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Absolutbleu - Chris Redfield
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This is a lawman of a different sort to the one we saw at the end of Part 4 of this mitchmen review of Absolutbleu's art. His take on Chris Redfield, the government investigator of biological hazards, doesn't closely resemble his 'official portrait' apart from the trademark stubble. He doesn't even have the customary, ripped and tattered S.T.A.R.S. uniform, with it's characteristic shoulder flash, so this could really be any special agent of the games universe.
He's packing an interesting, erotic weapon in his holster and this depiction actually looks something like a stripper's parody of the character. This could also be said of many of Absolutbleu's other homo-erotic icons so it's not surprising that Night Clubs and their clientele figure amongst the gay haunts that he chronicles.
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Absolutbleu - Night Club Stripper
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This straightforward depiction of the interaction between a Cowboy pole-dancer and his audience casts a slightly different light on 'The Flirt' and his lustful admirers, stereotypes which occur repeatedly in this artist's work. Of course, strippers are the archetypal flirts and the spot-lit stage on which they perform reflects their elevated position in gay life and the gulf that exists between such muscle-hunks and ordinary mortals. In this image, however, the stripper seems as eager as his fans to bridge that divide or is he simply mesmerised by the money?
(The money is actually being offered to his cock, it seems, rather than himself, an interesting but possibly unintentional bit of irony).
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Absolutbleu - Wet Vest Competition
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Pole dancing has now largely passed into the crowded obscurity of personal fitness fads (along with Aerobics, Step and Pilates). This scene reflects the modern, industrial-scale commercialisation of Night Club stripping. The Gods and mortals are even more separated here with the strippers not even looking at their frustrated audience, let alone making a connection like that seen in the previous picture.
The adoring onlookers are reduced to vague silhouettes and cartoons but their lust is cleverly represented by a single, raised, clenched fist directed hopefully towards one of the strippers' dripping groins. Even the 'roadie' supplying the wetness is seemingly dazzled by this great pantheon and like the audience members, he is reduced to a mere caricature. Oddly enough the cartoons seem more like real people than the self-obsessed performers on the stage.
I don't know if the caption is attributable to Absolutblue himself but it represents another seemingly uncrossable gulf - between those, like myself, who see clothes as an essential element of erotica and those who think the exact opposite, that nakedness is the only thing that matters.
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Absolutbleu - Merman In A Water Tank
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This most inventive image stretches that idea of a gulf into the realms of fantasy with a merman performing in a fish tank on the stage. Mer-creatures in fiction have always represented an unattainable ideal anyway, by virtue of their incompatible anatomy and undersea habitat. The tank here symbolises that additional degree of separation between muscle and mortal. There's an inherent cruelty in catching them and making a freak show out of them, but this merman (like a true A-flirt) seems to love the adulation (from the safety of his tank, at least).
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Absolutebleu - Nightclub Lap-Dancer Groped
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You might think that this image portrays the gulf being bridged, with a dancer allowing an audience member to grope him. His face even shows his pleasure, but there's also an element of calculation in the gritted teeth. 'Make the most of it', he seems to say, 'because it's all you are going to get'. In real life these allowed touches are fleeting, a commercial transaction, they are part of the job of a lap dancer and not, usually, a precursor to genuine intimacy. The gulf is maintained, but at a cost to dignity.
It's still a highly erotic image, however, and the eagerness of the punter is nicely captured by the clenched hand gripping the dancer's pants so he can't escape. Since the moment is frozen in time, it allows us to imagine more exciting outcomes.
The dancer's face here is Absolutbleu's standard 'Flirt Face' and seen in many of his images.
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Absolutbleu - Champagne Room
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This impressive picture also shows the less glamorous side of the life of a professional muscle flirt. It's set in an upmarket gentlemen's club, where for the (exorbitant) price of a bottle of Champagne, patrons can gain personal access to one of the attractive waiters. This well muscled 'host' is dressed only in white cuffs and briefs, like a Chippendale model. Chippendales are arguably the aristocrats of stripperdom, epitomising both the masculine ideal and it's unattainability (which is preserved by performing for women not men).
This host here doesn't have a Flirt Face but one that seems youthful and sensitive, as though he really is a young, sporty student topping up his grant, not a tramp. He's having to resist the advances of his (doubtless inebriated) client who doesn't seem to have read or remembered the notice on the wall. With his skimpy underpants already pulled down the poor lad struggles to extricate himself with dignity - and we can all hope he won't succeed!
Notice the profusion of upward pointing objects in the room and in particular the champagne bottle almost touching the palm of his hand.
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Absolutbleu - Flirt At The Pool
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Swimmers are unattainable ideals in a class of their own. They have an attractive athletic aura which is enhanced by teasingly brief costumes quite unlike those of any other sport. They can be found at Swimming Pools like this with lanes marked out, but these are places for serious sport and training and don't make good cruising grounds.
Absolubleu has cast this flirt as a competitive swimmer in his cap and goggles, but his physique is not that of an avid swimmer and his ultra-skimpy costume would be more likely to raise eyebrows rather than anything else. A-Flirts are certainly audacious exhibitionists and in this setting, sexual consequences are unlikely.
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Absolutbleu - Cooling Down At The Sauna
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I love this image of a well-worked butt cooling under a running stream of water, it's rather like having a rude, water feature in a garden. The water level plays the same role as lowered shorts in other images, giving a sense of a highly intimate area being unintentionally or grudgingly revealed, but the flirt's face shows it's far from accidental. In a sense the Sauna is the ultimate gay refuge, where Gods and mortals can relax and freely mingle but it's also a place with a strict etiquette to accommodate those who just want to be looked at. The intimate, steamy atmosphere enhances the intensity of voyeuristic encounters just as much as it does for the real thing.
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Absolutebleu - Milk, Sir?
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After a Sauna or a night at the Club, what better than a milky coffee?
A muscle-hunk is publicly humiliated by being forced to provide a splash of milk for a customer's coffee. The half-hidden sign seems to hint that it is indeed part of his job to serve customers in this near naked state (unprotected, you'll notice, by any counter or bar top). I love that he straddles the table top to do it, overturning a phallic salt shaker and spilling other salt too.
This seems to say that muscle hunks are just human and have to do mundane jobs like everybody else when they are not being stars. No-one in this picture is admiring his muscles, but I guess they do make his milk that much more desirable. Compare this image with the waiter providing breakfast milk from IFNB and the Milk Outlets image of Catrasche.
This wonderful picture epitomises the mitchmen motto of putting men in their place. Absolutbleu has given this one the face of a rather earthy, average guy and that adds to the poignancy of his predicament. It really belongs with the exploitation images in Part 3 of this mitchmen article but it gives me a nice bridge into the sixth and final episode - 'You've Got Milk'.
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Read this mitchmen series from Part 1
