COMMENTS FROM KEN MARCUS:
HOW DO WOMEN FEEL ABOUT THIS CONTROVERSY?
return to main page
|
Photographyer Ken Marcus (www.kenmarcus.com)
was once a student of Ansel Adams as well as Playboy's top photographer
for some eleven years. He is largely responsible for creating the photographic
look nowadays thought of as the "Playboy style." For several
years he was a principle contributor to Joe Weider's Muscle & Fitness
Magazine. In addition to his other fine art and commercial work, Ken
has recently begun exploring the world of fetish and bondage photography
in great depth and has created one of the most successful websites of
erotic photography on the Internet. The following comments were originally sent simply as a personal Email, but are being published with Ken's knowledge and consent. |
Bill:
I think that there is another perspective to this issue worth mentioning.
And that is, that so far all the comments as to what is appropriate and what
isn't have come from men (and I would assume mostly middle-aged) wanting to
impose their standards on women because they are uncomfortable with the supposed
sexuality in your photograph (which by the way is an excellent image).
I have been aware for some time now that there is a changing attitude amongst
women that overt sexuality and blatant behaviors and displays that were once
only seen in the realm of men's magazines are now the desired expressions
of a new generation of young women artists, musicians, photographers and performers.
Case in point is Natacha Merritt and her book 'Digital Diaries' and her website
( http://www.digitalgirly.com/ ).
Here is a young woman whose work has upset the older generation of feminists
who decry that her images are like what men like to look at. Yet they don't
see that she has come full circle to exercise the creative, personal and financial
freedom that the women's movement had fought for.
Another example would be the large number of beautiful young women (and men)
that are eager to become pornstars. The old stigma's of past generations don't
apply to the liberated attitudes of this new generation. This is a generation
that is into 'extreme sports', 'extreme music', 'extreme competition' and
apparently 'extreme sexuality'.
Who are we, as a bunch of old men, to judge or dictate what is appropriate
for these women? The world is theirs now and we'd better just get out of their
way.
Last year General Motors, Inc. received over 850 million dollars from their
satellite television holdings that feature pay-per-view and subscription adult
channels. They claim that over half of their customers are women. This would
signify that the standards of women today are different than 30 years ago,
although even then almost half the readership of Playboy (42%) and Penthouse
(48%) were women.
My point is that today women perceive themselves differently then in the past
and this is reflected in the images that are being produced and published
of them. Even some of the more low-brow imagery (golf balls in an asscrack)
are looked at with humor and accepting eyes from women. All you have to do
is look at the websites that are produced, designed and run by women to see
that the world has changed.
For your photograph to get flack from others even though the model was proud
of it shows how closed-minded and controling your critics are. I'd be interested
in hearing comments from women on this.
Ken
.