After The Costume Party

In her stockings after the costume party. She went as a 1920s flapper. And to be historically accurate, she said, she didn't wear panties with her stockings. 

I didn't know if that was, in fact, historically accurate. But I wasn't going to contradict her. So I told her if we we going to be historically accurate, we should have anal sex, since in the 1920s they didn't have the pill, and doing it in the butt was a common form of birth control.

That is only partly true, but she was in too good a mood to argue details.

Nettie and Egon, A Century Apart, A Connection, An Homage

Here is one of the most lovely images of Nettie Harris, which says a lot, since dozens of the best photographers have shot her, and she's helped create probably hundreds of photos that will someday be seen as the masterpieces of this time.

It is, of course, the nature of Art History. So much of it is hindsight. Like seeing the work of Egon Schiele. He was a protégé of Gustav Klimt. His work, often self-portraits and women, noted for their twisted bodies. Some say he was a fore-runner of 20th Century Expressionism. Schiele began to explore not only the human form, but also human sexuality. At the time, many found the explicitness of his works disturbing.

Today, the sexuality of the work isn't shocking. Rather, we can see that he was just a pioneer of erotic art. 

It is exactly a century since Egon made his now classic erotic work. This portrait of Nettie, holding a book of his work, is a fitting tribute, that I am sure would thrill Egon. 

Nettie Harris by John Running

Seated Nude, with elbows propped, 1914

Green Stockings, 1914

Kneeling Girl, resting on both elbows, 1917

Seated Woman, with bent knee, 1917

An Ode To Hairy Female Armpits

One of the best articles to have been written on the subject, which seems to be getting more attention these days. Or, as the author points out, no wonder there is a "backlash" against the draconian shaving standards of today.

Here are a few excellent quotes:

"...whether armpit hair is lauded or loathed at any particular moment is just a matter of social mores, rather than anything deep-seated."

"...the hairless trend is a very recent phenomenon, a cultural construction that’s more about peer pressure than considered decision-making."

I believe the original article is here. But here is the article in full, for your reading pleasure:

AN ODE TO FEMALE ARMPITS

by Martin Robinson

I am not a pervert or a hippy or a serial killer, but I recently discovered that I find women’s armpit hair sexy.

Here’s what happened: over Christmas, my girlfriend and I took the opportunity to slob it up. Barely left the house, rarely changed clothes, drank anything displaying surface tension. One morning, my other half lifted up her arm, and said, with a filmy glint in her eye, “Check this out.” There it was: a smooth dark rug.

She did it to deliberately repulse me, just as I will sometimes show her the odd testicle while she is eating. Yet – hah! – it didn’t repulse. No sir. It may have been the way she was so cocky about it, but I dug it. “I dig it,” I said, unsure why I was slipping into beatnik speak, possibly because her armpit resembled Bob Dylan.

I felt compelled to touch her pit-fro, and tentatively did so. It didn’t bite me. It was velvety and not at all unpleasant. Disregarding what could have been seen as a feminist triumph, my girlfriend called me a pervert, and further access was denied. But the incident made me think.

Is armpit hair on women really so bad? I’d never truly encountered it before, and just assumed I’d be appalled. Having discovered it’s actually all right, you have to ask why it’s such a taboo. In 2012, a Swedish woman accidentally revealed a hairy armpit on live TV, and a screen-grab of it went viral on social media under the general theme ‘Laugh at the freak’. Why do we see it as so disgusting? Why have girls I’ve spoken to suggested they’d rather sport a swastika tattoo under their arms than a bush? Why has ShortList’s art editor been gagging as he’s been laying out this very feature? Why should we even care?

Well, from Armpits4August (‘Movember for chicks‘) to Cameron Diaz’s body hair-promoting book, the ultimate female taboo is cracking and hairy pits are coming your way…

HAIRY HISTORY

So what’s wrong with women’s axillary hair, to give it its medical term? Some religions reject body hair on both men and women altogether, but for Western secular types, the problem is less clear. Is it unhygienic? No, in fact it helps prevent bacteria breeding on the skin. OK, removal lessons the risk of pubic lice, but who’s still sleeping with 17th-century prostitutes anyway?

