#1 August 23rd, 2008 09:04 AM

jbmjbm0

Member

Still inchoate, which beats petrified any day.

[Trying to continue a thread begun in the comments for Gala's `inchoate' set]

While I think it's nice that you could 'miss' any version of me, what I really hope and ask for from people who know me from these sites is that they just kinda be happy with my evolution, however it takes form, cos it's mine and it's personal and I'm brave enough to share it naked on the internet.

Well, of course -- what's great about this site and kin is that people present themselves as they are (or sometimes as they aspire to be -- but generally not, if things are working correctly, as someone else wants them to be).

There are so, so many completely distinct ways people can be attractive (different people, or the same people on different sides of some transformation).  And there's the filter of the viewer's eye (by which I of course mean brain).  While I don't for a minute want you to think I found your new look unattractive, something in me wouldn't allow me to appreciate it fully because I thought I caught a hint of sadness.  But of course, that might have been my imagination (such a fertile ground for projection, these limited peeks at people!), or I might have just been seeing shadows of the imprint made on you by some more life (probably a remarkable amount of it packed into a relatively short time).

Funny thing -- after reading your assurance (which I choose to take entirely at face value) that you're doing really well these days, I almost magically found the you in the new photos viscerally (as opposed to mostly intellectually/aesthetically) appealing.  Weird, huh?  But then, I'm the guy who was no longer able to fantasize about a really compellingly attractive (to me) friend after I found out for sure she's gay (not bi, but ladies-only gay).  It's not that I harbor any disapproval or discomfort with who she dates, it's that I'm not comfortable (even in fantasy) intruding where I know I wouldn't be welcome; a pall of wrongness would hang over the whole exercise.  (I don't know for sure how that last was related, exactly, but it felt as if there was a connection.)

gala

Member

Re: Still inchoate, which beats petrified any day.

Well, of course -- what's great about this site and kin is that people present themselves as they are (or sometimes as they aspire to be -- but generally not, if things are working correctly, as someone else wants them to be).

I think this is the ideal and it's one of the biggest things I watch for when I'm working for ishotmyself rather than just being on it.  One of the things I've always felt permission to do as an ISM artist was to ignore what others might want me to be, even if it helps them to envision me as the person who exists in their fantasies. 

I think people have a tendency to impose what they want to believe about the objects of their fantasies on those objects - it's a way of controlling the fantasy in the way that works best for the person having it.  Fair enough - you have to do what you have to do to get off - but it's when those things are vocalised to our contributors that I get a bit irritated.  When an ISM artist changes something about her - grooming habits, hair colour, etc - and subscribers respond negatively, I get really frustrated.  I'm not saying you were doing that, jbmjbm0 - and your language was pretty non-threatening and not combatative.  But that does happen, and every time I read that I want to go to those member's houses and hand-deliver copies of our credo to them and force them to read it aloud to me whilst I spank them with a cake spreader. 

There are so, so many completely distinct ways people can be attractive (different people, or the same people on different sides of some transformation).  And there's the filter of the viewer's eye (by which I of course mean brain).  While I don't for a minute want you to think I found your new look unattractive, something in me wouldn't allow me to appreciate it fully because I thought I caught a hint of sadness.  But of course, that might have been my imagination (such a fertile ground for projection, these limited peeks at people!), or I might have just been seeing shadows of the imprint made on you by some more life (probably a remarkable amount of it packed into a relatively short time).

I think most repeat contributors go through transformations in the ways they approach self-representation for the website.  At first I think I had more of an 'aim to please' - you'll find more 'explicit' shots in my earlier folios, more smiles, etc.  I'm not saying that that wasn't something I also wanted to do for myself, but I was influenced more by my audience than I am now.  These days I feel much more self-determining in the stuff I make for the website, and of course having a great deal more technical skill and access to better equipment helps that along.  Sometimes I think we have a stereotype of the girl who is 'so ISM' - she looks like she's having the time of her life and grinning all over the place, and that makes us feel like she's a healthy object for our fantasies.  There's a whole lot of other stuff going on on the website, of course, and there's plenty of room in the credo for that.  At first I leaned more towards that smiley-faced, peppy, so-empowered image, but as I found my feet as an individual within the Project, I sort of canned that one and what you see now is maybe a bit darker or more detached from the viewer.  Now when I'm shooting I feel like I'm the one looking at myself, and I don't really think about any other viewers until the thing goes up on the site and they start telling me what it's like to be them. 

