I see the giant ice-penis sculpture, and I just giggle. How fun must that have been to make?
What I find most amusing about looking at the pictures taken at the Folsom Street Fair by the Catholic League (NSFW pictures on their official web site) is trying to discern in each picture what they’re most offended by. For instance, there’s a picture on page 2 of a girl pursing her lips toward another girl’s nipple. She’s being painted, though, it certainly isn’t a sexual expression on her face.
Also, there’s a lot of man-ass in those pictures, and no full-frontal nudity (in fact, most of the men showing their ass are wearing jock straps).
The top picture on the first page is pretty different from all the rest – a man leans forward, supported by another guy pulling on three chains, all attached to hooks in his back. They’re both wearing pants – I have to bemusedly wonder what the Catholic League think is going on in that picture. “Look, one guy’s got his boot on another guy’s butt area! That must be perverted.” kreie posted about it, saying that someone elsewhere in the interweb said, “This is outrageous that such behavior is tolerated in America. I demand to see these pictures immediately so I’ll know what sort of filth needs to be avoided.” Hehe, seriously.
I try not to get too sad about people who get upset about the kinks of other people. It just seems so pitiful to rage about what someone else does with their body, as if anyone has the right to determine what consensual adults do together. As if it’s appropriate to arrogantly assume one is the final arbiter of what is right and wrong.
The inherent disrespect of another person’s free will makes me shudder, because it just gets worse and worse. There’s a chasm of difference between not wanting to be involved in someone else’s business and actively attempting to prevent them from pursuing their own life as they see fit.
I think about the Morality Police now patrolling the West Bank, beating people who eat, drink or smoke (publicly) during Ramadan, regardless of their religious affiliation. I wonder how on earth people can look at that and say, “Well, that’s different, we’re not like them“.
What I find most ironically hilarious is that we’re considered a highly repressed western society, and it’s this obsession we have with whether or not we show our bodies that, I think, results in people feeling the need to bust out of their shell.
Could we stop being so terribly obsessed with breasts, for instance? I would love if we took the same attitude as most european countries – if they aren’t being used for sex, they’re just another body part. Soap/shampoo commercials don’t bother hiding them, and nude beaches aren’t titillating, they’re practical.
Joe also liked the sculpture.
Great picture! I note your own pictures are… trimmed. :D
Yes, the full versions of those are locked, on her account, to friends-and-family, at my request. They are more bare than the ones on my own flickr account.
I’d wager in the first picture they are offended by the hooks in the guy’s back. That freaks me right the fuck out, and I actually spend way too much online looking at body mod sites showcasing this sort of thing. I have nothing against these guys doing it, but it sends chills down my spine. Someone who is not so much with the openmindedness is probably not going to comprehend why someone would do this for fun and be severely opposed to the practice.
But as much as that stuff makes me uncomfortable, I don’t understand the desire to limit others doing it. It doesn’t hurt me, it hurts them in a way they enjoy, so whatever. And unlike, say, drugs, this sort of thing really has no societal cost other than weirding out people.
Right, I’m not saying I don’t see the squick factor, I just find it kind of amusing to try to figure out how they categorize such things to legitimize their belief that no one should do it.
I really don’t understand opposition to piercings/bodymod at all. Yes, it might get infected. So might a cut you get in the kitchen. And seriously, nearly all women in this country have their ears pierced with a gun at the mall, which is much more dangerous than getting it poked with a needle by a professional. However, single earlobe piercings are expected, whereas an eyebrow piercing is considered bizarre. It’s all societal conditioning having nothing to do with what is practical or sensible or good for everybody.
I think its that whole “your body is a temple” thing.
If you view your body as a “gift from God”, then tattoos and piercings are seen as an insult to that gift, and desecration of a temple.
Body modification, otoh, is a way of truly “owning” your physical being. Many religious people find that offensive. It smacks of secularism, or humanism.
And yet, for so long, tatoos and piercings WERE religious. Look at all the tribal tatoos and other rituals in Africa and South America (I think those are the places it usually happened.)
Hell, even Native Americans.
*snort*
Considering Catholicism’s history of torturing other people and encouraging you to self-flagellate, they haven’t been particularly respectful of that temple.
Ditto.
I saw that picture and will probably have a graphic nightmare now.
But that doesn’t make me want to force people to stop doing that. As long as I don’t have to watch, I don’t care.
This is really interesting. The people in the pictures are pretty clearly aware they’re being photographed. They’re posing, and their attitude towards the photographer looks to be pretty happy and friendly. They don’t seem to be mocking. The photographer clearly took his time with these. Taken out of the Catholic League context, I would have assumed that the pictures were taken by a fetish photographer. I’m sure there were plenty of opportunities to take unflattering pictures. I’m sure the photographer had plenty of less attractive pictures. Yet he selected the good ones, not the ones that would make the subjects appear less attractive. (No one’s caught with their eyes half closed and their mouth half open, looking like a drooling idiot, for example. And I know full well that when you take a bunch of pictures, you’re going to get some like that.)