Is it simply so bloody ugly it’s just a basic human urge to hack the stuff off? Well, no, many areas in the world don’t mind it; South-east Asia, China, Latin countries, Grimsby…

Is it an accepted standard of beauty from the dawn of time? No, it’s gone in and out of favour throughout history. Total hairlessness was prevalent in Ancient Rome and the Renaissance and reflected in public art from those times, but that worked the other way too: female body hair was a private sight, a forbidden secret. And therefore pretty goddamn sexy. Michelangelo couldn’t put hair on the nudes in the Sistine Chapel as they tend to frown upon masturbating in church. When Goya broke the rules with his proudly pubic ‘Nude Maja’ in 1800, the Spanish Inquisition locked it away for being obscene (ie too friggin’ hot, señor).

OK, so is armpit hair off-putting in a primal way, given the fact that hairiness is more associated with men? Well, you’d think it would be in our primal instincts to be actively attracted to female armpit hair, since it signifies sexual maturity.

“Hair would suggest that our mating would be profitable,” says evolutionary science writer Professor Jesse Bering. “So why would something that signals sexual maturity actually be seen today as unattractive? Well, we do have an attraction to youth, so a combination of other sexual characteristics, like obviously developed breasts, coinciding with hairless armpits, might create the overall impression of youth, but relative youth that’s not indicative of reproductive immaturity entirely.”

OK, so a desire for youthfulness may overwhelm a desire towards armpits, but that doesn’t explain the deep modern repulsion for them. Bering says their biological role is just not significant enough anymore to withstand fashion. “Armpit hair would serve as a primitive odour trap which would help to perpetuate the wafting of pheromones. But the role of pheromones in human sexual behaviour is small, or at least unknown, so it’s maybe not enough of a biological force to have any cultural effect. Culture can prevail.”

There you have it. It’s an evolutionary leftover, so whether armpit hair is lauded or loathed at any particular moment is just a matter of social mores, rather than anything deep-seated.

Taboo-busting comedian Lenny Bruce put it perfectly during a bit on female armpit hair at his Carnegie Hall concert in 1961: “Why is it in bad taste? Is it from a theological point of view? Is it blasphemous? No. Is it hygiene? No, it doesn’t relate to hygiene at all, if it related to hygiene then you’d have to be consistent and shave the eyebrows, the head, the schmushka, the whole bit. So it does not relate to hygiene at all. What does it relate to? Style, that’s all. It only relates to fashion…”

Bruce was anticipating the late-Sixties hippies here, and indeed female armpit hair was perfectly acceptable into the Seventies. Mark Tungate, Paris-based author of Branded Beauty: How Marketing Changed The Way We Look, says, “I remember when I first came to Paris in 1979 as a schoolboy.

There were a lot of dark-haired French girls on the Metro in sleeveless dresses. Some of them had hairy armpits, which provoked pangs of pre-pubescent lust. It’s not difficult to work out why – it was like seeing pubic hair on public display. But this was the tail-end of the Seventies, when feminists displayed body hair as a protest against male oppression and the ‘norms’ of beauty.

“Actually women have been shaving for centuries,” continues Tungate. “For aesthetic and hygienic reasons. However, it will come as no surprise to learn that in the Western world, mass shaving of armpits by women was provoked by the beauty industry. Short-sleeved dresses became fashionable around 1915, which is when Gillette created its first razor for women – the Milady Décolleté – and ran a massive ad campaign to support it. The beauty industry has been encouraging hair removal ever since.” In this case, all it would take is for Kate Moss to weave daisies through her armpit hair at Glastonbury and within days every woman would have permed pits.



GROWING SUPPORT

A 2005 study of UK women showed 90 per cent removed hair from their underarms and legs, and 80 per cent from their pubic areas. A recent university study in Australia showed 76 per cent of young women undergraduates were shaving off everything. There are reports of young men growing up unaware that women are even capable of growing body hair.

It’s getting absurd, so no wonder a backlash is underway.

Armpits4August is a charity event drawing attention to polycystic ovary syndrome, a symptom of which is hirsutism. They say, “We believe the shame people feel about body hair is a consequence of a society [with] narrow beauty standards … there is no ‘normal’ pattern of body hair for men or women.”