But it's interesting that you bring up that bit about how you appreciated 'inchoate' less because you were reading sadness.  That does lend a little help to my theory about people needing to believe that these are happy carefree ladies of the world that they're looking at all the time.  I think a little bit of sadness or neurosis can be sexy because it's intimate and it's a visceral emotion.  Someone sharing melancholy in a sexual context - or even just through nudity that isn't sexualised - is a very strong thing to do I think. 

Funny thing -- after reading your assurance (which I choose to take entirely at face value) that you're doing really well these days, I almost magically found the you in the new photos viscerally (as opposed to mostly intellectually/aesthetically) appealing.  Weird, huh?

In some ways this makes you the ideal ISM viewer - you're paying attention to the context in which I'm presenting myself and that has a lot of bearing on what you experience as sexy.  We like to encourage people to look at the whole picture - not just the body or the face of the girl in the picture, but her interests and tastes and aspirations as well.  That's why we do the whole profile thing and why we really encourage contributors to use it as a way to express themselves.  But of course that's an ideal, and ideals are usually pretty lofty things. 

I appreciate you sharing these things, though - it's really thought-provoking for me to hear how other people process my images, and adds layers and layers to the experience for me - I eat this stuff up and wish more folks would do it.  Nicely of course.

jbmjbm0

Member

Re: Still inchoate, which beats petrified any day.

Sorry for the long delay following up -- I got distracted by that "real world" place, where entirely too few people are nekkid.

I think my biggest challenge discussing these things will be to remain coherent, since all sorts of threads of thought occur to me, running in all sorts of different directions.  I'll try to follow just one or two at a time, and come back if it seems appropriate to pick up another one.

I think people have a tendency to impose what they want to believe about the objects of their fantasies on those objects - it's a way of controlling the fantasy in the way that works best for the person having it.  Fair enough - you have to do what you have to do to get off - but it's when those things are vocalised to our contributors that I get a bit irritated.  When an ISM artist changes something about her - grooming habits, hair colour, etc - and subscribers respond negatively, I get really frustrated.

Um, yeah.  Because the line has been crossed between an artist's contribution serving as a component in some fantasy which exists entirely in a viewer's head (and which while it remains entirely there can do no harm), and the viewer somehow trying to impose aspects of his fantasy or prejudices or fetishes on the real-world person whose images he's been looking at (and perhaps by now feeling some sense of ownership of).  There can be an aspect of trying to freeze the artist in amber.  I apologise for the extent to which I did this in my mildly-wistful comment earlier.

That wistfulness was of course almost entirely related to my own history and associations (in the cerulean set, aspects of your body and the way you held yourself reminded me -- not by being identical, but by being reminiscent in certain shock-of-recognition corner-of-the-eye ways -- of someone I spent powerfully formative time with when we were both in our early twenties), and had little directly to do with the reality of you -- whom I have never met and can't claim to know in any real way.

Dunno if you ran across it, but I touched on the phenomenon of people not being able to see past their congealed sets of likes and dislikes in an earlier post...

  http://ishotmyself.com/punbb/viewtopic. … 7297#p7297

(Not sure if links survive in this forum;  and of course, quoting oneself gets a little self-important.  I'll never forget reading an extended essay by La Monte Young on one of his record jackets, in which he footnoted his own unpublished papers.  And please excuse my use of the word "model" instead of "artist" -- 2006 was so long ago.)

At first I think I had more of an 'aim to please' - you'll find more 'explicit' shots in my earlier folios, more smiles, etc.  I'm not saying that that wasn't something I also wanted to do for myself, but I was influenced more by my audience than I am now.  These days I feel much more self-determining in the stuff I make for the website, and of course having a great deal more technical skill and access to better equipment helps that along.  Sometimes I think we have a stereotype of the girl who is 'so ISM' - she looks like she's having the time of her life and grinning all over the place, and that makes us feel like she's a healthy object for our fantasies.  There's a whole lot of other stuff going on on the website, of course, and there's plenty of room in the credo for that.  At first I leaned more towards that smiley-faced, peppy, so-empowered image, but as I found my feet as an individual within the Project, I sort of canned that one and what you see now is maybe a bit darker or more detached from the viewer.  Now when I'm shooting I feel like I'm the one looking at myself, and I don't really think about any other viewers until the thing goes up on the site and they start telling me what it's like to be them.

