The Book of Nudes
 
   My conscious purpose in presenting this photo collection is to provide an
easy way for all of us to practice looking at relatively unguarded people
without falling into being indifferent to their apparent feelings. I have
deliberately chosen pictures of people who look as though they intend their
photo to be as beautiful as possible and don't appear to me to be in pain,
secretly wishing that they weren't so visible, or defending their feelings
by expressing derision at the observer. I see in them multiple apparent
forms of focus, none of them sexual, but presented without the traditional
censorship of their physical sexuality.
   To me these photos are a noble gift from the models; their overt welcome
of my fascination with the sexual and muscular mechanics of people. I
believe that these models  have adequately prepared their personal lives to
meet the social challenges involved, as I did before I built my first
strange bicycle, obtained a house, or commenced the practice of dumpster
diving.
   I have felt seriously condemned all my life for my curiosity about other
people's personal beings, especially anything sexual; and this collection
has already drawn blatant disrespect of the courageous models and serious
verbal ire at me for participating in allowing access to their private
beings through the sharing of this book.
   But all of these photos are taken from magazines or from a book called
Manwatching, so, except for the indian girls, all of the models deliberately
made an offer of service to the capitalist public, to help ease the sexual
idiocy of our culture by facilitating an indirect focus on it. I believe
that all of them would encourage the use to which I am putting their photos.
Notably all the models, including the indians, show evidence to me of an
acceptance of sexual expression generally, both their own and that of the
observers, so that even the use of these photos as a fantasy springboard for
masturbation does not appear to me to be disrepectful of them.
   I have never been successful at getting sexually aroused by pictures or
movies; or even nude people in person who I have no deep trust with. To get
aroused I need the emotional safety of a semi-dream state or the presense of
an actual emotional guardian friend who is overtly encouraging my sexual
expression. In my youth I was easily fooled by the apparent implied
encouragement from a cooperative woman, but even that fails now. I must be
actually emotionally safe to get aroused.
   So my draw towards these pictures comes out of my passion to comprehend
the hidden or forbidden in any form. I believe that this is the main root of
interest that drives anyone to seek pictures of this kind. The issue of the
disrespect of the models is seperate to me, arising from something else that
seems to permeate capitalist culture.
   I describe this second matter as mechanical or self-centered enjoyment,
the embracing of the emotional intensity potential in being a customer or a
service person, experiencing dream drama while physically engaged with the
real thing. I am horrified by this in whatever form this takes, whether as
customer or service person. Someone expressing actual indifference to any
deep relationship with me, while affecting me in some personal intense way,
ruins my day. A similiar intense feeling evoked by a food or a mechanical
device such as a television also ruins my day. Thus a photo of someone who
appears to be intending to provoke intense feelings in me, such as is
routine in advertisements, has me wincing and looking away. Easily 90
percent of the nude photos in the girlie magazines I obtained show this
intent; it has been quite a challenge for me to amass this collection.
   I think also that someone who generally seeks dream drama while not
asleep may be emotionally hit hard by viewing these pictures while in the
presense of other people, and so may be inclined to condemn the book. To
prevent this, I recommend initially viewing the book while alone.
   My hope is that someday we can all become conscious enough of how we
emotionally threaten each other (with ridicule of each other's sexuality)
that we can make a huge stride towards genuine and recognized harmlessness
with each other. I presently maintain what I call a considerable degree of
privacy with everyone, and everyone else even more than I. This results in a
necessity for all of us to guess a lot about how to be nice to each other
and thus I see a lot of miserable failure in actually being nice. I see no
real hope of a tribal warmth at our house with such a handicap.
   
    Adrian
 
                               Pictures