Then there’s Cameron Diaz, who recently put her body hair in the public forum, declaring in her new Body Book that “pubes keep the goods private” and are “pretty draping”. Well, she’s Cameron Diaz, she could have Brian Blessed’s entire head down there and it’d still be sexy, but she makes valid points that the hairless trend is a very recent phenomenon, a cultural construction that’s more about peer pressure than considered decision-making. Naked vaginas are the Emperor’s New Clothes.

You can also blame porn. In that world, you shave off hair to reveal more to the camera, but porn is so all-pervasive today, its style has gone mainstream. A new generation are following its aesthetic standards. This also explains the return of the mullet. Some experts, like Professor Gordon Gallup from the University Of New York, have said this shaved ideal suggests latent paedophilia. That seems a stretch. I believe it’s just a fad being followed, and one we should question. Is it really that sexy? Doesn’t an overly-groomed woman seem a bit professional, a bit uptight. Surely sexiness is a lack of self-consciousness, about not giving a sh*t what anyone thinks?

A chemical-scrubbed and cut-back mound may look like an invitation to porn heaven, but the amount

of prep required hardly suggests wild abandon. The famously banned author Henry Miller – often unfairly branded a misogynist just because he slept with anything that blinked – wrote something that stuck in my mind: “I want a woman who sh*ts.”

Nice. But his point was he wanted honesty, not pampered people pretending the mucky realities of being a human being don’t exist. We may all soon be sporting Google Glass, but we’ll still have to nudge it to one side to pick our noses.

If we can see that hairlessness is mere fashion, not a deep-rooted taboo, then it can be changed. If you’ll agree with me that this porn ideal is a bit weird and, if it continues, sex will resemble two manatees wrestling, then it may be liberating to try something different.


PRAISE THE PITS

I’m not saying you should force your missus into growing some – it’s her choice, yeah – but if this backlash is happening, then men should support it. After all, how long before we’re shaving our armpits, too? Male hairlessness is no longer restricted to gay culture – everybody is hacking back now, and it’s only a matter of time before it all goes. And then we’ll be spending 20 per cent of our days shaving and the remaining 80 per cent itching.

No, let’s not run away from our animal sides. Encourage your partners, and let’s get some growth out there. I look forward to a time when a man and a woman can take off their clothes and not be nude. Free to fall into a hairy embrace and be stuck together forever in a Velcroish predicament.

That’s my vision. Who’s with me?

Certainly not my girlfriend:

“You can stop writing that piece, I’ve shaved them. It was disgusting.”

Cheers.

Diane Arbus

When this photo was taken, she was just 21. At the age of 18, she had married her sweetheart, Allan. She had been married for three years. World War II had been going on for three years, too. 

Her husband was a photographer, and was in the Signal Corps. Before that, he had taken photos for the department store owned by Diane's father. After the war, Allan and Diane would launch their photography business.

Diane worked as the Art Director and Allan as the photographer. They contributed to Glamour, Seventeen, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and other magazines even though they both "hated the fashion world."

After the war, Diane and Allan had two daughters, but then they sperated and eventually divorced. As a photographer, Diane would eventually become noted for black-and-white snapshots of dwarfs, giants, transgender people,nudists, circus performers or of "people whose normality seems ugly or surreal."

At age 48, having suffered from bouts of depression, Diane committed suicide. She is now considered one of the most significant photographers of her time.

But before all of that, she was 21. Nude, posing for her childhood sweetheart.

Photographer Diane Arbus by her husband, photographer Allan Arbus, 1944.

Nude Selfie, the OG

"My first nude photography was a self-portrait in the woods, 1906, on the University of Washington campus. I set it up and jumped into it, and that was it."

--Imogen Cunningham

Imogen was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1883. When she was 18, she bought her first camera, a 4x5. But the story goes that she lost interest and sold it to a friend. When she was 23, she'd moved up to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. There she rekindled her joy of photography and took her first nude, serving as both photographer and model. 

The Harvest, The Bare Breast, And Art History

Here is a really interesting series by Ukrainian photographer David Dubnitskiy. In this series, he depicts models in a moment of old-fashioned agrarian work: picking grapes, laundering clothes in a creek, and harvesting wheat. There is nothing modern within the frame. Although created in the 21st Century, they seem to deliberately evoke a pre-Modern, pre-Industrial time.