It's interesting to hear you describe the ways in which you rate your experience of the 'genuineness' of these folios, because what I've tended to react to -- what gives me the feeling that I'm seeing something genuine about the person represented or not -- has more to do with the quality of her gaze and body language than with what activities she's engaged in.  I tend to read a direct, un-mannered, (apparently-)non-roleplaying gaze as saying, simply, "Here I am (and by the way, here's my sexuality)."  And therefore being "genuine".  And once again, I think it's because I've tended to find people who have that sort of direct look easier to relate to in real life than people who seem to be playing some obvious role -- be the role "Perky Girl" or "Archly Leering Woman of the World" or "Girls' Night Out Blame The Jaegermeister Chick" or any of a number of others.

So, all the really explicitly sexual things you were doing in "cerulean" had no effect on my particular perception of this mystical quality we're calling "genuineness" -- it didn't even occur to me to include that aspect of the set in the perception -- but the directness of your gaze into the lens did.  And the "inchoate" set -- with its beautifully composed photos exhibiting great light, and sensually pleasing colors and textures of paint and cloth and skin -- seems by this measure less "genuine" perhaps because it's so accomplished.  It's a work of controlled artifice, an expression of your will and aesthetics, and as such is communicating those aspects of yourself -- but it doesn't immediately read to me, at my basic does-the-dog's-tail-wag-or-not gut level, as an intimate exposure of you.  And by intimacy I'm obviously not talking about just a measure of the skin or naughty-bit content of the images.  By this naive yardstick of mine, "cerulean" feels as if it's about you, while "inchoate" feels more as if it's a work by you -- in which, almost coincidentally, your body happens to appear where necessary to the composition.

Granted, this is a pretty simplistic perception on my part.  It's like always assuming that someone wearing no makeup is more genuine or trustworthy or un-mannered than someone who chooses to wear some paint.  Both styles are conscious choices, and the simpler-seeming choice may have been informed by a canny and elaborate analysis of cultural semiotics.  And yet...  I'll still almost always gravitate toward those who've made that simpler-appearing choice.

But informed by these discussions, it'll be interesting to see how much my perceptions of these sets and those of others may change.

(I need to stop so this doesn't get even more unwieldy, and so I actually get it posted.

Note to self: in future, brief essays on fetishes as barriers to intimacy (but with counterexamples);  on hot shared melancholy;  on whether bookish, pale women with thighs really are usually better people (with a side-trip to nature versus nurture?);  more on perception-versus-projection with limited data;  on fantasy leading experience or experience leading fantasy.)

Last edited by jbmjbm0 (October 7th, 2008 07:35 AM)

gala

Member

Re: Still inchoate, which beats petrified any day.

...Because the line has been crossed between an artist's contribution serving as a component in some fantasy which exists entirely in a viewer's head (and which while it remains entirely there can do no harm)...

Yeah, I can't recall how many times I've tried to drill this into people's heads here and elsewhere.  I see absolutely no issue with anyone maintaining fantasies about contributors (here and on other websites), including ones that are quite far gone from the way that contributor represents herself in images and in text.  Partly because you can't really not be ok with it - it's going to happen no matter what and if you tried to stop it happening you could never get any sign of the effectiveness of such a project.  But also because fantasy is the ultimate safe space for the desires we hesitate to confess and the desires that, if manifested in reality, could cause harm to another.  Unless someone specifically solicits an articulation of those fantasies from you, I don't think it's really your place to give one.  There are exceptions to this in my mind, but they're generally in situations where a precedent exists.

The thought project that extends from that issue, for me, is about what is pleasing about the confession of a fantasy to its subject.  The only time I've ever found this pleasing, whether I've been the one having the fantasy or the subject of one, is in the context of a pre-existing flirtation or sexual relationship.  I can't see what's pleasing about that exchange between strangers.  But I think that may very well be a personal thing - I've just never had that happen and felt good about it.  That being said, I've never had a stranger say it really well - who knows how I would respond if a stranger did a good job of communicating a fantasy to me.  I would probably have the same bottom-line struggle I have now: unless you knew me well, how could you know what I'd like to hear and how I'd like to hear it?  (Not you specifically of course...)

