“The erotic photograph... takes the spectator outside the frame, and it is there that I animate this photograph and it animates me”
-Carol Mavor, Becoming (1999)

Introduction

When I have thought of the masculine, it is never in the way of being displaced or in the background, in contrast to the feminine who has been the perceived submissive for the greater part of history (Garcia, 2023). Masculinity is simply always in the foreground, easily understood and infamously steady in its strong appearance and assertive nature. A critical thought that is at the core of my own practice is the disregarded masculine’s place within the reimagined erotic. This is an important distancing from the recognized erotic which is defined as, “of, devoted to, or tending to arouse sexual love or desire” (Webster, Erotic 1959). Thesexualised meaning of the word is then contrasted by American feminist poet Audre Lorde stating, ‘the erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply feminine and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling... I speak of [the erotic] as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives’ (Lorde, 1978) which is furthered with a distancing from the pornographic (recognising this as the masculine to her erotic), defined as “the depiction of erotic behaviour (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement” (Webster, Pornographic, 1959), stating that it represses the ‘true’ erotic as it describes the desensitizing of emotion (Lorde, 1978). Although I understand this iteration of the definition to lend a hand to the empowerment of the feminine and hold this very close to my own understandings and intimacy with femininity, it is difficult for me to separate myself from the masculinity that is explicitly left out from this text via the segregation of the not only the sexes but also the genders (including non-binary people). Lorde negates the possibility of the masculine co-existing on this ‘plane’ simply by not explicitly specifying. I find that both, masculine and feminine, are intertwined in most sects of life. Whether it comes from the place of being the only sister to brothers and only daughter to a father or succeeding adult life experience, I’m tied to the most beautiful experiences being threaded with the masculine as an erotic entity as described by Lorde. However, the masculine notion of reimagined eroticism does not feel feminine at all. It feels the opposite. It feels intrinsically masculine, vastly different from the feminine in its appearance but every bit as beautiful in its nature. My secondary questions, which are posed to The Uses of the Erotic, are why hasn’t Lorde’s erotic be extended to genderless descriptions? Why can’t the masculine exist within the reimagined erotic and maintain their masculinity?

The similarities between the masculine and the feminine within this eroticism can be shown in the familial sphere within photographic art works. When I think of the core of the erotic, I think of the beginnings of a life. Everything can be traced back to the family structure and how those intimate connections feed interactions through childhood and adulthood. Photographing these forms of connection are integral to my basis of Lorde’s erotic, where I derive my power as a woman and as a photographer. It can be as simple as photographing your own child, a trait shared between Sally Mann, Clementina Hawarden, and Alain Laboile, or photographing intimate relationships around you, such as the work of Alice Holland (Fig. 1) and Maxime Cardol (Fig. 2) titling their respective series ‘Brothers’ (Holland) and ‘Sister’ (Cardol), simplifying their works to the titles that are held in intimate relationships. What I find interesting about pairing these images together is the contrast that is held between the masculine and feminine subjects to the way that is described otherwise in the reimagined erotic. Holland’s feels far more intimate and akin to the values of Lorde’s erotic (whereafter referred to as simply ‘the erotic’)- the boys clinging to and clutching each other creates this sphere of isolation with the blue of the sky enclosing them. Comparatively, Cardol’s work takes a simpler approach to animate the sisters’ familial eroticism by showing the inescapable mirroring of each other. I wonder how these images would differ if it was then a father/son relationship shown or a mother/daughter relationship, and how the differences and similarities between the sibling relationships within the photographs (Figures 1 & 2) would translate in contrast to that of the parent/child observation. I believe this is all down to the structure that we place ourselves in within society, community and the family.

