The Male Form:

An exhibit entitled “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze” was shown at the SOMArts cultural Center in San Francisco during November of 2011. In this case all of the artists were women or transgender artists, but only some of the men were shown nude. This exhibition was sponsored by National Women’s Caucus for Art.

I found a statement about the exhibition that reads in part: “Not only will the male figure be taking on the historically ‘female’ or passive role as object of the gaze, but the surveyor is now positioned as active and critical of traditional gender roles, thus creating a truly feminist stance. The male body and its gender expression become spectacle for a woman’s viewing and contemplation.” It is further stated that “This exhibition will explore women’s responses to a male dominated world in a different way than an exhibition of women’s images of themselves. It will mark an important development in Feminist Art, which has long concentrated on images of women meant to challenge stereotypical notions of womenhood. A gallery filled with works depicting men, created by women, actively resists the prevalence of the male gaze in art as well as the continued domination of male artists exhibiting in galleries and museums.” The website that contains the statement (some nudity shown) can be found by doing a google search for “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze weebly”

Here is an October 28, 2011 article by Georgia Platts from Ms. Blog (some nudity with the article) on the exhibition. A short video (just over 2 minutes) can be accessed at the site in which Tanya Augsburg, Ph.D and Karen Gutfreund provide commentary (Lots of nudity in the video): http://msmagazine.com/blog/2011/10/28/man-as-object-reversing-the-gaze/.

If the reader wants to know my opinion as to the phrase “Man as Object,” see my comment number 72 in this topic.

Tom,
 
I found an article by Sylvia D. Lucas entitled “We Love Your Bod.” It is dated January 5, 2012 and is on The Good Men Project website. The author writes about the male body in a positive way and mentions strong, solid thighs and calves, . . . broad shoulders, Wide chests. That V shape as the back narrows to the waist.” She goes on to write: “Yes, we love the naked male body. And we’d like to see more of it in movies. We’ve been deprived for too long because someone, somewhere (probably a man who didn’t want to see naked men in movies) started the rumor that men’s bodies are ugly and awkward. There’s no reason for men to think women feel this way about them, or for men to have adopted the opinion, themselves. As much scrutiny as the female body has endured over the years, it doesn’t make me feel any better to know men have been made to feel their bodies are somehow unattractive or inadequate. Your bodies are damn beautiful.” One criticism I have is that Sylvia writes as if she is speaking for all women, instead of herself. I take it more that she is writing about her own feelings and I am interested in how women feel about the claims in this article. The article can be found here: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/we-love-your-bod/. Give it some time as it is slow in loading.

Tom,
 
I like to wear my hair long – I like the way it curls up in the back and feel it gives a “romantic” look – “romantic” like Moonlight and Roses. In a sense a man with long hair is somewhat like a man wearing a kilt. It is not usual. Here is an image of a man with long hair who I feel is beautiful: http://machohairstyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/hairstyles_for_black_men_56.jpg

This link goes to a pinterest site entitled “Longhaired boyz:” https://www.pinterest.com/liliansentinel/longhaired-boyz/. You may have to join pinterest to see all of the pictures.

Here is an image of 16 nude young men that I see as being beautiful. Despite their being naked no “sensitive” parts are shown except for a peek at a backside: https://vikisecrets.com/uploaded/large/vman_male_model_citizens_bared_brazil.jpg. Only one of the men in the picture has long hair.

In the English language there are two words for being unclothed – Naked and Nude. This may be due to English being somewhat of a combination of German and French. Both “naked” and “nude” translate into German as “Nackt” and “nude” translates into French as Nue. It appears that the English naked comes from the German nackt and the English nude comes from the French Nue. English words that come from the French are higher class than English words that come from German. In this way nude is higher class and may refer to art, while naked is more commonplace as in saying that someone is naked.

Moonlight and Roses,
 
In June and August of 2016 an art exhibition entitled “The Female Gaze Part II: Women Look at Men” was held at the Cheim and Read gallery in Manhattan, NY. This exhibit showed art works by 32 female artists, “. . . all utilizing the subject of men or the Male body . . .” Part I was “The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women.”

At the following link can be found an article from “Artslant” about “The Female Gaze Part II: Women Look at Men” exhibit written by Olivia B. Murphy and entitled “Flipping the Gaze: How Do Women Artists Look at Men?” Images of the nude are shown and one painting by Betty Tompkins is a close up of female/male sexual intercourse.

https://www.artslant.com/9/articles/show/46395

Tom,
 
I don’t consider images of people, either female or male or nude or not nude to be sexual, pornographic or erotic if the people in the image are not engaged in a sexual act. This means that so far this thread has not been about sex. However, I now want to write about something that is sexual. For some time there have been discussion on “Porn for Women” or “Female Friendly Porn” and it may turn out that the most “Female Friendly Porn” is porn that deals with either female or male homosexual acts. Information from Pornhub Insights shows that the two top categories for porn viewing among women are Lesbian and Gay (male). See here: http://www.pornhub.com/insights/what-women-want. It is my understanding that data on the sex of viewers in this survey was determined by Google Analytics. I feel that the Gay (male) category (second among female viewers) is relevant for this topic as it involves looking at the male form.

