Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
- William Shakespeare's Sonnet XVIII
At first glance, I wasn't very impressed with David-Nudes. It looked like another ordinary website of a photographer trying to make some money by listing some of his works. However, after a closer inspection it turned out that he has a slightly different approach.
The first thing that a user may notice is that the entire website is publicly accessible, and it seems to have been like that for a few months now. After delving deeper into the website the sets don't really look that different from the sets that you may find at any other website, except that you can sometimes see the reactions on the models faces and notice that he doesn't use the same techniques and settings over and over again. David sometimes accompanies his sets with a tutorial containing a description of the concept behind those sets and even how he created those sets, and this is something to be respected, even though it may restrict one's interpretation of some of his beautiful works.
There are also video interviews of the models, which simply add to one's fascination and gives the person a glimpse into the model's personalities and souls, thus helping him appreciate the art more fully and to realize that models aren't passive subjects in nude photography.
He also made some photoshoots with a wonderful model named Olya, showing the beauty in the variety of human bodies. It is something that I really appreciated and respected.
Anyway, this website has the potential to be one of the best websites out there. We will just have to wait and see how it turns out, I am very optimistic.
This is a beautiful new set from Body In Mind, which is accompanied by the following paragraph by Dwayne Bell:
"We at Body in Mind are always telling people that beauty can save the world. And we mean it. But rarely does a beauty come along who perfectly illustrates our point. How does it work? Simple. If you're a young man, and you're healthy and possess a normal sex drive, you will find Klaudia very beautiful, and you will begin to fantasize about her. If you have a mind you will fantasize not only about sex with her, but about having her as a girlfriend, about her falling in love with you and so on. And if you're a moral man, you will know that to make this happen you will have to earn it, you will have to impress her as much as she's impressed you. And to do that, you will have to do something great. That is how beauty will save the world. It makes intelligent, moral men great. Start saving yourself, and the world, today, at Body In Mind." - Dwayne Bell
While I have a lot of respect for Dwayne Bell and Body In Mind, I have to disagree with what he has said in the previous paragraph.
It may be true that this is how inspiration works for some people, I am not sure as this has never been the way in which I saw the power of beauty.
Young men aren't the only ones who admire beauty, there are a lot of older men who do appreciate this beauty as much as any young man or even better, as their own interpretation of the images comes from a long experience in life and not hormonal urges, which isn't the way with which all young men view those images.
Men fantasize about a lot of things, they may fantasize about celebrities or various women. While they may think that all those women are beautiful, it's not always so. Universal beauty transcends attraction or even fantasy, it may invoke the powers of imagination and the sense of morality that is present in all human beings, but it doesn't yield to basic instincts.
What a person described in that paragraph experiences is not beauty, it is a combination of greed and sexual desire, which should not undergo a process of rationalization in order to be considered normal or natural. I don't think that a lot of people have fantasized about having sex with a subject of a classical painting that contains a nude representation of female beauty.
Unfortunately, I feel that Dwayne is somehow endorsing this kind of possessive behavior. I don't really think that making Klaudia sound like a trophy or a material thing to be earned is the right way to talk about beauty or its ability to alleviate pain or inspire heroic actions. I somehow feel that this concept was infiltrated by the current consumption trends: you can earn whatever you want as long as you work for it.
This view is somehow self-centered and doesn't give Klaudia the appreciation she deserves. A person who forgets the gaze and the eyes for a woman's bosom loses a lot. Bosoms are shared by all women, they're something that is dictated by physiological processes, or in other words are purely physical. The beauty I see is deeper than that, even though a lot of it may be based on the imagination of certain traits and psychological qualities, it is far more complex than simple curves, and most importantly more unique.
Beauty belongs to the realm of the abstract, the elusive ethereal qualities of life that can positively influence our actions. Not the realm of mindless sexual impulses or sexual fantasies.
For instance, what mainly attracted me to this gallery was the gaze of Klaudia and her attitude. A power manifests itself in her dark lucid eyes that almost belongs to the world or mythical heroines, she looks as if she's determined to achieve something. Imagination takes it from there, what is it that she's trying to achieve? Is it the end of all wars? Is it an ultimate cure for cancer? Is it the end of suffering?
