intersection of all genders: biologocal masculinity, dressed up as socio-cultural femininity, and hence embodying trans*/non-binary gender, a 3-in-1 unity of opposites which has its precedents in ancient, mythological and shamanic cultures. This is an ontological reality which probably also informs my long-standing interests in gnostic, alchemical and other realms of esoterica, such as my recurring references to the Ouroboros and fascination with snakes generally. I don't want to dip too deep into the theory here at this early stage, but his line of thinking has produced a cartoon self-portrait as a preliminary towards future exploration of non-gender specific performance and depiction - as well as an approach into the area of deliberately (self-)censored imagery, again related to the idea that a partially-covered body may be more interesting than a fully revealed one, something I have played with in the past both in photographic, and drawn, artworks. The over-arching purpose, as hinted at in the title of this post, is also to restore interest to the body as a whole rather than a site of biological reductionism, where personhood is negated at the expense of a single organ (or lack thereof), so that the presence (or absence) of those organs is immaterial, and the rest of the figure is therefore 'read' accordingly, and any genitalia therefore imagined, or assumed (which itself might present a new avenue of research: why might certain viewers choose to 'assume' one particular set of organs over another? Might this assumption, yet again, be prompted by certain culturally-conditioned visual cues inherent in the physiognomy of the character? Suddenly, the idea of a 'guess-and-reveal'-style picture-book quiz comes to mind...).