It's interesting to hear you describe the ways in which you rate your experience of the 'genuineness' of these folios, because what I've tended to react to -- what gives me the feeling that I'm seeing something genuine about the person represented or not -- has more to do with the quality of her gaze and body language than with what activities she's engaged in.  I tend to read a direct, un-mannered, (apparently-)non-roleplaying gaze as saying, simply, "Here I am (and by the way, here's my sexuality)."  And therefore being "genuine".  And once again, I think it's because I've tended to find people who have that sort of direct look easier to relate to in real life than people who seem to be playing some obvious role -- be the role "Perky Girl" or "Archly Leering Woman of the World" or "Girls' Night Out Blame The Jaegermeister Chick" or any of a number of others.

I think the only way to actually see what this person (the contributor) is 'genuinely' about is to watch for the roles she puts herself in.  There are layers there, and that, I think, is where a lot of our Artists put themselves on the line.  That's why I often think that one folio is not enough, and why I get a lot of pleasure out of seeing a range of folios from one person - I think the ISM Artist Cadence is a great example of this.  When I look at my 'cerculean' I see more 'generic' than 'genuine'.  The genuineness is in the attempt to represent my self, which was literally the best I could do at that point in time.  I don't think it does a superb job of it, and at that time I relied more on my profile and Artist's Statement to do that for me.  But, as we've discussed, every viewer gets to impose his or her own viewership on the image, so what's generic to me might look like it's coming right from the very depths of my girlie soul for someone else.

So, all the really explicitly sexual things you were doing in "cerulean" had no effect on my particular perception of this mystical quality we're calling "genuineness" -- it didn't even occur to me to include that aspect of the set in the perception -- but the directness of your gaze into the lens did.  And the "inchoate" set -- with its beautifully composed photos exhibiting great light, and sensually pleasing colors and textures of paint and cloth and skin -- seems by this measure less "genuine" perhaps because it's so accomplished.  It's a work of controlled artifice, an expression of your will and aesthetics, and as such is communicating those aspects of yourself -- but it doesn't immediately read to me, at my basic does-the-dog's-tail-wag-or-not gut level, as an intimate exposure of you.  And by intimacy I'm obviously not talking about just a measure of the skin or naughty-bit content of the images.  By this naive yardstick of mine, "cerulean" feels as if it's about you, while "inchoate" feels more as if it's a work by you -- in which, almost coincidentally, your body happens to appear where necessary to the composition.

Personally I would tend to credit the 'first folio rule' for this (which, by the way, is just something I've noticed on my own, not a term used in general Feck parlance).  There is just nothing like your first folio - your first response to that lens and all that streams from it - being captured, being watched, by yourself and by others.  I have always felt, for example, that my first video for www.beautifulagony.com is the most raw and honest response to those things I will ever create, just on that basic stimulus-and-response level.  That does not, for me, make it my best work, or the work I'm most proud of, or the hottest thing I've ever made, but I can say that the only times I come close to that feeling occur when I'm shooting myself.  So ISM at least stays closer to the original experience. 

What's genuine to me about 'inchoate' and how I made it (and 'ocorposutil', which is another really special one for me) is the way in which each shot is at the same time exploratory and intentional.  I will say that 'ocorposutil' evolved much more organically - I had no intention of putting that on the website when I started it - but 'inchoate' was basically me fumbling about with a new camera the best way I knew how.  Because the camera has become such an intimate part of my life, I find it quite revealing to let you watch the first project I really did with it.  But I guess you'd need to know those things as a viewer to actually see it that way.  That's why I write my own blurbs and have as much input on that as I can have with the format available to me.  Thankfully there are also lots of other ISM Artists who don't care nearly as much about that part of it and are happy to just take the pictures and stop there.  So hopefully everyone gets theirs, if you know what I mean. 

Note to self: in future, brief essays on fetishes as barriers to intimacy (but with counterexamples);  on hot shared melancholy;  on whether bookish, pale women with thighs really are usually better people (with a side-trip to nature versus nurture?);  more on perception-versus-projection with limited data;  on fantasy leading experience or experience leading fantasy.)

If these ever get written - with an acknowledgment of the half-seriousness with which you've suggested them - I'd love to have an exclusive banter with you about them, since that's what we seem to have going here anyway...though I know Cate had some thoughts she hasn't chimed in yet.  And possibly never will.

Last edited by gala (October 13th, 2008 04:19 PM)

jbmjbm0

Member

Re: Still inchoate, which beats petrified any day.