The structure that holds the masculine back is approached from a political standpoint in Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves, stating, “The Left tells men, “Be more like your sister.” The Right says, “Be more like your father.” Neither invocation is helpful. What is needed is a positive vision of masculinity that is compatible with gender equality” (Reeves, 2022). This is then mirrored in sentiment within the Lorde text; rather than structuring the text to include this ‘enlightened’ masculine, as stated previously, it negates the possibility of the existence of this masculinity by not including it explicitly. Within this text I endeavour to envision the masculine not from the perspective of the political Left or Right, nor do I wish to connect the masculine to femininity as an ideal to strive for. Rather I choose to explore the following questions in two subsequent sections: how does the masculine shape, change and redistribute the meanings within an erotic photo? How does the father/son photographic relationship differ to that of the mother/daughter, and, if applicable, how has one or the other been villainised? Finally, how do the aforementioned questions bleed into my practice, and thus change or redistribute my own realities within the realm of the reimagined erotic? Through the writings of Audre Lorde and Carol Mavor, and the photographic works of Sally Mann and Edward Weston, the erotic will be explained and expanded to answer these questions to fit modern needs of the word and the power that it holds.

Part I: The Masculine Plight

Although the masculine has been historically at the top, hence ‘the patriarchy’, recent findings have led me to believe that modern men are digressing on the societal ‘food chain’. This could be something that would only resonate with lower class and minority-experienced men but, with reference to the erotic, is something that is not secular to race or class. Young boys and men are being brought up by men and women that are furthering a toxic trait in young boys that is carrying through to contemporary manhood (Perry, 2016). I make the distinction that it is not just a man’s problem anymore because of my belief that men have never been the sole representative of this issue.

This is all to say that this is not an issue that women can shy away from, any movement towards a fluid familial structure must come from both parents, of which relationships weigh equally on the child. When it comes to young men, they often face relationships with fathers that have been raised to be the breadwinner. This results in generations of men that have been raised with partially absent fathers, rarely seeing the child long enough to have an impression that is as impactful of that of the mother. It can be difficult to have that fluid familial structure in any sort of ‘Nuclear Family’ example. The cause of this seems simple: the relationship that is shared between the mother and daughter / mother and son, women teach boys what they understand of the man (ramifications of the patriarchy) while they teach girls what they know of womanhood (first-hand experience). The disconnect between what masculinity is and means varies drastically between the account the mother and father would give (Reeves, 2022). This can be detrimental, the difference between an understanding to the first-hand account of what the structure entails is massive when it comes to having a full understanding of who you are and your place within society as a child. I understand this to be a direct link to the disconnect of masculinity to the erotic by the standards of having an example of what your sex (and gender, if one is applicable to the other for individuals) can understand within themselves. There is a direct link here between masculinity and Lorde’s erotic with unexpressed or unrecognised feeling’. I think it would be unfair to say that the modern man has a higher amount of expressed or recognized feelings in comparison to women. These men have been taught by other men and women to not express these issues because of their sex, where young girls have been taught to embrace emotion in a fuller capacity thereby contemporary women have had the upper hand in emotional expression (Perry, 2016). I would like to think that Lorde’s words are timeless, that they can shape to which group needs them during the period in which they are read. It seems that masculinity is now on the brink of disaster and words that empower that loss and recovery of feeling is essential to the rebirth of the masculine which would necessitate a societal upheaval.

1.1 Masculine Heartache

The thread of a masculine rebirth is apparent in current photographic works, such as this untitled image (Fig. 3) from the series Tryouts by Ryan James Caruthers. The series depicts self-portraits of the artist discussing his apparent displacement within his New Jersey hometown’s masculine trope. The artist’s gaunt physique, caused by a condition that affects the growth pattern of one’s sternum and ribs (Pectus Excavatum), was a defining characteristic with not being able to participate in the usual teen boy activities (Mohammed, 2016). The image itself holds the idea of repression, from the clench of the subject’s fist around the racket to the confinement of the corner. Visualising the emotion that went unexpressed for a period is essential to the photographic erotic. Although the link between masculinity and eroticism wasn’t set intentionally by the artist, it is important to note this underlying perspective as it becomes clearer that the masculine erotic is present in contemporary photography. The erotic photograph’s definition is altered withmasculine expression by equivocating feminine struggle with masculine struggle. That is not to say that everyone struggles in the same way, more so to illustrate the idea that the effects that mistreatment have on any person takes a shape in later life and then effects the form of expression that emotion takes. The expression of this exclusion illustrates the steps necessary to de-gender Lorde’s reference of the ‘feminine plane’. The unexpressed and unrecognized feelings that are apparent in Caruthers’ work (Fig. 3) is a testament to the mirroring of the sexes within the erotic whilst also demonstrating the intrinsic differences that would make the theory of the erotic span between the masculine and the feminine. The recognition of the differences between them is important with the way that communities interact with the erotic themselves. We can no longer call the plane that Lorde refers to as ‘feminine’ because that implies that masculinity is not in need of that plane being tailored to a masculine ideal, and that it is not malleable to fit socio-relative needs in the way that the redefinition came from a feminine societal need.