Here is a very interesting (to me) youtube video (16 minutes long) of a talk by Ashley Cunningham that’s entitled “Escaping Gender Anxiety: Why Women Love Gay Male Porn.” See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkO0wLhOSBQ. The talk is taken from Ashley’s Honors Thesis at the Emerson College. I feel she raises a number of interesting points.

Tom,
 
I am very interested in stories about women, both biographical and fiction and as shown by this topic I am interested in the male form. Both of these subjects are combined for me in my interest in female artists who have depicted the male nude. According to an article, dated April 22, 2010 for “The Florentine: the English-speaking new magazine in Florence” Dr. Jane Fortune (an art historian specializing in women artists) writes that the Venetian painter Giulia Lama, born 1681, was “. . . the first women known to draw and study the male nude from a live model . . .“ The article can be found here: http://www.theflorentine.net/art-culture/2010/04/finding-oneself/ scroll down to Giulia Lama. A self portrait of the artist (1725) can be found here: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/05/4d/14/054d14042c64544384dbbb470126428e.jpg.

Another female artist who depicted the male nude was Angelica Kauffmann, born in 1741 in Switzerland. Cupid is normally depicted as a child, but the story of “Cupid and Psyche” is a love story between the two title characters, so when depicting this story Cupid is sometimes shown as a youth or young man. Also, the name “Amor” is sometimes substituted for Cupid. They both refer to the same god. At least two of Angelica Kauffmann’s paintings illustrate the story of “Cupid and Psyche” and in these pictures the artist paints Cupid or Amor as a nude young man. These paintings are “Amor and Psyche” (1792) and “The Legend of Cupid and Psyche” (1800). They can be found here: http://www.fineart-china.com/upload1/file-admin/images/new16/Angelika Kauffmann-653774.jpg and here: http://goddessliving.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Corbis-EL003823.jpg. In the second picture the three women to the left are Psyche and her sisters and to the right is cupid who is supposed to be invisible.

Diana was the goddess of the moon in the classical myths of both the Greeks and the Romans. One myth has Diana, as she traveled across the darken sky spy Endymion a handsome mortal young man asleep in a field. Diana was then so taken by this young man’s beauty that she stopped just long enough to give him a kiss. Angelica Kauffmann’s painting “Diana and Endymion” shows that kiss and depicts Endymion in the nude. The painting can be found here: http://www.ticketsofrussia.com/peterhof/monplimg/m46.jpg. This story interests me as the female, Diana, is the active, assertive one and the male mortal Endymion, is passive and is the receiver of the women’s advances. He is the one desired (visually) and she is the one feeling the desire.

Another of Angelica Kauffmann’s paintings is “Portrait of Prince Henri Lubomirski as Cupid” in this picture, found here: https://iamachild.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/prince-henry-lubomirski-as-amor.jpg, the prince as cupid is neither shown as a young man, nor a young child, but as a boy.

Angelica Kauffmann was successful during her life time and was one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Art. She is reported to have been a child prodigy.

Moonlight and Roses,
 
The video by Ashley Cunningham that I linked to two posts back was based on her researched Honors Thesis and that is very good. This next link goes to a video (9 minutes) by Liz LaPoint who talks about her own feels as to the male body and as to gay (male) porn and that is also very good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9oBNWCwuiU&t=14s I’ve found quite a number of references to the concept of women liking gay (male) porn and plan to post more of them in the future.

According to pornhub insights 24% of viewers worldwide are females and 23% in the United States are female. Pornhub insight also breaks down female and male viewership by age and according to their data 36% of female viewers are between the ages of 18 and 24, while only 31% of male viewers are within that age group. Also, worldwide the average age of female viewers is 34 while the average age of male viewers is 36. This suggests that the share of female viewers will increase with time. See here: http://www.pornhub.com/insights/women-gender-demographics-searches

Moonlight and Roses,
 
Another article I have found to be interesting. This one is from a website entitled “Hello, I’m Flawed” and written by Caroline. The article is called “Where Are All the Naked Men?” In it the author writes: “To be clear: I’m not anti-nudity. I wish it was natural and normal. I’m simply offended by the blatant inequality in the nudity we see.” She also writes about the Topfreedom/Free the Nipple movement and touches on the issue of the different types of roles for women and men in stories.

