Photographers - Part 23

 Terry Richardson

Terry Richardson is a controversial American fashion photographer.  He has also photographed celebrities, including Barack Obama, with whom he is pictured above.

Previously, we saw an ad that he shot for Equinox gyms.  Above is an ad that he shot for Diesel's "For successful living" ad campaign.

But most of his work has been photographing female fashion models.  Here he's photographing supermodel Kate Moss.

Complaints about sexual harassment of the models started to surface.  One complaint was that he would get naked while photographing the models.  Apparently, Kate Moss didn't seem to mind.

More seriously, there were complaints that he pressured models into having sex with him.  There's no question that he had sex with his models while an assistant photographed the proceedings.  He became well known for the sexuality of his photos.  I found dozens of photographs online of models jerking him ...

and sucking him ...

and getting fucked by him.  (That's him; the tattoos are recognizable.)

I even found a cumshot photo.  This isn't a porn blog, but I wanted to show why he became so controversial.

The question is whether the sex was coerced or consensual.  Richardson has said that the accusations are false and he considers himself considerate and respectful of his photography subjects.  Some models have defended him, including Gavin McInnes, above, whom he shot in 2001.  However, McInnes is a far-right commentator and founder of the Proud Boys, so he may not be the best character reference.

The vast majority of Richardson's work is with female models, but he has done some work with male subjects.  I don't know what the occasion was above, but they seem to be getting friendly.

Here he is with Jackass star Johnny Knoxville.

Did he have sex with his male subjects, too?  Here's a photo of him kissing a guy.

Here he's getting a blowjob from someone under a desk with hairy arms.

And perhaps most tellingly, here's a photo of him with cum on his face.  So he may be an equal-opportunity sex pig.

So, what about all those allegations by models of sexual misconduct? He was famous and powerful in the world of fashion photography, so he thought he could get away with anything. He was never charged with any crime. However, in 2017, many fashion brands and magazines dropped him. He has not worked since 2018.

In my opinion, the self-portrait above is how he sees himself.

And this self-portrait is how others see him (an asshole).

Beach Bums - Part 20

 Sitges, Spain

Sitges, near Barcelona in the Catalonia region of Spain, is known for its beautiful gay-friendly beaches.  This is dawn over the Mediterranean.  Nice view!

Balmins beach is a gay nude beach.  Finding a female in the photo of the beach above is like "Where's Waldo?"

At the other end of Balmins beach, more people may be clothed, but they're still 99% male. 

A Balmins beachgoer.

And some more.

Playa del Muerto, a.k.a. Playa del Hombre Muerto (Dead Man's Beach) is also a nude beach, and it's more secluded, requiring a hike from town.  As this sign says, it claims to be the first gay beach in the world (since 1930).

The other beaches in Sitges have nicer sand.  Playa del Muerto is stony, as you can see above if you take your eyes off the foreground.

Although it's stony, Playa del Muerto has its attractions.  Because it's more remote, it's more private and more cruisy.  In addition to cruising that takes place in the woods above the beach, the beach is said to have a "magic cruising cave."   In the video above, I think that's where the guy is headed.

Sitges is so gay-friendly, it hosts "Bears Week" every September to attract gay bears.  Here's a guy named Fer at Balmins beach during Bears Week in 2013.

We end with extracts from a video that was taken on Balmins beach during Bears Week 2021.  The video was posted on YouTube, which usually requires blurring or pixellation of frontal nudity, but I'm pleased to say that whoever did the pixellation here did a terrible job.

4th of July

 4th of July

This 4th of July (Independence Day), we look at the American flag.  I think this World War I photo is my oldest unashamed male image with a U.S. flag, probably dating from 1918.  The flag on the Red Cross sign is too small to make out the details, but it would have been a 48-star flag.  New Mexico and Arizona had been admitted as the 47th and 48th states in 1912.

Here's another 48-star flag (the top row of stars is cropped off).  Alaska and Hawaii were added as the 49th and 50th states in 1959.

The flag is associated with everything patriotic.  The military has always loved the flag.

The flag has also been used as a protest symbol.  Here, a naked guy waves an upside-down flag, which is a distress symbol, at the Vortex I rock festival in Oregon in 1970.  The festival was partly a protest of Nixon's Vietnam War policies.

A more recent protest, this 2020 photo by Carlos Mariel called Fundamento was a protest of the killing of George Floyd, showing the flag symbolically tying and immobilizing a black man.

The flag has also been used in art.  This 1950s painting by Raoul Pene DuBois is called Male Nude with American Flag.

