Balls Balls Balls

The three most important things to consider about balls are: presentation, presentation, presentation.

So balls in thin-skinned loose scrota/scrotii/? are the ultimate erotic package (well, for me at least) cos the nuts end up being perfectly put out there. Unequalled definition:

Preview

Thin-skinned loose scrota/scrotii/? also have the added bonus of easily allowing you to see when the owner is getting real excited - the balls visibly rise in the sac:





Another sign is the red face and slightly weird expression! Well-demonstrated in the first photo above!

Now, thick-skinned sacs and their undefined nuts have quite a different aesthetic:





Good in its way, but ultimately ....... sad! Just what do you imagine you are going to do with all that non- definition? !!! :>


A nice comparison, to really bring the point home, is with guys in swimmers or jocks.

Non-definition briefs are nice enough, but more presentation would be better:





Now, compare with those briefs that are do real fine presentation work:






Could you possibly not agree? It's all in the presentation, presentation, presentation.

A Working 'Ancient' Roman Pooferie

The two ancient Roman photographs I posted in 'C19 Gay Porn Photography and Painting' were so popular that I thought I'd put out the other two I had from the set.

The first is a tad 'politically incorrect' - read the caption. But I love Caligula's thick big black bush and right armpit! Sensous mouth and clef chin. And the way he erotically lolls back on the couch, spent, and boldly and challengingly stares out at the viewer:


And, in the other photo, I'm not so sure that the watching guys are not queuing for the guy bending over at the front:


Maybe they fork to the left or right when they get to him - and either suck or fuck.

They're very ready for it cos they've just had a bit of practice in front of the statue in the background. Second helpings! Maybe they swap roles - get to do what they didn't just do! I've heard Ancient Roman Pooferies encouraged this kind of versatility.

Yes? Any other ideas?

The Courage of 'Dear Friends' in Wartime

Old photographs of 'Dear Friends' in wartime can be really moving.

For me, this is particularly the case when the relationship is not made absolutely explicit:



It's the tension between the courage that makes the subjects want to go public, and the 'prudence' that has them do this somewhat covertly. Though it is 'read' or understood by any gay guys.

Some guys of course wanted to be less covert:



And others, in a moment of bravado perhaps, just burst out and completely:

Perhaps it's that some blokes just had that strength of personality that allowed them to be their gay real selves. And would have been out in any era. For lesser personalities, maybe it was the intensity of experience that goes with war that gave them the courage to be out.

Whatever, I am fascinated with this particular coming-out-in-war phenomenon.

Fascinated and inspired.

Black and White Butts

Butts absolutely must have THE most beautiful sculptural qualities, so enhanced in black and white:





In my next (imagined) life, I will have one of each of these beauties hanging in the cupboard - to cover each and every ocassion, and mood!

C19 Gay Porn Photography and Painting

I was looking at this C19 gay porn photograph and was unsure whether it actually was an old image:


It was so like lots of modern Belami stuff:


And I hadn't seen anything old on such a large scale before.

There is another (perhaps explanatory) layer of complexity. The image could be a composite of a number of smaller photographs. This was not uncommon last century with large scale works. Certainly, each group seems a self-contained composition, not needing anything else to be harmonious. This is confirmed by the groups not interacting in any way with each other - but maybe the members of each are just focussed on what they are doing to each other - lost in the moment!

Another thing I noticed was that the lighting varies throughout the work. For example, it is stronger or more intense in the central bottom group than that in the two groups (upper and lower) on the extreme left.

And finally, genuine old photos are often posed with the guys looking as though they are about about to engage in the action - but not doing undertaking it. Frozen in expectation - but eternally unrealized! Here, dicks go down throats, cocks up arses, tea-bagging is under-taken (scrotum sucking, for those who don't watch 'Sex and the City') and so on. Yum yum.


Then I began to think about the often strong influence of painting an sculpture on early photography, particularly with reference to this C19 photo.

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) at times used traditional religious subjects and renaissance pictorial structure. For example, the subject Madonna and Child and the triangular composition are deployed in her work 'Divine Love' (1865):


Compare with Raphael's (1483-1520) 'Madonna and Child' (1502):


And in the gay context, Baron Wilhelm von Glodden (1856-1931) loved to make his homoerotic photography more acceptable by casting it in classical terms:



The guy mooning us orientally from the couch in the second photo owes something to Ingre's 'Grand-Odalisque' (1814):


Sadly our guy looks away where Big Od boldly stares us down.


Getting back to the large C19 photo, it is in a long compositional tradition of naked intertwined male figures with a homoerotic flavour. From Michaelangelo's (1475-1564) 'Battle of the Centaurs' (1492):


To Antonio del POLLAIUOLO's (1429/33-98) 'Battle of the Ten Naked Men' (1465-70):


Curiously, artists (for reasons not worth exploring here) do reference the things I've been yakking on about - as in the two images below, where the poofs are getting it on in a classical (if only digital) context:



Very nice hard-ons, guys!

The guy on the left seems particularly pleased with his!