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Tuesday 29 March 2016

Weird Punishment - 2

4. The Prisoner Warned Again
(Complete obedience is demanded)

5. The Prisoner's Self-Abasement
(preferable to punishment, but unwittingly provocative)

 6. The Intervention
(This guard's seen enough)

7. A Humble Plea
(for another chance)

continued
Read from Part 1

Sunday 27 March 2016

Weird Punishment - 1

 1. The Prisoner Summoned
(wears his punishment shorts)

2. The Prisoner Assessed
(judged to be fit and suitable)

3. The Prisoner Stripped
(resist and you'll be sorry)

Wednesday 23 March 2016

A-Z of Fetish Artists - Vuri



1
My last ‘V’ is Vuri whose imagery treads a familiar yaoi path (or is it Hentai?) with youthful, sharp-featured protagonists that I normally shy away from, but there’s an edge in some of his work that does grab my attention. This first image has an element of intimacy and understatement that leaves room for the viewer to imagine what is happening. The interaction between the two main figures and their spatial positioning is captured rather convincingly despite some tricky perspectives. It makes for an image that is satisfying over and above its erotic ingredients

2
This example has similar qualities and the artist’s technical skill elevates a simple concept into something special. The stylish grey background and restrained palette bestows a sense of quality that the drawing would lack on its own. The economy of line and colour here is influenced by the artistic traditions of Japan. I like the use of clothing to emphasise the captive’s nudity but sadly, for me, the faces of the characters in these images are just too cartoony and too lacking in masculine maturity to allow a meaningful sense of power and control to develop.  

3
This picture sums up that issue even better. It’s another thoughtful invocation of power, domination and threat. I love the chunky rugby build of the captive, but these two look very boyish, the policeman almost girlish. Much of that stems from the way the eyes are drawn. It’s part of what this style is all about but to me it suggests an element of youthful play and experimentation that doesn’t gel with the visual evidence of real brutality.

 
4
That comment certainly can’t be made about this image of a prisoner receiving a visitor. The cartoon caricaturing has receded and it’s almost shocking in its frankness. This disturbing message is made all the more striking by the abundance of technical skills on display – figure drawing, colour, light. But there’s more than predicament in this image, the erotic content is restrained allowing you to sense deeply-felt emotion underneath. It has poured onto the paper through the artist’s hands. 

5
I have a weakness for medical scenarios which description seems to broadly fit this image although there is no obvious medical purpose to the set-up nor any medical personnel in attendance. The scrotum gripping milking tube is rather neat and the blue and white colouring conjures up a suitably austere, sanitary environment. It also has an interesting baby-fying effect on the patient’s skin tones.

Essentially this seems to be a modified tentacle image with all the pre-requisite leg-waving and probing. However the replacement of sentient beings with unthinking machines creates something quite different. The unnecessarily severe proportions of the mindless thrusting dildo and the ‘patients’ obvious distress go way beyond the normal scale of domination play. To me this is not erotic at all but raw and brutal. The question is - are we simply being invited to enjoy this young man’s predicament? Surely not. Or is the artist really trying to communicate a very personal representation of a young man’s undeserved suffering?

Look back at the previous picture and ask yourself the same question.
Does our appreciation of these pictures come from a recognition of something raw in ourselves?

Friday 18 March 2016

A-Z of Fetish Artists - Vortex

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Saturday 12 March 2016

A-Z of Fetish Artists - Viste


Viste - 2 Palle (2 balls)

1
Viste styles his work as bear art but in his fetish work his men are not typical members of that clan.  They tend to be middle-aged, Latin, slightly podgy and not particularly hairy. They are usually shown as the inmates of a grim, military-style fortress or prison. Within these walls they are subjected to a variety of sado-masochistic tests, trials or punishments with a distinctly sexual flavour. This example has a prison setting but there’s more of a sense of military training going on, intended to develop endurance, team work and loyalty to one’s colleagues.

Viste - Cerro Bastone (Oak stick)
2
This is clearly a punishment scenario and there’s a very formal set up with the subject placed on a raised platform in the middle of an (empty) fortress courtyard. At the same time there’s an improvised quality to the set up with a roughly hewn post held in place by crude wedges, suggesting that a special example is being made of this man. The victim’s arms and limbs are pulled back allowing full access to his naked body by his tormentor. In fact what seems to be in progress is taunting and humiliation rather than brutality but it’s somewhat obscure.
Viste often shows the Italian Tricolore flying in the background but here, intriguingly, it appears to be the Union Jack. 