So what are they really saying? That this is bad? Or that, by a thin veneer of pretending to disapprove, kinky catholics can look at fetish pics online without having to go to regular fetish sites?
Judging by the name “Fredalert” photography, I don’t think that’s a catholic photog. And I kinda think you’re right. They’re just presented with a curious lack of commentary.
And for the record, the b&w shot of the girl in the pony bridle is awesome, i love the angle and the look on her face (and, well, a pretty girl in a leather harness is never a bad thing!)
Yeah, it’s pretty strange. You’d think if they were trying to make this sort of thing out to be bad that they wouldn’t use such good pictures, or that they’d add commentary of some sort to convince viewers that this is a bad thing to do.
Looks like they’re all having a lot of fun!
I wonder if the photographers are aware that their photos are being distributed in this way.
She was all over the fair, pulling her cart., who was there representing a local coop grocery store, and giving away free fruit, offered the pony an apple, but her owner wouldn’t let her take the bit out of her mouth. He said she gave him “sad clown eyes” about it.
Folks who go to Folsom year after year have remarked (in my LJ, I’m local and have gone for the past three years) that these photos were taken over the past few years, which means the photographer has gone that often, which makes me wonder, honestly, if he’s not saying “oh goodness look at the sinners!” with his mouth while his hand is down his own pants.
and off the record, I had to check those photos fast to make sure I wasn’t in any of them.
Could we stop being so terribly obsessed with breasts, for instance? I would love if we took the same attitude as most european countries – if they aren’t being used for sex, they’re just another body part. Soap/shampoo commercials don’t bother hiding them, and nude beaches aren’t titillating, they’re practical.
But… but… BOOBIES!
Nah, I feel about the same way. It’s a weird situation that’s been developed – because if no one cared about breasts, then they WOULDN’T become sexual objects, and all the kids wouldn’t care about them, and the parents wouldn’t have to worry about the kids seeing them. But instead, they freak out if the kiddies see a nipple, leading the kids to wonder what’s so mysterious/enticing that the parents have to keep it for themselves, thus starting a life long obsession with them, and trying to find out why they’re so special. Granted, I love a good bit of booby as the next guy, but part of that is exactly for the reasons I state above – they’ve been so forbidden, etc, that they’ve become everything people don’t want them to be.
I don’t get sad about it, per se, but I argue against it, a bit, if I think it’s going to affect laws. If someone thinks that a kink between consensual adults who aren’t coercive — whether that’s bisexuality, BDSM, or living together out of wedlock — is so icky that there should be laws against it, I’ll push back. Otherwise, folks can believe what they want.
San Francisco, itself, over years, has an established culture that includes weird events like Pride, the FSF, the Dyke March, or Bay to Breakers. We also have the blessing of the animals on the day of the Feast of St. Francis at Grace Cathedral. Folks who dislike any of those can avoid them well enough.
Aren’t you Mr. Cleavage-is-catharsis?
I surely am. I did say “we” – I don’t feel like I’m entirely divorced from my own culture. However, being attracted to and enjoying breasts is different from obsession. In non-sexual context, they don’t make me flip out, y’know?
It’s funny to me that all I can think about the pictures are “I love my city”. ;)
Just for the record, I’m pretty sure the picture of the woman with her mouth near another woman’s breast is just a picture of said woman blowing on the nipple to harden it, probably so that when it gets cold and enlarges it doesn’t crack the paint. Could also be prep for a real photo shoot. I wasn’t there, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t done the same thing for both reasons.
And I’m afraid I’ll never stop being obsessed by breasts. But that’s nothing to do with society and everything to do with the things I am attracted to. Hiding them — and worse, restricting my breathing and mishaping my breasts because a bunch of people got together and decided I couldn’t walk around without haltering them without getting a ticket — because someone might be attracted to them is about as stupid as wearing newspaper over your boots because someone might be attracted to those.
I’m highly attracted to breasts, as well, but I don’t freak out (one way or the other) when I see them in a non-sexual context.
I agree, that was my point when I mentioned that she’s being painted, I’m sure she’s blowing on her chest, either to make the nipple stand out for painting or to dry the paint.
Oh, it gets better. Here’s a link to one of the stories that goes with the photos:
“MILLER TO COMBINE WITH MOLSON COORS; END TO CATHOLIC BASHING SOUGHT”
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1343
Apparently, Miller sponsoring a festival they don’t like equates to bashing them.