This morning I came across an article in Broadsheet on the latest of a long line in products meant to beautify a lady’s intimite parts.  This time, the item in question was “Benetint”, a repackaged liquid blush now meant to rouge ostensibly too pale nipples.  

There was the usual, “it’s empowering” (by the beauty company), and “it’s disempowering” (by the NOW president), but, what most struck me is, such total artificiality is was what I always liked about the naked girl industry.

One of the things I loved about nude modeling and burlesque was that, with relatively little effort, you could make yourself far, far prettier than you had any right to be.  Of course, the illusion is fragile.  Once you unclip your fake hair, un-cinch your corset and wash off your spray on skin, you’re back to the same lumpy, veiny human you always were.  But for those few hours, you’re a goddess.  It’s a very egalitarian vision of beauty, far more so than the elite cannons of fashion, which demand gazelle-like fourteen year olds, or nothing.  But that’s why it’s glamour- the original meaning of which is on par with witchcraft.

During my tour, me and Jen Dziura shared plenty of dressing rooms.  Once, before a burlesque gig, she watched with horror as I used body makeup to erase my areolas, then places the pasties up high enough to just cover the nipple.  It’s a boob job without the surgery, and looks fantastic, though of course utterly impractical for real sex.

If civilian women want to use sex worker trickery to make themselves look better, more power to them.  Though remember, if you want to use lipstick on your nipples, its sexy, but not really sexual.  No man wants a mouthful of paint.

Ivy RedHawks builds his sets himself

Ivy Red: Photo by Aaron HawksI shot with Aaron Hawks a few years ago in San Francisco. I posed in a torturous corset, alternately sprinkled in flour and dowsed in ice water, in Hawk’s freezing cold loft. It was the most brutal shoot I’ve ever done- and I’m insanely proud of the results.

Hawks shoots with film, in room sized sets he constructs himself. His work, darkly fetishistic, is objectifying in the best sense of the word- turning the human body into grist for his disturbing visions.

I’ve never been good at high-art thinky thoughts, so I’ll let this man’s work speak for itself. Check it out.

Moths

Jellyfish Girl

For not always rational reasons, digital art feels like cheating to me. Your eyes ache but your hands don't dirty. There's no final object, no wrangling with coloured mud.

Where crows come from: Art by Jason Levesque Yet, Jason Levesque is one of my favorite artists, digital or otherwise. His work has appeared on the covers of computer design magazines and in international, high art glossies. Dan Savage even had to defend his Dig cover once. Jason's work is a tribute to the eroticism of biology, in all it's wierd, decaying, mucous-ey glory.

If you never thought that scarecrow guts or jellyfish were sexy, think again.

Johnny Depp look a-like: Director Ed Wood failed at everything but failure.Those who cannot do, teach. And those who cannot teach write chipper, angora sweater-obsessed how-to books.

At least that’s the impression you’d get reading Hollywood Rat Race, famously failed director Ed Wood’s guide to being a star. It’s a strange, leering little book, both good natured and cynical, and totally dated by the time it came out in the sixties.

In it, Wood claims that anyone who doesn’t like Hollywood is a Communist (though he thinks Hollywood began before Communism), and brags about his good friend Bela “Dracula” Lugosi. The notorious transvestite also bemoans that boys now look like girls in Hollywood, with their beautiful, beautiful angora sweaters.

The money quote…

Sooner or later you will meet Mr. Sleazy--- probably sooner! He’s got a fast line to convince you and an even faster technique to get your clothes off and get you onto his casing couch. Strange as it may seem, a few of these characters will let you just sat on your back, nude, while they try on your clothes. Your panties, warm with the heat of your body, or your sweater of an expensive, and usually a furry nature, are hot items to them...

That happens at my portfolio reviews ever time.

That's what my mom tells me: The sick-fuck genius of Mr. Wiggles
It’s probably somewhere along the lines of confessing to a social disease to love Mr. Wiggles, but god, I do anyway. Mr. Wiggles is an adorable, fuzzy teddy bear, who love molestation, ultra-violence, and crack. He’s also the brainchild of cartoonist Neil Swaab.

Swaab started his comic strip, Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles, while studying art at Syracuse. He landed a spot in the New York Press shortly before moving to the city. For the next several years, Wiggles reigned supreme on the Press’s pages. Over coffee, Swaab told me that, not liking NYC, he tried his best to ruin his good name. Instead he made his career.

The same editor who hired me at the Press gave Swaab the boot, but Wiggles continues to spread havoc in newspapers across the country, staring in two books in the process.