She then becomes a role model, a source of true inspiration. Her beauty to me is that she, at least in my head, is trying to save the world, trying to do what no other human being has dared to do, she wants to stop people from harming each other, she doesn't care about fame as long as she does the noble thing.
I am not saying that this is what every man sees. I can't claim to know how others view the world, but in all cases I hope that they're not seeing it in the way that Dwayne has described.
It's a disgrace that we still can't get rid of the prejudice and the false impressions surrounding female nudity. We still are judgemental about others and it seems that the main objection to giving this freedom to women is just that, most societies don't want to give women more freedom.
Even most of the websites that barely make it on Graceful Nudes have a similar attitude about female nudity, it all comes down to revenues and the commodification of models. Even when one doesn't discuss the pay models receive, there's still a big ethical gap in the way the models are treated. I don't think that a model just gets into a hypersexualized state once she's in front of the camera. It's just a way of advertisement, telling the male-dominated audience of websites that are marketing nudity that these females are sexually available by using subconscious or conscious sexual cues, thereby confining the model to the role that she plays in the traditional "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen" fantasy, satisfying the basic sexual urges of the visitors, and having a higher account balance at the bank.
And It's not getting better.
I was contacted about a month ago by a visitor who was asking for my opinion regarding joining Abby Winters, after prolonged discussions I told him to go for it, especially when they were going to split the website. Now that the website has been split, I completely regret telling him to give them a single penny. The initial new design after the split was of a model in the lordosis position, and now their newsletter videos are full of the weird sexuality that's found at every other porn website. Long gone are the days of free uninhibited sexuality of models who are in control, not models who are being controlled.
It isn't just confined to Abby Winters. Most of other websites now have a tendency towards featuring the cheap, grotesque, and quick-money kind of sets that the visitors who are looking for porn keep asking for. I don't really know what's happening, but this attitude certainly is going to ruin everything beautiful that they supposedly are fighting for.
However, no matter where every other website is heading. I will always keep fighting for female beauty and the empowerment of females everywhere, we all should if we want our western culture to truly progress and flourish in a free world.
Nudity is a symbol of freedom and not a fantasy of some perverted males. This freedom means even more freedom for minds everywhere and more development. I think it will solve a lot of problems in a lot of places that our governments are condoning through avoiding them.
Who knows, maybe it's just a storm that will calm after a while. Meanwhile, let's all keep enjoying tasteful nudes that are both inspiring and respectful.
Everyone has a side in himself/herself that knows exactly what it takes to achieve the life that s/he want to lead. This side does show itself many times and guides our actions, however, we often lose the balance and let laziness take over. We forget our goals and our lives and become nothing but a hollow picture that is moved around by others. We lose control, and become a part of the faceless crowd, and even find our safety in that crowd.
While there may be safety in numbers in the wild, it isn't true in our modern societies and lives. Everyone of us is unique, yet we consign to desperation and start blaming others for our own mistakes. What's bad in our lives is a direct result of us not nourishing and embracing that positive side of us, that part that knows how to be successful and how to lead a fulfilling life.
To me, beauty activates that side. It makes it stronger, not by evoking some fatuous instinct-driven fantasies, but by helping me guide my compass once again to the pre-set destination, to the ultimate dream. It's not an incentive or something that I want to get, it simply works as a catalyst.
Is it related to sexuality? Even unconsciously?
I don't have an exact answer to that. While I am sure that I don't get any sexual gratification from viewing beauty, let it be in a museum or an art exhibition, or even have a wish of meeting the people featured in those pictures, I only get this result from female nudes.
I have a strong tendency to think that it's because the pictures featuring human subjects are more beautiful, and since the female anatomy is less stark and less threatening than male anatomy it's female nudity that evokes that response rather than male nudity. I think that there may be another biological instinct taking control here, as by mythical representation of male power a male may attribute imaginary powers to the male featured in the pictures and this may elicit a flight rather than a fight response. You wouldn't want to meet Zeus on a rainy day.
Cowardice creates guilt, guilt kills inspiration.
The fact that beauty has a positive effect on that better side may be another reason why it represents a great opportunity to get rid of depression. It helps that side maintain the balance once again, and equilibrium means progress in this case, which is what all human beings should be striving for.