These unexpressed feelings often first show themselves in correlation to the father. This absent figure, as stated previously, is one of the most disconcerting parts of boyhood. Another aspect of this relationship, that is present within themother/daughter relationship as well, is the wish to please the father. Aspiring to be like the parent is often visible in young children when their humanity is not yet comprehended (Reeves, 2022). Boys tend to take this particularly hard as they see the father as the ‘saviour’ of the family and strive for that. Of course, this can be seen from the opposite perspective, where the father’s image is tainted by his actions.

1.2 Vicariously Living for the Father

Masahisa Fukase is a Japanese photographer that followed in the footsteps of his father and his grandfather, taking control of the family photography business and furthering its reach (Dickerman, 2020). In this way, Fukase saw the benefits of his father’s practice and felt compelled to follow in his footsteps. This connects to the idea of the ‘saviour’ father with the artist reliving his father’s life in this way. In Figures 4 and 5, Fukase visualizes this relationship with a father (Sukezo)/son (Masahisa) portrait. While in Figure 4 the pair are in the same stance, Figure 5 shows Sukezo sitting in front of Masahisa, equally symbolizing the bond shared between the photographers and the future of Masahisa. Dubbing the inexplicable way that we are all condemned to the same fate (life/death) of our parents, thus a connection to the way children are vessels to continue a path that the elder could not complete. This is applicable to the erotic in the vein of creating the child to encapsulate the parent, carrying themselves through time as a ghost after death (Mavor, 1999). This sentiment is carried through in Figure 6, Fukase eternalises his father within an image looking to the viewer from a photograph surrounded by those who carry, the now deceased, Sukezo through their lives. “Even though Sukezo himself is deceased, he has been brought back to life by that instrument of death, the camera. Now he is being photographed again—allowing him to stare out at the viewer, even though he exists only within a photograph—death cancelling out death” (Kosuga, 2020). I find this to be essential to the erotic in the way that this love fuels a passion for Fukase, perhaps even an anger. Love and passion are at the core of the erotic as unreleased emotions creating tensions within and are also central to the themes in Carol Mavor’s Becoming where she outlines the love a mother has for her daughter (further discussed in Part II). Viewing the father/son love looks very different to the feminine equivalent (Figure 10) but is just as passionate. The viewing of the parent/child connection from the younger perspective is beautifully displayed in Fukase’s work with his collection of family members within the photographs (Fig. 6 & Fig, 7).

In his series Family, images of generations of his family take shape in an untraditional way. From seeing the image’s subjects mirroring each other in Figure 4, similarly to Maxime Cardol’s image of the twin sisters, and viewing Masahisa not only as an extension of his father but also a younger Sukezo to Figure 6 where we view the entire family, acquainting the viewer with certain people in the image. An aged Sukezo sits in his place within the image, making him a main subject. Contrasting his age with the youth of the nude girl on the left is almost teasingly done by the younger Fukase, however this is slightly dampened with the addition of the portrait of the young daughter who is memorialised in the same way Sukezo is in Figure 7. The familial unit is incredibly important to the way that I view the erotic, the community that family holds is a child’s first experience with others. Everyone carries the burden and the blessing of family with them through their entire lives and Fukase’s family simultaneously reminds us of that, while expressing the humour of those interactions. This ‘erotica’ embraces the beauty of these relationships with the joy and pain that come with them, and that brings the power that is needed to hold the erotic.

Part II: The Familial Erotic

As stated in relation to Masahisa Fukase’s images, the familial bond is a cyclical theme to the erotic and how it shapes the way that children turn into adults. Differently to Fukase’s works, Mavor’s subject, Clementina Hawarden, focuses from the opposite perspective- the lens of the parent. The parental shaping can take effectin images that hold a teasing irony with children, such as viewing a child as a ‘mini- adult’- an iteration of the parent. This creation of the child becoming the parent, at the hand of the parent, is the central idea in Mavor’s text. An important ideal to carry through this section is, the mother becoming the child, becoming the mother. The idea of the duplication of yourself within your child. I would like to explore this from the other perspective as well, viewing from the lens of the father. Breaking down

where I’ve explored these contexts will be the main avenue that I take to express the ideas of masculine familial eroticism.