Although each image is carefully posed and composed, they still feel somewhat spontaneous, even voyeuristic, as if the young women are so focused on the toil of their chores, that they don't notice, or care, that their breasts are bared. In this sense, there's a simple physicality to the work. Anyone who has labored on a farm knows this; when you use your body to work in nature, there is little energy for modesty. Blisters reorient the brain's priorities, and the safe-garding of the body seems like the prissy privilege of the urban upper-class. 

In a similar vein, women workers of the field, or indigenous tribes in Africa, South America, and the Pacific Islands regularly worked topless. They had no idea they were being "uncivilized"until European missionaries took it upon themselves to point it out. 

But speaking of Europeans, in Art History, there's the tradition of the heroic "woman of the nation." Think of the French paintings like "Liberty Leading the People"(1830) of the woman of Liberty holding up the French Tri-colors in the midst of a raging battle field. She has one breast bared. This symbol of woman of strength and patriotism seems to work in these images by Dubnitskiy. The young women are healthy, hard-working, and the very salt of the "Mother Country." On this level, the images feel not only patriotic, but almost propagandict. It's the same concept the Nazis and Early Soviets used; the message was, "our future is in the pure strength of our past," and symbols used became the idealize young, healthy men and women of an idealized past. The symbol of the USSR was, after all, a hammer and a sickle--just like the sickle held in the right hand of Dubnitskiy's wheat harvester.

On the broadest level, these women at work in the field relate to the ripeness of agriculture--especially in the images of the plump grapes, the golden wheat--wine and bread--the very essence of Western Civilization. But even broader than that, the combination of the harvest and the naked female breast dates back to our earliest human memory. The oldest nude in civilization, after all, is the Fertility Goddess.  In this regard, the women themselves in these photographs, and particularly their ripe breasts, become symbolic of the fecundity of land, the very Earth itself. 

But regardless of how these images are interpreted and laden with symbolism and interpretation, they also act purely on an aesthetic level: they are beautiful. 

Project Bush

Here's an interesting idea hatched by a creative agency in London called "Project Bush." Last fall, they announced an open call for ladies in London to come to their studio to have their lady parts photographed by famous fashion photographer Alisa Connan.

"For many women, it’s about choice," said the agency, Mother London. "Waxing culture has become so mainstream that some young women don’t see it as a choice. So Project Bush is about questioning the status quo, as a means to discuss the state of feminism in 2013."
The news of Project Bush spread quickly and more women queued up than the allotted time slots availible. The results, some 93 women dropped their drawers to reveal what style of pubic hair they were sporting at the time.

One of the things that I like about this project, is that unlike anonymous online surveys, the results speak for themselves. A challenge in online polls is that there is no way to verify who is filling them out. Its just as easy for a man to submit as a woman, and the end results could be less about what women are doing to their pubes, and more about what some men who fill out anonymous online polls pretending to be women feel about a woman's pubic hair. So, proof positive, 100% of the participants in Project Bush were women.

The other advantage is that the results are visual. Sometimes it's not totally clear what is "trimmed" and what is "bush." A woman might self report that she shaves, because she keeps a tidy bikini line, while another person might consider her triangle of curls a bush. Or, a woman that crops her hair to just a stubble might consider herself "trimmed" while others might see that as more of a "shaved" look because the skin and particularly the vulva are plainly visible. At least in this portfolio, its up to the viewer to make those distinctions.

The surprising thing is the diversity. Flipping through the pages of Playboy, one would conclude that 99% of woman today are waxed completely bare. Reading the sometimes hateful and distasteful comments online about pubic hair being "gross," "disgusting" and "out of fashion since the 70s." There are a surprising abundance of natural curls. In fact, nearly 1 in 4 of the woman have a thick triangle of hair down there.

There are some surveys of questionable sample sizes and populations that would lead people to believe that all women look the same or are trying to look the same in their grooming habits. What I find so refreshing in this project is the diversity.

It's very clear that by looking at this cross-section of Londoners, each woman has her own style. Pretty much every variation from bare to bush is represented, and in more or less equal measure. And that, more than anything, is a beautiful thing.

Tribute to L'Origine du Monde

Dear Readers may recall one of my favorite articles thaI wrote on the classic French painting L'Origine du Monde.

Gustave Courbet's 1866 work is arguably one of the most popular and pornographic paintings in Art History. As I researched and wrote about, It has a long and fascinating history of ownership, starting with a Turkish diplomat, crossing Europe, and finally returning to Paris, where it is enjoyed by millions of visitors to the Mussee d'Orsay.