It eliminates the "It would be great if.." from one's mind and replace it with "I will do" That's one of the many positive aspects about it.
It simply helps you rediscover yourself and to rediscover hidden parts of your psyche.
Feel beauty, and improve your life!
Sometimes one becomes adrift in the sea of life. Led by nothing and surrounded by darkness, it is then that one forgets how it was like being in the light. Depression is a reality, stalking you in the shadows and waiting until you reach the zenith of happiness to take over your life and to rob you of joy.
However, even in the darkest abyss of depression, there always is a light of hope. It's this light that we should look forward to, with a naked soul. So that we can be in control of the ship once again, and to be able to look at our compass through the fog.
In my opinion, beauty is one of the most important elements in the spectrum of that light.
That's what I thought when I saw this gallery. We can always regain control, but you need to find the catalysts that will make it quicker for us to reach our destination before too much damage is done.
Sometimes a single gesture by a person can make your day: a smile, a move, a dance, or even a word.
Our moods are always affected by the actions of those around us. Joy, love, and appreciation of life can virally spread. It's only then that we can see how great life is, we forget all our pains and all the adversity that we've faced, we just feel glad that we're human.
This is exactly what Vina did to me in this gallery, by cavorting in that train station and carelessly enjoying it, she shared a part with her joy with me. This is what tasteful nudes is really about.
This is the only instance when I think that looking is okay: seeing a girl happily chase her boyfriend, seeing the members of a family having fun together, or seeing anyone who is carelessly able to enjoy life. Not just staring at the bodies in spring while drooling or wanting the women to be free to wear whatever they want just to be able to see more naked bodies - Not only is this selfish, but it also is demeaning to those women.
I am not saying that you should look at women without feeling guilty(one of the main points in the philosophy of Domai). You may feel threatened or offended if a person keeps looking at you or your body. Recently, I was sitting in a lecture next to a girl who kept looking at me. I hated the feeling of being looked at, she didn't speak, she didn't talk, all she did was that she stared. However, if she has been just looking at my body, then I probably would have felt very offended. I think that it's the same with all human beings, it even was mentioned in one of the latest Domai newsletters (a model was offended after a reporter looked at her cleavage while she was preparing for a life session).
When you stare at women on the street you don't see personalities, just like photographs, but unlike photographs, your mind doesn't have enough time to put together a personality, and that's where the problem lies. All you see is a body, yes it may be a beautiful body, but the woman/man doesn't have much choice about how his/her body looks like. It's when you don't care whether this person is intelligent, brave, or compassionate or what his/her passions may be then you're making a big mistake.
I don't know whether this is what Eolake means or not, but to me this is what nudity is about. I may look at a man or a woman who's having a lot of fun at the beach, but like tasteful nudes, the last thing I see is his or her body.
If all we had to offer was bodeis, then how would we be different from porn?
See the joy! See the beauty! But never ever let the bodies blind you.
A door, a portal preceding a passage to the truth, to whoever you really are, to what you can achieve.
The light of your inner self is shining through the door, only the naked truth stands there awaiting your taking the right step inside and starting the journey of lifetime exploration. Reminding you that you're not a machine and that you can think for yourself.
While it may seem unlikely that an ordinary digital picture can help you achieve all of this, it's not true. There's a lot of work involved before you can stop seeing the bodies, especially that most of us has been taught to only see the outer shell, why?!
I have mentioned the reasons many times, but I will repeat them once again:
1- That view helps complete societies in exploiting women, how many references to heterosexual sex are there in a Hollywood movie? Why are some movie fans obsessed with the occasional "wardrobe malfunctions"?
2- It helps in increasing the wealth of some human beings(the widespread subspecies known as Homo avaricious).
3- Politicians and religious leaders(the two occupations are very similar) will always find something to blame for their failures, and you too will find something to blame for your own failures. This takes away the burden of having to converse with that critical "inner voice".
4- This helps in making you gradually obtain the concept of a "perfect body", and then spend thousands of hours talking to your wife/yourself about how you should look like and what you need to do in order to look like that.
5- You can always pay money for porn producers, there are huge amounts of money involved.
6- You have the freedom to treat women the way you want to.
7- Women won't be able to have any voices when everyone's too busy fantasizing about what their clothes cover.