(probably) more later, but initially:

The thought project that extends from that issue, for me, is about what is pleasing about the confession of a fantasy to its subject.  The only time I've ever found this pleasing, whether I've been the one having the fantasy or the subject of one, is in the context of a pre-existing flirtation or sexual relationship.  I can't see what's pleasing about that exchange between strangers.  But I think that may very well be a personal thing - I've just never had that happen and felt good about it.  That being said, I've never had a stranger say it really well - who knows how I would respond if a stranger did a good job of communicating a fantasy to me.  I would probably have the same bottom-line struggle I have now: unless you knew me well, how could you know what I'd like to hear and how I'd like to hear it?

This line of thought has been running through my head as well, because this particular conversational thread with you marks what I believe is the first time I've directly told (or if not told straight-out, let it be pretty easily inferred) someone I wasn't already in an established or burgeoning sexual relationship with that I'd been engaging in what the droll Craig Ferguson refers to in his monologues as "self-massage" while picturing her.  (Was that sentence-structure strained enough?)  Why don't we volunteer this sort of information?  Because it's almost always guaranteed to seem creepy.  What are the exact parameters which separate the creepy from the non-creepy?  Hard to say, and I'm sure there have been occasions when I've gotten it wrong, but in general, to quote the immortal words of (US Supreme Court) Justice Potter Stewart: "I know it when I see it."

I guess there's a distinction between expressing particular fantasy scenarios and expressing attraction in a more general sense -- I know that, for me, knowing that someone found me powerfully attractive has had an aphrodisiac effect on me, and has made me desire someone when I hadn't been particularly interested before -- I've seen (felt) this phenomenon two or three times.  I think this may stem from the way my sexuality works -- I seem to derive well over half my enjoyment of a sexual encounter from being carried along (empathetically or voyeuristically, depending on how positive or negative a spin you choose to put on it -- or perhaps depending on the depth or lack thereof of the relationship she and I have) on the wave of my partner's experience.  So something which can be expected to intensify her experience can thus be expected to intensify mine.

But it's so easy for this idea to be cheapened, commercialized, have the life sucked out of it -- and that's of course what mainstream porn does best.  So we see the idea of a woman having an intense sexual experience simulated, taken over the top, turned into some kind of loudly-screaming stylized plastic parody which can be mass-produced (and will still push some people's buttons effectively enough to keep sales flowing).  And also...  there may well be just a razor's edge difference (but "I know it when I see it?") between being carried on a wave of awestruck empathy with the intensity of one's partner's experience, and the whole thing devolving into an exercise of power ("I can make her come real loud!").

And of course (back to the aphrodisiac effect of being considered hot), there's that fine line -- if her being attracted to me seems to come from a place which has even the the slightest whiff of obsession or stalkeriness or certain sorts of weakness[1], then it all just seems icky, and I can't be attracted back.  Which brings up another theme -- I'm attracted to women who seem strong, and who manage to find me attractive from that position of strength.  And this may explain why I hardly ever find really girlie-girl women (who do the full-on conventional "feminine" thing) attractive: it usually seems to me like an effort made to adopt a purposely weaker role. 

But then -- that may just be another stylistic prejudice of mine.  I prefer the appearance of unadorned straightforwardness, but who's to say to what extent that's more intrinsically worthwhile?  To what extent does my perception of a more "masculine" (if that's necessarily the opposite of "feminine") personal style as more powerful simply mirror the institutional distribution of power in the society I'm surrounded by?  And... lest there be confusion, I'd characterize this particular balance I find so attractive in a woman as...  disinclined to be "feminine" in the girlie-girl sense, but enthusiastically... female.

And there are such different flavors of this thing I'm calling femininity -- some culturally-influenced.  For instance, I've seen some Latina women whose style can only be described as feminine, but they manage do it in a way which feels really powerful.

I'm a little uneasy about having spent too much time expressing my own particular likes and dislikes here, when I feel the goal is to try to illuminate general principles.  But then, who's stated that goal?  And doesn't the particular, the personal, illustrate the general?  And to what extent is framing things like an academic essay a way of keeping it all at arm's length, avoiding exposing one's personal vulnerabilities?

Sigh.  This has been a big stream-of-consciousness, kind of circular ramble, hasn't it.  Inchoate, even.

[1] To state what should be obvious -- "weakness" is not to be confused with "vulnerability".  It can require reserves of strength to allow oneself to be vulnerable, and wearing a shell of invulnerability often seems the coping technique of those who feel a weakness in themselves.

Last edited by jbmjbm0 (October 14th, 2008 08:17 AM)