Viste - Bear 04
 3
This arrangement is even more complex and sophisticated, incorporating plumbed-in shower heads to periodically drench the victim with cold water and built-in lighting allowing punishment to continue through the night and also ensure that every man passing through the square will witness his degradation. Viste’s occasional interest in lighting effects shows a genuine artistic curiosity and ambition. Here the guard is angrily brandishing a whip, but although he’s stripped for his exertions it doesn’t seem to have left its mark yet, despite the sagging pose of the victim.

I had some difficulty picking examples for this article because there’s an even consistency about Viste’s work that makes differentiation quite hard. A good deal of it features relatively static tableaux like this seen by us quite distantly as though in a theatre. The drawing of the detail is very precise but you can see from the width of the lines that the artist is working on a relatively small size of paper for the breadth and complexity of the scene he is portraying. This limits the detail achievable particularly here the subtleties of facial expressions which are so important to us in establishing connections and empathy.

Viste - Tirarre
 4
This picture is very different. The victim seems relatively young, soft-skinned and hairless. We see him close up and this creates for us a much greater sense of him as an individual, uncomfortably restrained and bracing himself for the lash of the whip. The sweep of his back and partial view of his bottom is much more erotic than the full length nudity of the last picture and draws us to him. Our erotic response becomes part of his humiliation.

The torturer has stripped down to his underwear underlining the severity of the punishment and his own erotic interest in despoiling this succulent cub. As before, we don’t see the whip in action, it’s a threat still to come which seems to evidence the artist’s interest in the psychology of threat, torment and fear rather than the drama and brutality of pain.

Tirarre (tirare) by the way has a variety of meanings sexual and colloquial (to throw, to have a stiffie, to go strongly) which will add much colour to the intensity of this situation for an italian speaker but do little to clarify the events surrounding it.

Viste - Adunata Fustigazione (gathering for a flogging)
5
In this example Viste uses the same close-up device but it serves to place us amongst the inmates who are not here to take pleasure in this man’s misfortune but to learn the wisdom of not doing the same. They are all stripped to their underwear as though to suggest to them it might be the turn of any one of them next. The relative maturity of the whipper makes an interesting contrast.

There’s no doubt about the whip making itself felt here and we can only speculate about consequences of the prisoner’s arousal in response to his pain. Our own response allows us to visualise the effects it might be producing within the underwear of the other men around us.

Viste - Laid Out (?)
6
This scenario is completely different, for once it’s completely private and intimate and the sexual targeting much more overt, although the stony faced guards seem to be disinterested or in denial but very determined. The prisoner can only squirm as the torment is applied. Notice again the difference in ages. The victim is no boy, but the maturity of his antagonists casts him into that role. Viste’s treatment of the lighting here is more polished and the soft clouded effect something of a triumph. It highlights the planks leaning against the wall, a mysterious, threatening presence.

Whilst Viste shows great ingenuity in varying these ordeals, his repeated invocations of similar situations seems to indicate a deep personal involvement with the subject matter whose causes we can only guess at. The militaristic, relentlessly cruel guards are readily recognisable stereotypes but Viste gives few clues to the character of the victims – they just seem to grit their teeth and suffer - if we can see their faces at all. One gets the sense of men caught up in the game, having their masculinity tested and exposed by an uncaring, unchallengable authority.

Viste - Scaricatori (loader?)
 7
The punishment frame here is highly elaborate, purposefully designed, technological even, in tune with the modern surroundings. It all suggests a degree of permanence and therefore level of usage that would intimidate the toughest prisoner. The unfortunate captive quails before an exceptionally massive torturer whose handiwork is already in evidence in various places on his body. But it’s still the fear of what is to come that drives this piece.

This victim with his bushy (almost comic) moustache is a more common character type in Viste’s art than my selection might suggest. He seems a most unlikely person to end up in this position and his nudity seems to underline how ordinary he is. That might explain his “I can’t believe this” expression (and the wry smile of the left hand guard awaiting his turn).

I have two variants of this picture and in the other one the victim’s cock is uncovered. The white shroud seen here, secured with gold cord seems hugely erotic and symbolic, suggesting a mystical, ritualistic purpose, unknown but disturbing.

Viste’s work is quite impenetrable in some ways, often suggesting a deeper significance which he chooses not to share with us or clarify for us. Like a Kafka novel you wonder ‘Yes, I like it, but what’s it all about? What’s going on?”