In Matrix’s Making Space: Women in Man Made Spaces, an explanation of the structures that have physically been built for and against women furthers ideas on the pre- and post-feminist world. An account of how certain ‘beneficial’ structures actually have the opposite effect is stated, “the mechanistic arrangement of the physical space, with for instance a bulge made in the pavement for two mothers with prams to stop and talk, or the seating arrangement proposed... to ‘encourage or inhibit conversation’ make spatial and architectural metaphors of social interaction which ignore the actual realities for women. No woman engages unthinkingly in conversation in idle conversation with an unknown man just because he sits on a facing bench rather than alongside” (Matrix, 2022). I reference this piece of text to touch on the idea that there is an obvious separation between the sexes and that is something that I would like to eliminate in relation to the erotic. Although the manifestations of the erotic are different, the idea of furthering the separation between the two is moot in our modern communities. However, thinking of the physical structures that have separated the masculine and feminine is an interesting note to envision the erotic as a space to reconnect them in a non-physical way. This unbodied connection is the reaching of Lorde’s plane where the differences are recognized yet immaterial.

To reiterate, the idea of the familial erotic was first introduced to me by Mavor in her book analysing the photographs of Clementina Hawarden, Becoming (1999). This will be the basis of the discussion in this section which will explore the previously asked question of: how does the father/son photographic relationship differ to that of the mother/daughter, and, if applicable, how has one or the other

been villainised? The separation and joining of the two (mother/father) expressions will be delved into via three sections that will look at the expressions individually, and then reconnecting the parental viewpoints to the expand reimagined eroticism. Whilst expanding the erotic, a comparison of the societal reaction to the respective artists’ images will be included in the final section.

2.1 A Maternal Complex

“The female body infinitely reproduces itself, like a photograph” (Mavor, 1999). To explain the full context of where the thought processes surrounding the emergence of viewing photographs showing, questioning, and explaining masculinity under the parameters of the erotic, I thought it would be most pertinent to discuss the feminine interpretations of the familial erotic. In the introduction of Becoming, Mavor discusses the similarities between the images of Hawarden (Fig. 8) and Sally Mann (Fig. 9). “Both Hawarden and Mann make us dream an uncomfortable past. Hawarden unsettles our cultural imagination of the past by revealing the maternal bourgeois Victorian woman’s homosocial world as, in fact, homoerotic. Mann troubles the past by using her images as wavery quotes of [Lewis] Carroll or Julia Margaret Cameron... Their pictures set us to dreaming, and not all dreams are comfortable” (Mavor, 1999). The idea of viewing the erotic as a dream-like state is interesting in relation to the homoerotic, defined as “of, relating to, or involving sexual activity between people of the same sex” (Webster, Homoerotic 1959). The homoerotic is here linked to homosexuality. However, looking at Mavor’s intended meaning through the lens of Lorde’s erotic, I would assume the text would be in reference to the power derived from a female community.

Looking at the text in reference to a Lorde-ivied homoerotic, Mann and Hawarden are pivotal to the visualisation of this idea. While Mavor takes a slightly more traditionally erotic route in the way she describes the contents of the images, the exploration of the relationship between the Hawarden girls captures the essence same-sex closeness: one daughter seemingly pouring out tears in the lap of her sister [Fig. 10]; a sister (dramatically, yet subtly) pulling on a tender lock of her sister’s hair” (Mavor, 1999). This emotional expression is thus shared between the two sisters, one sister’s empathy pouring out for the other. This directly connects to of Lorde’s erotic. “Hawarden’s photographs feature daughters in performances of the idea that erotic sexual satisfaction can be fulfilled in a non-sexual capacity (Lorde, 1978), which speaks to the love shared in Figure 10. Although this may seem like a strange perspective, I feel that Lorde’s words are speaking to the emotional aspect of sexual actions and the closeness that is felt in the respective relationship dynamics. This unmeasurable love stems from an area of shared experiences and, again, empathy for experiences that haven’t been shared. Connections of this nature are essential to the forming of one’s erotic life as the erotic still maintains the emphasis on interpersonal relationship importance (Lorde, 1978). Mann and Hawarden make this emphasis via the sibling relationship, but it also bleeds into any relationship that a particular comfort is found in (i.e., friendships, romantic relationships).