In this 1970 dance piece by Yvonne Ranier called Trio A, nude dancers have flags draped down their front, but are exposed in back.

This 1983 art photo by David Lebe is called Stars and Stripes.

And the flag even appears in gay porn.  Remember Rule 34: if it exists, there is porn about it.

But, primarily, displaying the flag is a statement of pride and love of country, like this flag-waving guy at the Woodstock 99 festival ...

and this guy by the Golden Gate bridge ...

and these beachgoers ...

and this rider in the 2015 Fremont Solstice Parade.

On a different note, earlier this year, this guy was caught on a security camera stealing a flag from a house in Ormond Beach, Florida.  It made the news because the thief was naked.

We end with this photo.  It's not just a butt, it's an American butt.

Happy 4th of July to all of you!

Poem of the Day - Part 24

 Rub a Dub Dub

Today's poem is a familiar English nursery rhyme.  The rhyme exists in several different versions.  The oldest version, dating to the 14th century, is:

                Hey, rub a dub, ho, rub a dub, three maids in a tub

                And who do you think were there?

                The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker,

                And all of them going to the fair.

This is thought to refer to a peep show at a fair, where the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker were peeping at three naked girls in a tub.  The origins of some of these nursery rhymes are not so innocent!

In the 1800s the rhyme was changed to refer to three men, not three maids, in an effort to clean it up.  One version goes:

                Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub

                And who do you think they were?

                The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker

                'Twas enough to make a man stare.

Of course, which version is dirtier depends on your point of view, and on what the three men were doing in that tub.  I'm taking my cue from "Twas enough to make a man stare."  So, friends, feel free to stare!

                Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub

                And who do you think they were?

                The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker

                'Twas enough to make a man stare.

*    *    *

Note: I got the third photo from Franco's blog Vellohomo.  Thanks, Franco!

Performers - Part 23

 Lias Saoudi

This is the British band Fat White Family, formed in 2011.  Can you pick out the band member who is not like the others?

He is Lias Saoudi, the band's lead singer, seen here at a performance at the Bowery Ballroom in New York in 2014.

He likes to get naked on stage.  Here he seems to be getting within touching distance of his fans.

He is definitely not shy.

Here's a short clip of him performing at the Bowery Ballroom.

Lias loves to interact with the crowd.  Here is is crowd surfing at Baby's All Right in New York in 2014.

Apparently that wasn't enough touching, because he then pulled off his shorts ...

And dove into the crowd again.

This is Lias at the Ypsigrock music festival in Italy in 2015.

And here he is at the Splendour in the Grass music festival in Australia in 2016.  After his performance, the band was escorted out of the festival.  Festival organizers claimed it wasn't because of the nudity, but the timing was suspicious.

We end with a clip from Fat White Family's music video Touch the Leather.  Surprisingly, Lias Saoudi isn't the naked one here.  While he sings in the foreground, another guy provides some visual interest in the background.  He keeps going back and forth for a solid 3 minutes in the music video, but this clip should be enough for you to get the idea.

Instruments - Part 17

 Accordion

As a musical instrument, the accordion "don't get no respect."  It's not played in the orchestra or in most bands.

It's a folk instrument.  Here are two guys in a nudist camp in Roselawn, Indiana, playing accordion and ukulele.

The sound of the accordion is also indelibly associated with Paris, where it is played in cafes around the city.

Here's another street performer.

The accordion is sometimes played in folk bands, like the band Rent Strike playing at the Sad Boii folk punk festival in Los Angeles in 2014, above.

This is a competitor in the Näcken contest in Sweden in 2011, where naked contestants play an instrument in a stream to recreate a Swedish myth.

But as a serious instrument, as I said, it gets no respect, as demonstrated by this picture of clowns with accordions in a men's room.

The accordion features a bellows that the performer pumps in and out, causing air to pass over reeds to produce the sound.

Some accordions have a piano-style keyboard, above.  Side note: was this an accidental exposure, or did the guy hitch his kilt up above his knees on purpose?

Other accordions have a keyboard made of buttons to play the melody with the right hand, above.

All accordions also have a set of buttons played by the left hand to play accompanying bass notes and certain pre-set chords.

The concertina, a related instrument, is smaller than an accordion and is played by buttons directly on the end panels of the instrument.  This concertina is being played by British judge Mark Davis in yet another British naked calendar.

We end with this short video clip of some guys dancing to the accompaniment of an accordion after a sauna.  I don't know what language we hear, but it might be Russian.