His work is quite easy to find, he has a blog at Vistebear


~
 
For more articles in this series click on the A-Z label below or search for specific artists using the index page or search boxes (top right)

Tuesday 8 March 2016

A-Z of Fetish Artists - Virginsoul


Virginsoul - Love My Cam!! 04 (click to enlarge)
 This artist is represented by a single image that just happened to catch my fancy.
Most of his work that I have seen is vanilla sex but the 'Love My Cam!!' series features men tied up to perform with their assailant who films the action.

This very public display (apparently up on an arena stage) is an interesting twist on that and an idea that I can't recall having seen used before. I don't know if members of the audience are also being invited to have a go! 

This isn't a style of art I enthuse about, but I do like the flying, blonde hair and stubbly chin of the present incumbent.

There are some censored posts on his maneater blog
I suspect he is on deviantart as well but haven't located him yet 

~

 For more articles in this series click on the A-Z label below or search for specific artists using the index page or search boxes (top right)

Sunday 6 March 2016

A-Z of Fetish Artists - Vincent



 
Vincent - Animal Park

Vincent’s art is in praise of the bigger man, but it’s pitched on a rather idealised level which is more akin to worship of musclemen than chubbies. His characters usually have strikingly handsome and masculine faces set atop thick, tapering necks and massively developed bodies. They also have enormous backsides and thighs but the bulk is packaged in neatly rounded shapes that do not sag and look more like taut, young muscles.

2
Vincent - Carlos

He has a predilection for dressing these characters in skimpy, see-through outfits which emphasise their overdevelopment. They are also seen in the bodybuilding world. You might expect such muscularity to have required chemical assistance but these two don’t seem to have suffered the usual consequences in respect of their sexual capacity.

3
Vincent - Shunga
Despite the rugged, western characterisation of the men we have seen so far, Vincent is actually Japanese and I’ve included this example by way of illustration. His heritage also manifests itself in the use of flower motifs in romantic scenes and some tattoo patterns. The bondage we see here is unexpectedly mild for a Japanese artist but the dildo is a typical device. The bulky variant seen here challenging another substantial rump does have a certain erotic logic. Notice how the skin tones in these images convey a sense of smooth, babyish softness.
(‘Shunga’ by the way simply means erotic image).

4
Vincent - LA-Police

The bondage seen here is slightly more significant, but it’s still symbolic rather than real, rope looped round arms but not really acting in any restraining capacity. This might look like mundane porn activity except for the embrace from behind which is protective and loving. Coupled with that fleshy, baby fat, there’s actually a strange sense of parenting going on here, the chunky, inexperienced helpless child being shown how to manage his own body functions and it’s weirdly sexy.
I have no idea why this is called LA-Police by the way.

5
Vincent - Brian tied milk

The other bondage format used by Vincent is more extreme. It shows arms that are twisted into acute but impossible angles as though they are not attached to a body by any normal arrangement. It conveys much more of a sense of incapacity, pain even suggested here.

Japanese artists often use ‘phantom’ imagery to show internal penetration but I’ve never seen it used like this before. It’s actually rather effective in conveying a sense of a stranger, a marauder imposing himself. ‘Cleavage frottage’ is normally the domain of straights for obvious physiological reasons and so there’s a sense of mockery in its imposition on such a well-groomed, muscular man. That is topped off (!) by the ‘milk’ that can be seen dripping from the victims cheeks and running down over his pecs and abs in rivulets (just like milk does).

His facial expression is priceless, a sort of submissive, dignified outrage, cheeks red hot with embarrassment. The extreme neatness of his facial hair serves to underline how degrading this act must be and his cock sags accordingly. Which is about all that does sag in these parts! Vincent’s hunks carry weight everywhere else but they don’t have bellies, they have six packs. For me the result is actually very sexy

6
Vincent - Happy Easter
This image takes the element of humiliating display a step further. This Easter bunny in bondage and laying eggs is a somewhat confused concept but a rather splendid example of Vincent’s feminising constructs. The pecs and lower limbs have unmistakeably feminine shapes, but that said, the rugged face and giant, rather handsome sex organ infuses enough masculinity into the picture to nullify the effect. The skimpy denim garment shown in the first picture failing to conceal a provocative G-string is a similar adoption and adaptation of female eroticism.

The tiny, bunny ears become a humiliation joke of the sort rugby fans will recognise. This game and its boisterous players are perhaps the ultimate source of Vincent’s inspiration. Rugby is very popular in Japan.
 ~
Vincent’s work is readily available in book form to buy from his website Vince-X, but samples there are well-protected and it’s very hard to find examples on the web (search under Vyncent as well as Vincent). Vincent’s blog has hardly any on show.

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 For more articles in this series click on the A-Z label below or search for specific artists using the index page or search boxes (top right)