The difficulties of meaningful human connection in spiritually vacant environments

In a previous post Mhambi was telling how he felt guilty for two reasons. One was that I'm not in South Africa.

Mistress Storm, brothel, Slough, UK, 2002, from No Love Lost by Michael Grieve.

The second guilty feeling is my fascination with sexuality, with beautiful nude people, in particular women. I'll explore my guilty feelings (perhaps for a last time, because my blog is now being read by respectable people) in a next post.

Porn shoot, Cuffley, UK, 2006, from No Love Lost by Michael Grieve

But not today. Today we'll take a peak at Michael Grieve's photographic project, No love lost.

He describes it as a complex work about the difficulties of meaningful human connection in spiritually vacant environments. Mhambi recently accompanied a South African writer to a brothel in Hillbrow Johannesburg. I'm doing a documentary about him. After he had seen one of the girls they came downstairs togther and proceeded to eat pap and sous together, from the same plate. It was pretty endearing, yes intimate seeing them (client and prostitute) eating like that. "This is not like Europe the writer assured me."

Michael Grieve on his project:

No Love Lost is a visual project that inhabits sexual environments in contemporary Britain. People featured are active in the increasingly entwined and performative worlds of pornography, prostitution and stripping. What they share is a measured psychological engagement with strangers in close proximity that is a purely physical and sexual union lacking in affection. Fantasy is played out within the frame of constraints and closeness is kept at a distance. Menace is always present, control is often threatened. These are emotionally charged settings, both plastic and primitive, where the ‘stuff’ of life is all too present.

In essence, No Love Lost is a complex body of work that is about intimacy and dislocation in a theatre of sexual commodity. No Love Lost does not attempt to be a statistical documentation but works as a lyrical documentary metaphor in a factual world about real fictional encounters and conveys a sense of the difficulties of meaningful human connection in spiritually vacant environments.

Break in porn shoot, London, UK, 2003, from No Love Lost by Michael Grieve


— Michael Grieve

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Mhambi's obsessions

At last Mhambi was transferred to Google's brand spanking new blogger, complete with categories! Now you can easily navigate my blog and find out I'm obsessed - amonst other things - with Identity politics, and General named De la Rey, what the Brits (or should that be the English) think of Afrikaners, the potential of technology and the web and Flickr sirens Rose and Olive.

Speaking of which, hows this for yet another gorgeous photo by the girls from Texas.

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Girls are gorgeous

Super 8
Originally uploaded by marialy.

When I was younger, I loved to look at naked women in magazines. But I felt guilty. First the guilt came from was my strict protestant Christian upbringing.

Later, at university, it was reinforced when I became involved in left wing politics. We espoused equality in all spheres of life. We believed that men make sexual objects of women. I knew that at least for me, it was true. I adored naked ladies. But it was wrong, maybe not a sin, but degrading.

Something puzzled me. I wondered why women just don't make sexual objects of us men? Problem solved.

But they did not seem to want to objectify us men.

It was only later that I realised that women have sexual objects too. Other women.

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Aren't you happy?

aren't you happy?
Originally uploaded by avolare.

The good news is, i'm crazy.
the bad news is, matt has to put up with me. This is sly commentary on some young men today - the tags read on Katie West's picture.

Like Rose and Olive, Katie West is another girl photographer Mhambi has found on Flickr.

Justin Holt, a novelist from the States, recently interviewed her and it is now posted over at his site, Oxyfication.net.

“Come for the breasts. Stay for the heart.” is the tagline to Katie West’s website. Find yourself exploring the site one minute, and an hour later, eyes all bloodshot, mouth still ajar, you’ll see the tagline fitting.Read the rest here!

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Can you see my left red foot?

Can you see my left red foot?
Originally uploaded by roseandolive.

A picture sometimes is worth a thousand words....

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Male sexuality is a disgrace

Shame and lust
Originally uploaded by anastasiyamaleeva.

Are you male and embarrassed at your feverish desires? So is Mhambi.

Just think about how much we'd get done if we did not think about sex so much. Just think, none of those idiotic advances, embarrassing rejections, uncomfortable erections, distracting fantasies, and browsing off for a bit of porn when we should be editing our blogs.

But Mhambi is in good company. Surrealist Spanish film director Luis Bunuel wrote in his biography what a relief it was, when at old age he got rid of his libido and could concentrate on what matters (or so Mhambi hears). So too Kingsley Amis, who said on old age and loss of his libido: "For 50 years it was like being chained to an idiot."




The Last Dance.
Originally uploaded by inanutshell


Which brings me to J M Coetzee's Disgrace. When Mhambi read it first time round he thought it was a damning comment on male sexuality, and not primarily a post-colonial novel about the loss of white power in South Africa - as most people apparently do.

Ever wondered why lesbians dress badly?

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Some nice tatoos

Originally uploaded by mattsharkeyphotography.

Check out Californian Mattssharkey's other pics on Flickr. They're gorgeous.

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Why do lesbians dress so badly?

...and gay boys look so great? Mmmmm....?

I'm talking on average of course. And ok, the average gay man is not a paragon of good taste and creative couture either. Anybody that has been to a gay club recently can attest to a near uniform and monotonous sea of muscle Maries, decked out with the same close hair crops, jeans, white t-shirts or pectorals.

But boy, the high level of self imposed body fascism to get those washboard stomachs *aer* evident.

But my contention still is that gay men do tend to spend more time on their appearance than the average bloke. AND the average lesbian does tend to spend less time and effort on theirs, than her straight gender-sake.

What could explain this phenomena? Are gay men more female like and lesbians more manly? That's just too crude an explanation.

This is my theory. (It does not take into account things like hormones etc but rather the social manifestations of human behavior.)

My theory is that the answer is tied up in male and female sexuality, what we desire and importantly what we need to do to be desired.

Straight male sexuality is all about desiring the other, the so-called sex object. It is often stated that male sexuality is visual and rather shallow. And that straight female sexuality is about being desired. For females it is said it is more about personalities and the emotional feelings their partner conjures.

Now when we have two males, they still desire like males do, their mate is the sex object, but they too are in turn also being desired and the sex object. The result is that both tend to spend allot of time on their appearance.

With lesbians it works the other way around. Being female, they do not desire a sex object. As a result neither needs to look at their best to get some attention.

This simple theory explains allot of things. For instance why you often see well kept females as partners with burly badly dressed men. This is why straight females openly say they find other females attractive, but their partners will be reluctant to admit the same of a male.

It also could explain why in swinger circles sexual activity revolves around the females. The gals can have other gals, and guys. But the guys can't be seen to be involved with other guys.

This is not because men are not bi-curious like allot of females seem to be. (Many young straight boys had some sexual encounters with their pals when they were out camping).

It is because for females male on male action severely threatens the way they as females see themselves sexually. Most straight women just don't find two men having sex sexy. Men don't go in homo territory in conversations with their female partners or when swinging for fear of not being sexy.

On the other hand they will freely admit that they find the idea of two girls together very titillating, and their girlfriends might nod approvingly.

This desiring of shallow physical beauty and the response to it could also partially explain why gay men have such promiscuous sex lives and multiple short relationships.

And this theory could explain on the other hand why lesbians tend to have more stable long term relationships.

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