This is present in the mother/daughter relationship and progresses in an abnormal way. As stated, the sentiment of the mother becoming the child becoming the mother is very apparent in both the works of Mann and Hawarden. The two artists’ works manifest this in very different ways. Mann has had a great deal of mixed reviews following her work of Family Pictures, of which Figures 9 and 11 are part of, due to the tightening of child pornography laws which resulted in at least eight of Mann’s gallery works being censored or removed from the exhibition (Woodward, 1992). That being said, the images in the series are a mirroring of Mann’s own childhood, she has stated in many interviews that the decision to raise her kids in a rural setting with freedom to run around nude was because of her same upbringing (Cohen, 2018). I would like to note the presence of Mann’s son, Emmett, within the images which will be further discussed later in this section. These images represent the erotic, not because of the nudity (that connotation would make it child pornographic) but instead because of the freedom and associated closeness that is visible within the pictures. In Figure 12 we see Mann’s daughter, Jessie, dancing in front of her younger sister, Virginia, who is looking on (or perhaps past) her. This picture encapsulates the latter part of Lorde’s description of the erotic, this can be taken literally in the form of dancing. I also consider dance to be a form of history and language when looking at where these elements intersect within the photograph and questioning how Jessie would’ve defined the movements shown. How would she interpret her history within this photograph? What language is she speaking when she points her toes, expands her arms? How does the story Jessie is telling change within Figure 13? The bolder tone of the image lends a hand to the protection of childhood, despite the continuous questioning of Mann’s morality following these images (Woodward, 1992). The children themselves, particularly Virginia with her raised chest and open stance, are protecting themselves from scrutiny and taking pride in their nudity, bucolic land, and home. Mavor-bound, I wonder if innocence was ever lacking in these images that the public took to be insufficient in purity and obscene, or rather the ridicule was the result of a mixture of American prudism and historical obsession.

“The Victorians claimed that the child was sexless, thereby creating the child as extrasexually taboo, so much so that the child became sexually enhanced and omnipresent... Our cultural imagination has produced a fantasy of the child that pure, innocent, recognizable. Adolescence lacks such distinction; instead, it is smudged by sexuality, changing bodies and body fluids” (Mavor, 1999). Mavor’s descriptions highlight these key historical facets, that Mann then smudges when capturing the moments of innocence, adolescence, and their respective limbo.

Hawarden takes on the challenge of the adolescent via her daughters, Isabella Grace and Clementina Maude. Despite having ten daughters, her favourite subjects were the aforementioned, but particularly her eldest and namesake Clementina. Given the artist’s status and gender during the mid-19th century, Hawarden’s lens was confined to the home and its grounds, creating thousands of images of her family with key characteristics (‘Lady Clementina Hawarden – an introduction’ (no date)). “Hawarden liked to use natural light in her studio at her South Kensington home, in a way that was seen at the time as 'daring'. She placed mirrors to reflect light and used them to explore the idea of 'the double', just as other photographers (and occasionally Hawarden herself) used a stereoscopic camera to produce twin prints” (‘Lady Clementina Hawarden – an introduction’ (no date)). The mirror mentioned is used in numerous images by Hawarden, not only to visualise the double but also to tease the viewer with a ghost of the artist herself. This ghost or ‘double’ can come in the form of viewing the Viscountess through Lady Clementina, thus reimagining her motherhood through her daughter (Fig.14). I imagine this ideal of the ghost, of the double, within myself as a mirror for my own mother. In Figure 16, I utilised multiple exposures as well as the physical appearance of (as well as the camera’s) mirrors to visualise that ideal from the opposite perspective. This disappeared framing of the mirror creates a kind of void between the viewer and the subject, artist, and apparatus. This stand-off between the gaze and the capture is the essence of making Mavor’s uncomfortable dream a reality. Endlessly reproducing my mother in myself for my mother as a conduit.