Art inspires art, and here the lovely Lucasta takes a self-portrait in tribute to the original masterpiece.

Woman looks at the original painting at Musse d'Orsay

Tribute to L'Origine du monde by Lucasta

Lauren Bacall's Screen Test

Here are two amazing images: the first real--the hair and make up tests for "To Have and Have Not"; and the second, a clever internet fake of a nude Lauren Bacall.

As readers of this blog know, I've written about Bacall, the most sultry starlet. So you know that Lauren, first Betty, made her huge Hollywood debut at age 24 in "To Have and Have Not" alongside the great Humphrey Bogart, and that the two fell in love, and eventually married, and went on to star in four more films together before his death.

It's a well known fact that young, beautiful aspiring starlets were subjected to Hollywood's infamous "casting couch." Studio executives and casting agents had an almost unfathomable level of unchecked power in those days...

In these two images, it's not hard to imagine that these could be the "test" of young Betty, posing for hair, make up, and then the request for a shot "out of wardrobe," to show her figure. "You do want to be in pictures, right doll?"

It is a sexist, offensive, and almost terrifying thought. I'm ashamed to even think about it. But isn't that the most powerful fuel of fantasy?

Ski Game

During the Great Depression, people didn't have a lot of money, but did have time. A health movement originating in Europe, mostly Germany, came to the US. Skiing was one sport that came from Europe, and began to gain popularity among a young generation. 

The nudist movement had its roots in this larger health and sports recreation movement. The advocates claimed that the human body was beautiful and natural and, matched with healthy outdoor activity, a wonderful thing. 

As such, it's not hard to imagine a group of young adults taking skis up to the mountain, and hiking up the slope, taking off their clothes, and inventing fun games to fill the afternoon.

The Original Hardcore Porn: Hindi DP

Some people think of porn as something started by the internet. Or that contemporary porn has led people from the plain old man and woman missionary sex of the "old days" and created new modern positions, fetishes, and practices. But the truth is, whatever two (or more) humans can do together sexually has already been done. Again and again, stretching back every generation of our recorded history...

To appreciate the erotic arts of India, one must understand the role of sex in the scheme of things according to Hinduism. The pursuit of pleasure (kama) is one of the important aims of life, on the path to deliverance.

Life Drawing Class, 1961

There is so much to love about this image. Just as a composition and moment of captured life, it's a master work. But that's not surprising. It was made by Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, who is best remembered for his iconic image of V-Day at the end of WWII. He photographed the famous, like Ernest Hemingway, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, and before is death in 1995, the first family Clintons. This image is from Life magazine. But as interesting as the photographer's fame and talent, what I love is the model. 

I love how beautiful she is, of course. So pretty, but in a natural way. With a slender, but not skinny, figure, round hips, petit breasts, and her hair back in a simple bun, like a ballerina. She looks so very much like the Girl Next Door. The "All American" girl. And maybe she was. She looks to be college-age. And this image is taken at a college. Maybe she was a student here, at University of Iowa. The Heartland. 

Today, it would take guts to be a student in Iowa, and volunteer to pose nude before an art class. But what makes this photo even more powerful is the year that this was taken: 1961.

On the radio might have played Bobby Vee, Patsy Cline, Del Shannon, or the Shirells. Or the radio news may have reported the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, or that the new president has created a new government-sponsored organize called the Peace Corps, or that he has vowed to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, or that he has sent the first of American "advisors" to Vietnam.

Somewhere in the cold snow-swept fields of the mid-west, a young, small, scruffy baby-faced kid named Robert Zimmerman, was packing an acoustic guitar to New York, where he hoped to meet his musical idol, a nearly-forgotten folk singer of the Great Depression, who had silently suffering in a state hospital from Hutchinson's disease. 

And deep in the South, a bus filled with Civil Rights protesters is firebombed. 

In this picture is America, on the teetering point of a new and tumultuous decade. 

A young woman in Iowa sits naked, on a wooden chair, before the intent eyes of sketching art students.

Nostalgia For The Most Perfect Ski Day Ever

These images are by Gramm Dunn and published in Vice magazine. The photo series "Hardgoods" features a man and woman in a retro ski day, circa late 70s-early 80s--the golden era of skiing. 