8- You can always be a slave to your sexual urges.
There's a lot more, but I will probably mention them later.
I find it highly offensive and even disgusting when I realize that some people will never be able to get past Tracy's body. It's hard to miss the beauty in the pictures, but somehow they have learned to be too distracted by the shallow anatomy.
I don't rate this gallery as one of Body in Mind's best galleries, Tracy has a lot of make-up on(If it's her choice then I respect that, but we should be able to dissociate between hazardous chemicals and beauty). The gallery isn't that monotonous, but doesn't offer the variety of innovative images that I have come to expect from Body in Mind, nonetheless I did appreciate the overall idea behind the gallery and didn't want you to miss it.
Think, respect, be inspired!
I recently received a message from a visitor of Graceful Nudes that required some explanation on my behalf of the philosophy of Graceful Nudes. It was a very enlightening message as it allowed me to analyze my fascination of beauty. I also realized that I haven't(or do not remember that I have) explained how nudes can be moral and how it can affect your life.
First, I need to say that photography in all its glamour and beauty is somewhat a poor medium. It is able to eternalize a single moment and to capture fine details that our busy minds ignore, but it has an inherent weakness, it cannot fully capture the personality of the model. You can see charisma, you can see attitude, and you can see beauty, but you cannot see beliefs or converse with the model. A picture is a mere collection of pixels with different color values.
Second, the world is not perfect. The motives of the models and the photographers range from purely selfish to altruistic. Therefore, I cannot claim that every model is an angel or that every photographer is a messiah.
You have probably pondered the thought of exploitation and how "the models are represented as bodies when they are in the nude", whether it's right or wrong to view those images and whether you are respecting the person or doing someone injustice through inspecting and experiencing the beauty in the images.
Does this mean that Graceful Nudes and Super Nudes are just an attempt to give you what you want to hear?
Of course not.
Why?
None of us has ever met the woman depicted in La Joconde, have never met Artemis or Aphrodite. Yet, we are fascinated by their characters. We can claim that we have met them, felt their personality, and that they are the most beautiful females that have ever roamed the Earth(or mount Olympus).
Our minds create that fascination.
Some Graceful Nudes are more than pixels, my mind connects those pixels together and creates a live image of the model, a beautiful canvas from another dimension, a temporary utopia. She becomes the most beautiful and ethical woman in the world, the true essence of perfection that somehow appeared on earth and was enigmatically captured by an obscure but a very lucky man. I let the perfect lady in the picture guide me towards the light and perfection, through the darkness, and through bad times. It did change several aspects of my life and I am glad about it.
A pile of rocks is nothing but a pile of rocks, but arrange those rocks properly and you can build a Rome.
Your mind is the engineer that puts those pieces together. However, many fail to see what those nudes have to offer due to some preconceptions that probably are implanted in their minds by pornography. Like a virus, those malicious ideas infest the inspiration and one's ability to see beyond the colors, the curves, and the bodies.
I tend not to be cynical about the models and the photographers, whatever their intentions may be. I just trust them until they betray that trust, I have never met Stefan Soell or Helena. Judging them will be extremely unfair.
Saying that tasteful nudes exploit models is like saying that we should never visit the Louvre, or that we should burn Botticelli's or Bouguereau's works. We acknowledge the fact that the model is a human being, and breathe a spirit into what she represents in a picture. It's like how you can be fascinated with the role of an actress in a movie, and falling in love with the character. This doesn't mean that you love the actress or that you negate her existence in real life. You just admit that you do not know her, you know the role she did, and it is that character that you love. Ignorance can sometimes be a bliss. You will be living a delusion if you love the person behind the character.
It's a melange of imagination, beauty, freedom, and all the beautiful meanings in the world; It is a representation of human compassion, feelings, and love, but we just need to listen, to put our hatred aside, and to become what we always wanted to be.
In my opinion, Walter Bosque is a website worth supporting. After a quick look it looks like they're not that different from a lot of other websites, but this isn't why I am supporting it. I am mainly supporting it because Walter Bosque hasn't followed the easy way, he didn't move the the U.S. or Europe in order to be able to deal with Eastern European girls, but he chose to show the world the beauty that South America has.
This is another gallery from there, I hope that you will enjoy it.
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