Ulf's Weird Punishment

While researching the next post in my Ulf Retrospective series yesterday I was amazed to rediscover this image, which connects directly to my "Weird Punishment" set just posted.

Guys in Uniform - Ulf Style

 I don't think there is very much doubt that this picture was inspired by the "Guys in Uniform" image below.
Ulf has made some significant changes, the most important being to convert the looming threat of stinging punishment into an overt act, creating a scene reminiscent of his early 'angry' work.

At the same time he's also made the prisoner more comfortable
by giving him a raised platform to lie on, compare the stressed, grovelling original below.

I sense Ulf's giving the captive the 'Heroic American' treatment here.
The original's a Brit of course.

"Guys in Uniform" Original Image

Ulf made numerous other modifications,
polishing up physiques and clothing and substituting new fetish iconography for old.
His trademark background detailing helps bring the scene to life.

There are pluses and minuses for me, but you can judge for youself
how this makeover compares to the original.

You can view more of the "Guys in Uniform" originals from this series at GIU7

Ulf is not the only artist to be inspired by "Guys in Uniform" imagery,
see my A-Z article on Harry Bush  (yes the bikini boys man!)

Weird Punishment - Epilogue

Some of you may have recognised the Weird Punishment images as being from an old series published by "Guys in Uniform" Studio back in the 70's. "Guys in Uniform" was descended from Basil Clavering's "Royale Studio" with some of the same participants involved in both set-ups. "Guys in Uniform" was even more short-lived and only slightly less notorious for it's attempts to portray the artistry of Erotic Military Punishment.

This set scaled new heights in this department invoking iconography from the dark world of rubber fetish and mixing it with symbols of recent dictatorships for added intimidating effect. This provides a perfect, confusing backdrop for the unfortunate, young hero of the story whose erotic charms are deftly displayed in a succession of tableaux as he plays the helpless pawn of these ruthless exploiters. (This model also appears in another GIU series dressed as a sailor).

The original images in my collection have all been copied from magazines and suffer from excessive greyness and lack of clarity. In my amateurish efforts to 'improve' this I stumbled across the technique used for 'Weird Punishment" which I thought created some dramatic imagery, bringing out hidden detail and highlighting some of the erotic qualities of the images.

Today material from "Guys in Uniform" studio is hard to find on the web. It's name is not sufficiently distinctive for a search engine to pick out (which is why I'm trying to promote the 'GIU' tag) and it's commonly mis-named as "Men in Uniform" (MIU). It's also confused with Royale Studio from 20 years earlier (understandably given their common ancestry and inspiration). You're most likely to track examples down via this route.

I published a series of articles here in 2010/11 covering 9 different photo sets I had identified from GIU with representative samples of the imagery. This set was amongst them and I have now updated the original article with all the images I have from it, so if you want to see the original pictures that inspired 'Weird Punishment' visit GIU7.

Weird Punishment - 3

 8. Condemned

(failing to satisfy)

 9. The Formal Ritual

(solemn and dreamlike ...but) 

 10. The Bite of the Cane

(is quite real - and there's no escaping from it)

 11. Returned To The Cells

(to prepare for next time)

The End

Read this article from Part 1

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

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)

continued

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?

See more at Vuri’s tumblr blog

A-Z of Fetish Artists - Vortex

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.