It pretty much summarizes either everything perfect I remember of my youth, or the exact golden nostalgia I always wanted.

To give credit where credit is due:

Producer: I Heart Reps, Sara Siegel Productions
Stylist’s Assistant: Alex Schmidt
Hair and Makeup: Tami Shirey
Models: Chelsea Schuchman, Luke Ditella at Photogenics

New York Times Reports: "Return to a more natural state."

As editor of My Sexy Spot Blog, I strive to bring the best, most accurate, and most historically relevant stories about our understanding and appreciation (and acceptance) of human sexuality. As many long-time Dear Readers know, I have been following and reporting on what seems to be a grassroots cultural shift back toward a more normal (and in my opinion healthy) acceptance and appreciation of pubic hair.

I've noted it in amateur blogs, in the emerging works of Fine Art photographers, and even in the porn industry.

For so long I've seen hope peeking out like the stray untamed hairs from a bikini line. I'm amazed, and thrilled that finally a publication with a lot wider viewership than this humble DIY blog is finally taking note.

Last december, The New York Times blog ran "On Beauty For Women, a New Look Down Under."

Only once before in our history have we reprinted an article verbatim and in its entirety. We felt this article well worth it.
--Annie O.

On Beauty For Women, a New Look Down Under

by Amanda Hess

After years of razors, wax and lasers reducing pubic hair to the bare minimum — or nothing at all — there’s a return to a more natural state.

Marilyn Monroe’s maid claimed she once walked in on the actress naked and splayed-legged, bottle and toothbrush in hand, meticulously bleaching the hair between her legs a perfectly matching platinum. When Monroe danced onto a breezy New York City subway grate in that billowing ivory dress in “The Seven Year Itch,” she layered two pairs of underwear to ensure that her bountiful crop was obscured from gawkers’ sightlines. And when the studio photographer snapped on-set publicity shots of the scene, they were meticulously airbrushed to smooth out the unmistakable texture visible beneath her pleated skirt.

For women of Monroe’s generation, pubic hair was a game of peekaboo — on full display in the privacy of the bungalow, but carefully hidden from popular view. In recent years, the bombshell bush has essentially disappeared. Wax-wielding estheticians and permanent lasers have whittled it down or erased it entirely. Pornography has served up a new degree of bareness. When the paparazzi shoot pantyless pop stars exiting limousines, their cameras zoom in on a barren landscape.

It wasn’t always this way. For centuries of artistic tradition, the absence of pubic hair was merely an illusion. Renaissance artists depicted the female pelvis in smoothed stone or oil-painted shadow. Although a few artists made bids for erotic realism — notably Gustave Courbet in 1866 with the furry black patch in his painting “L’Origine du Monde”— the taboo persisted. The story goes that the 19th-century art critic John Ruskin was so shocked by the discrepancy between the renderings he’d studied and his wife’s naked body that he annulled the marriage. “Though her face was beautiful,” he wrote, “there were certain circumstances in her person” that left him unable to proceed. When the photographer Alfred Stieglitz exhibited 45 portraits, several of them nudes, of his muse Georgia O’Keeffe in 1921, they caused a sensation.

The explosion of the bikini on 1960s beaches changed everything, bringing with it the “bikini line,” which required a precise shave. The beauty industry graciously homed in on this new terrain, first with razors and depilatory creams, then waxes, electrolysis and lasers. Peruse popular nudes over the past decades and you can practically carbon-date the photo by the area’s dwindling dimensions. In the 1960s, the fashion designer Mary Quant got hers trimmed into a heart. Helmut Newton’s 1981 “Big Nudes” series of photographs featured towering heels and equally imposing pubic hair; by the 1990s, Playboy centerfolds had transitioned from a full growth to a teensy landing strip; by the 21st century, the “Brazilian” was established as the new standard.

Did it go too far? Today, the Helmut Newton nude makes for a more aspirational ideal than an unfortunate celebrity crotch shot. The New York waxing emporium J. Sisters displays a 1990s head shot of Gwyneth Paltrow signed, “You changed my life!!” But these days, Paltrow laughingly told Ellen DeGeneres, “I work a ’70s vibe.” Mert & Marcus photographed Daria Werbowy and Naomi Campbell with full, frank pubic hair in a 2010 Love magazine spread, and they look assertive, real, even rebellious.