Reimagining Hawarden herself through her daughter, acting somewhat as an antithetical lens to that of Masahisa Fukase. This rich adolescence Hawarden craves is envisioned in the young Clementina and photographing the bodily vessel that they both once inhabited is the link to the erotic. This reclamation of a traditionally masculine ideal (familial names) (Reeves, 2022) is taking back the sense of self that had been stripped before and throughout the Victorian era. The feminization of the erotic is relevant to Hawarden’s work, it was written for women before, during, and after this time, as the “perpetual adolescence” (Mavor, 1999) is born from unrecognized feelings that erupted during time, missed chances to be free, to dance. The artist creates a dance of sorts within her images (Fig. 17), herself skirting around the camera and frame. Posing and composing was a language that spoke louder than she could. Hawarden analyses her own history through her daughters, just as I analyse my mother’s history through my own body, through their synchronicities and through their asynchronies.

In Hawarden’s work, the nearly forgotten subject was her son, Cornwallis. Although there are photos of the Hawarden boy, it is clear when looking at the collection that he was not the wanted subject. Mavor writes this to be something of an adolescent judgement, “as if even the image of masculinity would undo the privacy of her pictures... Hawarden’s photographs represent seclusion, even exclusion” (Mavor, 1999). This exclusion of the artist’s son feels something like the experience of previously discussed Ryan James Caruthers (Fig. 3). In the same way that Caruthers was excluded from his surroundings, so was Cornwallis Hawarden. To contrast, Emmett Mann was included in his mother’s portraits and was not excluded from representation as an equal to his sisters. The viewing of the masculine within this context, as an erotic being, and just beside those who have already fit that criteria set for reimagined eroticism, outlines its existence as an erotic entity.

2.2 An Abandoned Father

Under the interpretation of the masculine as an erotic entity, an exploration of the familial masculine is essential for a full-bodied viewing to explain the opposite end of Mavor’s text. Looking at and analysing the images in the same manner that Mavor does will be a key component of this section. In Figure 18, Edward Weston captures an image of his son Neil, nude and posing for the camera. This simple act of capturing the boy’s youth is an ode to the longing of the artists childhood. Visualising the idea of being his own father via seeing himself through Neil. “Through such prolonging of the Oedipal period, the mother identifies with her mother once again, longs for her and her lost childhood, becomes mother and child, and makes her own child a fetishistic object in an attempt to satisfy her double loss” (Mavor, 1999) which is echoed in this of the father. However, this changes the way that we visualise the erotic with viewing Neil, rather than something to live through, as an artifact of the worriless man. “Weston captures his young son Neil in a pose that conveys both youthful ease and sculptural equilibrium. If the painterly approach and

poetic overtones evoke Weston’s earlier work, the simple but dramatic composition places it firmly within his later oeuvre” (‘Neil’, (no date)) of dramatic landscapes that popularised his work. This sense of the sculpture is then taken away in Figure 19, with a less composed Neil. I find the juxtaposing of the two images creates the space of the masculine erotic to breathe and find its own positioning of the necessary emotion. ‘Neil Sleeping’ (Fig. 19) doesn’t hold that emotion within the subject, instead the emotion comes from Weston. The father communicates the loving of the erotic with by wrapping Neil with the couch, holding him in the space that carries childhood: the dream state. Mirroring the feminized text with understanding that although Neil’s dreaming may seem serene, not all dreams are comfortable. Additionally, the idea of living for the father, as is apparent in Fukase’s work, works its way through the Weston family with another of the artist’s sons. “Cole Weston, Edward's youngest son, made prints from Edward's original negatives for approximately forty years. Each print was made according to Edward's specifications, created in the same format as his father's” (‘Cole Weston’, (no date)).

