There are women out there exploring how they look at men, Such as Erika Lust and Petra Joy who make porn for women and Britt Marie Trensmar a photographer with a keen interest in male identity. I strongly admire these woman and what they have achieved, however lets look with a critical eye at what they are making. My views are based on my response to the free content from Erika and Petra’s web sites and Britt Marie’s book “Play the man”
(From the book Play the Man | Mangrant by Britt Marie Trensmar)
What strikes me is that their work comes across as a counterweight to the male gaze, suggesting that now it is time women are in power, from here on the man shall please and serve me. I do not call this something new I call it the other side of the coin, so what they seem to be doing is taking porn made by men and reversing the power structure. The result is that the submissive side of my personality enjoys what they make and I perceive the porn and images as a form of Femdom.
(From the trailer of “Her porn” curated by Petra Joy)
I shall admit that I often struggle with feminism for the same reason, that it comes across as giving power to women over men and not equality. I sense an underlying mentality that if the world was ruled by women it would be a better place. Personally I’m tired of feminism and would like to see a new movement that leaves gender out of the equation, a movement that looked at human identity as a whole. An idealistic slogan could be “Equal opportunity to all”, note that I did not say equal power, I used the word opportunity, because not everyone wants power, or equal power, however the opportunity should be there if one wants to take it.
(From “Room 33” by Erika Lust)
I need to point out that I’ve fallen in to the same trap that I have been criticising, look at how I describe my work:
“In our time the man has barley been explored and this is something I and my self portraits wish to help change.”
I’m stating that the man has been suppressed by feminism and that I wish to add a counter weight to that. However if the counter balance achieves success it can easily become a new oppressor, which is the last thing I want. I need to rethink what I’m doing, I could say I’m looking at human identity through self portraiture, but I’m a heterosexual man, which then automatically excludes women and gay men. An obvious solution would be to include more women and gay men in to my work. The problem here is that the gaze stays the same, secondly I could never include all forms of human identity. I don’t have an answer, but I shall look for one, maybe you can help?
Some links for further reading:
A dystopian view on what would happen if men vanished from the world: Y: The Last Man
Guardian article: Porn made for women, by women by Catalina May
Dusk the TV channel broadcasting porn made for women, selected by women.