Even young porn stars are “bringing the ’80s back,” says Nina Hartley, a doyenne of the scene. Stoya, one of the highest-profile porn actresses of the moment, has also posed for the fashion photographer Steven Klein with grown-out pelvis and armpits. “I’ve had all sorts of pubic hair,” she says. “I’ve been completely bald, I’ve had my entire natural bush grown out, and I usually have an arrangement somewhere in between.” It’s worth noting that this look isn’t completely untamed, of course. Many women still attend to the sides and underneath. But there’s something refreshingly retro, delightfully expressive and confidently grown-up in getting back to nature. And Courbet’s “L’Origine du Monde”? It now resides at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, where — judging by the sale of postcards — it is one of the most popular paintings of all.

Here's the original link to the full article.

American Apparel, See-Thru BodySuit

As a 100% non-commercial blog, we don't endorse any product or company. However, we have been inspired to give props this Valentine's Day to American Apparel.

First, because they made the bold move to put pubic hair and colored-nipples on their window mannequins in their store in Manhattan's Lower East Side. And secondly, this image below. It's right off their website. Unashamed, unappolgetic. A model with nipples and pubic hair. And, we might add, not a lot of makeup, bleached hair, or fake breasts. Compared to a retailer like Victoria Secret, for example, I'll take this any day.

Added bonus: for Valentine's, she's shaped her pubes into a heart. So cute, so sexy.

Can one image on a retailer's website change the negative body image and shaming of natural women's bodies in American society today? No.

Is it a step in the right direction that no other major retailers have dared to take? Absolutely.

Valentine's Day Surprise

Here's another great image that demonstrates that the idea of grooming one's pubic patch into a heart for Valentine's is a classic move. Add some sexy see-through lingerie and that's a recipe for sexy success.

Dani Daniels, Crotchless Crotch Shot, DIY

As Dear Readers know, this blog is dedicated to the spirit of DIY porn. We favor real shots of real folks, just like you and me, rather than the "professionals." But, what good are rules if you can't break them?

Every so often, we can't help but feature a contemporary porn star who breaks with the current trends, and rather than become jut another body, truly stands out as a trailblazer. One such is Dani Daniels. Going against the ubiquitous "all bare down there" look of the past decade, she's a woman unashamed to let her lady parts be furry. 

And, in the DIY spirit, she takes some truly sexy selfies. 

Like this one.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: Women Watching Porn

Porn doesn't turn on women? Not all women, to be sure. But I count myself as one.

The old saying is that their are lies, damn lies, and statistics. I don't give much stock to the stats reported online, since usually they are either originated by a blog or online magazine with a non-statistical sample size (like one survey I read with a 300 person sample, pulled from the Facebook of a British adult toy and lingerie company). Or are just re-reported stats with no fact checking, like a post published on Fox news that had been republished from the Sun, which originally came from who-knows-where.

Also, the top hits I got on my search weren't exactly current. Seems this was a hot topic in 2010, and circulated. Why then? Who knows. But digging back over the past decade is an interesting way to try to get a larger sense of a social trend. 

A 2001 study of 506 undergraduate students found that 35% of women had accessed "sexually explicit materials" on the internet "at least once." In 2006 another study of 563 college students found that 62% female respondents had seen online pornography before coming to college. Who knows if that's from the same college, or even colleges in the same country. But if we can generalize enough and assume perhaps the two samples of approximately 500 students are from similar enough colleges, the face value of the numbers suggest that twice as many female college students had seen online porn in 2006 than in 2001. I'd say this has to be somewhat true, since it's probably equally true that twice as many students were online in 2006 than in 2001.

Speaking from personal experience, I was at college in 2001, and we were on dial-up modems, and most of us were still using the college computer labs. (This was a state school, a Pac 10, and therefore what one might consider an "average" American student body.) In 5 short years, laptops were common and people got online via wi-fi. We're talking about the years from chat-rooms to Friendster to MySpace to Facebook. As such, the amount of porn online, and the ability to download it, or upload it changed radically from the start of the milleium through its first decade.

A report in 2007 claimed that 17 million women watched porn on a monthly basis. I don't know if that's 17 million American women, or exactly who the sample population was, so who knows what percentage that represents of whom. I guess the point is that 17 million women is a lot of women looking at smut.