This love is a direct representation of Lorde’s text, despite these images appearing to be different and manifesting into a different visual outcome. Although Weston’s work cannot be linked to either Hawarden or Mann, Alain Laboile’s work feels like a visual response to Mann’s work. The playful nudity that is shown in his work (Fig. 20) seems like something that would’ve been taboo in a post- Mann photographic sphere. This body of work is the embodiment of the echoing of care and emotion that draws the photographic to the erotic. The echoing of the masculine and feminine in the erotic between the work of Mann and Laboile does answer one question, though. If Laboile’s work represents the familial erotic masculinity, and Mann represents the familial erotic femininity, the masculine would not have a direct effect on the emotion felt within the photograph. There are examples of this as a separate ideal, as explored with Caruthers, Fukase, and Weston, but the separation of the conceptual masculine and feminine is not apparent in Figures 12 (Mann) and 20 (Laboile). The seclusion, and perhaps exclusion, previously explained by Mavor is present in Figure 21. Laboile chooses not to shy away from the twists and turns of childhood, and later adolescence. Embracing these struggles also is indicative of a separation from the rigid family structures, and a transition into the needed fluid familial structure.

Conclusion

Throughout the course of this text I have explored, pondered and explained concepts surrounding the erotic as defined by Audre Lorde. With the help of Ryan James Caruthers, Masahisa Fukase, Clementina Hawarden, Sally Mann, Edward Weston and Alain Laboile, the erotic photograph has included the masculine. This masculine has been manifested in numerous different ways with Caruthers’ work regarding the tumultuous nature of being a teenage boy and Weston’s looking into the tender relationship between him and his son Neil.

Richard V. Reeves accounted the political standpoint of the spiralling masculine, yet what is needed is not an attitude of the sister, mother or father. The need is relinquished to the idea of expanding the concept of living in the masculine conceptual frame. However, this framing doesn’t mean that the photographic is bound to change. Laboile shows the viewer that the traditional idea of viewing the child through the lens of purity (Mavor, 1999) is not essential, just as Mann did. These images are so thickly coated in joy, anger, and sadness that it would be difficult to separate them from the child. The redistributed meanings within images are far more to do with the child as a concept, rather than the masculine or the feminine.

“The past has to tell us a story so compelling and so in accord with our desire that it seems to be a story told by no one and coming from nowhere” (Mavor, 1999), yet the erotic has everything to do with desire and nothing to do with the story. The erotic, masculine or feminine, falls into the heavy realties that are our lives. The past mindfully watches us and we watch it. Although the mother is watching the daughter as carefully as the past is watching us, the daughter is staring right back into the reflection of her own mirror to find the mother on her back. The father is being carried on the back of the son to see the future, another past and present ready to study each other.

In conclusion, we must push against the past and the future to find the present. This is where the erotic lives and cannot be found elsewhere. This reimagined eroticism is living with the feminine but is needed by the masculine to successfully embrace its own present. As fragile as the adolescent is, the masculine is, and the roots of its growth have been waiting. Feminism has carried us to this point but now we must think about the implications of how we are interacting with the masculine within our society, communities, families and relationships. “We need a prosocial masculinity for a postfeminist world” (Reeves, 2022).

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Figure 1, Alice Holland 'Brothers' (2020)

Figure 2, Maxime Cardol 'Untitled' (2020)

Figure 3, Ryan James Caruthers ‘Untitled’ (2016)

Figure 4, Pages from Fukase's book on the series entitled 'Family' (2019)

Figure 5, Masahisa Fukase 'Masahisa and Sukezo' (1985)

Figure 6, Masahisa Fukase 'Untitled' from the series 'Family' (1971-89)

Figure 7, Masahisa Fukase 'Untitled' from the series 'Family' (1971-89)

Figure 8, Lady Clementina Hawarden 'Clementina and Florence Elizabeth Maude' (1861)

Figure 9, Sally Mann 'Untitled' from Family Pictures (1984-1991)

Figure 10, Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden 'Untitled’ ca.1863- ca.1864

Figure 11, Sally Mann 'Goodnight Kiss' (1988)

Figures 12 & 13, Sally Mann, Images from 'Family Pictures' (1984-91)

Figure 14, Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden 'Untitled’ ca.1863-ca.1864

Figure 15, Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden 'Untitled’ ca.1863-ca.1864

Figure 16, Sample of my own work, 'The Length of the String' from Notes on Contemporary Eroticism

Figure 17, Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden 'Untitled’ ca.1863-ca.1864

Figure 18, Edward Weston 'Neil' (1923)

Figure 19, Edward Weston 'Neil Sleeping' (1925)

Figure 20, Alain Laboile 'Untitled' from La Famille (2004 - present)