The survey reported in the Sun in 2010 stated that out of 4,200 women surveyed, 76% said that porn was part of their sex lives. A more recent article, just a year old, sited the Nielsen report that said one in three adults browsing adult porn sites are women. So there you have it: if you have three women, at least one, quite likely two, and just possibly all three have spent a little time looking at sexy stuff online.

The reports usually also note that its more likely that younger women (ie Millennials) are looking at online porn than older women. But that should be no surprise. I'm sure you'd also see that reflecting in which age group of women accesses and uses the internet the most. (I think my Mom literally still has an AOL account, and my grandmother adamantly refuses to own a computer.)

What is most encouraging to me is the current trends of DIY porn. The 2010 survey from the British toy/lingerie company reported that 40% of the women polled had made their own porn. As I mentioned, they only had a survey size of 300. But the good news is that in the group, at least 120 women had made their own porn. Think about that the next time you are in a public space, like having dinner in a restaurant.

One thing is most certainly true: the numbers are under, rather than over, reported. Let's be honest: not everyone is willing to share every intimate detail of their sexual lives with researchers. A lot of people skip over polls. Maybe people looking at porn would rather look at porn than take a survey about it. I'm no statistician, but let's just say that I'm a woman who loves porn, and no one has ever asked me in a poll, so I am one of the uncounted.

What can we take away from this? Lies, damn lies and statistics? Can we infer anything concrete from the numbers, or just that the numbers seem to follow what we'd expect anyway: over the last 10 years, more women are online looking at things; more often than not, those women are younger women; and at least two out of three woman are taking a moment to check out sexual content. Possible two out of three. And the third is my grandma.

I guess that isn't exactly shocking news. But what I hope comes from this is that as more and more people (men and women) are able to access the wide world of online porn, people will be able to see the variety of human sexuality, and in the viewing of such diversity, come to realize that: a) sex is fundamental to the human experience; b) everyone is different and so no one is "normal" and conversely, the thing you are into that you thought so "abnormal," you realize is shared by hundreds, maybe thousands, or maybe even millions of others; c) my personal favorite--if you don't see anything that reflects you and your experience, you can simply make your own.

Bettie In Bed

It's been a while since we posted a sexy image of the "infamous" Bettie Page. I use irony quotes because infamous is so pejorative. Bettie was a pioneer.

American Apparel Got Real For Valentine's

Known for its "provocative" ads, clothing retailer American Apparel sent shockwaves rippling across lower Manhattan last month when its Houston Street store displayed lingerie-clad mannequins with nipples and faux pubic fur.

District Visual Manager Dee Myles stated that the display is meant to bring "rawness and sexiness" to the upcoming Valentine's day holiday, and to "spark up curiosity and conversation about what we deem beautiful."

American Apparel issued this statement to the media:

“American Apparel is a company that celebrates natural beauty, and the Lower East Side Valentine’s Day window continues that celebration. We created it to invite passerby’s to explore the idea of what is ‘sexy’ and consider their comfort with the natural female form. This is the same idea behind our advertisements which avoid many of the photoshopped and airbrushed standards of the fashion industry.”

A few detractors have claimed that the marketing move was done more to sell lingerie than to promote pro-woman body acceptance in its natural state. To which I say: duh! 

If a retail giant like Home Depot runs an ad showing a happy family in their backyard having a BBQ over Memorial Day, it's because Home Depot wants to sell you a lawnmower or a new shiny barbecue. Whether or not you have a family picnic is up to you. 

Of course American Apparel wants to sell bras and panties. That's there for-profit business. And, as someone once said: the business of business is business. Ads, by their very definition, are human designs calculated, created, and put to the public eye to arouse interest and spark an emotional response.

There's another old saying: sex sells. 

That's not news--so why can anyone in the 21st Century be surprised, or even remotely offended by American Apparel trying to tap the fact that "sex sells?"

Other major retailers have been pushing air-brushed women with spray tans and plastic boobs.

If American Apparel displays mannequins with untrimmed bushes to sell "sexy," I say: right on!

As long as sex sells sells and people buy sexy, I think it's great to finally be seeing "sexy" as closer to natural than to fake. I personally think it's lovely to see--FINALLY--a mainstream American advertisement that looks like me. Brown hair. glasses, and bush.

(and nipples)