A link to the article is below. At the bottom of the article there is what I see as a nice picture of 13 naked young men – the Warwick Rowers – shown from the back. Clicking on the words “Warwick Rowers” will bring the reader to the Warwick Rowers’ website which contains more such photographs as well as a short video of naked young men.
http://helloimflawed.com/free-the-nipple-and-women-in-american-media

For those who like men in kilts I just discovered a thread started by Barefootgirl69 entitled “Men in Kilts.” It is on The Playgound board and can be found here: http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1285896

Moonlight and Roses,
 
The ancient Greeks were known for participating in their Olympics in the nude and the word gymnastics comes, in part, from the Greek word “gymnos” meaning nude. So the word gymnast means a person who performs athletics in the nude. In the modern Olympics the athletes who wear the least clothing mostly likely are male divers. Here is a short video, just over 2 minutes, of male 10 meters synchronized divers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS1-wiHPkQY

One of my favorite Olympic events is Synchronized Swimming. In the Olympics it is an all women’s event, but that does not mean that there are no international events that include men. Here is a just over 3 minute video of Christina Jones and Bill May swimming as a mixed duet in 2015 at the FINA World Championship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isPflUZ6Jf0. At the following link is a video (just over 5 minutes) of Bill May’s solo performance at the 2002 US Nationals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peCkq6Bifwc. He also talks of his art in that video.

Moonlight and Roses,
 
Dr. Lucy Neville is a Senior Lecturer of Criminology Theory in the Department of Criminology and Sociology at Middlesex University, UK. She is also a writer of gay male erotica. The following link is to her article entitled “Male gays in the female gaze: women who watch m/m pornography.”

The data used to obtain the results described in this article was “. . . collected via an online questionnaire (with open text boxes as well as closed questions) and a series of focus groups and one-on-one interviews (both face to face and via Skype).” There were “. . . 275 (self-identified) women who watch gay male pornography” participating in this research. The following nine “thematic areas” were determined from this data:

1 “Boys are hot”
2 “Evidence of desire/Authenticity”
3 “The Female Gaze”
4 “Avoiding the sexual minefield”
5 “Queer space”
6 “Eroticising equality”
7 “No girls allowed”
8 “Taboo/The unknowable”
9 “It’s just better porn”

More detail on each of these areas is provided in the article under the heading Results.

Parts of the article which were of particular interest to me were the section under Women watching pornography where the author writes “. . . that for much of late modernity the common assumption within the academic literature was that women were not aroused by any porn” and that “. . . more recent studies suggest that gender disparity in accessing porn may be narrowing in the age of the internet.” Another section of interest to me was under the heading Discussion where information as to what some participants in this study did not like about straight porn was given. The Concluding section is interesting, as well as where the author writes about “slash fiction” and women. Slash may sound violent, but it is not necessarily so. The slash refers to the “/” between main character’s names such as Kirk/Spock. I am interested in how people who write from a woman’s point of view feel about this article.

The article can be found here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23268743.2015.1052937?scroll=top&needAccess=true. Or do a google search for “Lucy Neville Male gays in the female gaze: women who watch m/m pornography”

Moonlight and Roses,
 
Earlier in 2016 the exhibition “NSFW” was held at the “Outlet Fine Art” gallery in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. This exhibit consisted of works depicting the male nude done by female artists. The following link goes to an article by Nara Shin about NSFW and which shows some of the paintings from that exhibit: http://www.coolhunting.com/culture/nsfw-male-nudes-female-artists-outlet-bk.

This paragraph may seem to be off topic and I guess it is, but I feel it has an underlining similarity with the topic of this tread as both deal with the idea that “Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder.” That is that people or things cannot be beautiful, handsome, sexy, attractive etc. or ugly or unsightly etc. in and of themselves. What I want to mention here is the talked about movie “Barbie” which may open in 2017 and may star Amy Schumer and from what I understand it will be about the idea expressed above. Also, not only is it set to be a story about a woman, but from what I have seen five of the six people involved in the writing of the story are women and three of the five producers are women. That in itself is a reason why I am looking forward to seeing it.

Moonlight and Roses,
 
I plan to add to this thread something that is the opposite of what the initial topic is, but opposite in the way that the two sides of a coin can be seen as being opposite. That is opposite, but intimately connected. In addition to continuing with the topic of “The Male Form” I plan to also write on “Stories about Women.” Earlier I wrote “It seems to me that most movies are about men. They are the ones who get things done and they are the ones we know more about. Women tend to be portrayed in a more one dimensional way. To me this objectifies women. As I have become more interested in the male form both clothed and nude I have also become more interested in the stories of women both biographical and in fiction. I purposely go to movies that are about women and I purposely read books about women.” It seems to me that in our culture there is a bias against movies about women and a bias against seeing men as being beautiful. I feel these biases are opposites, but intimately connected.

One thing I have read about why women may not like “straight porn” is that so much of it is depicted from the man’s point of view. I’m interested in what people think or feel about that. Also how much written porn is depicted from the women’s point of view?

Clair de Lune et La Vie en Rose,
 
In the last comment I asked “. . . how much written porn is depicted from the women’s point of view?” Thinking that not much is I came up with an idea for a story that is about women and where men are presented as the focus of visual attraction.

A number of women of varying ages run a company that produces Gay (male) porn. These women are completely normal in their looks and behavior except that they get to watch and film young hunky naked men have sex with each other. The women would look like the average woman one might see shopping in a mall. They would dress nicely but have no cosmetic surgery and would not wear heavy makeup or wear particularly revealing clothes. All of the production staff – producer, director, writer, makeup artists, lighting and sound crew etc. would be women and all of the actors would be men. The women would generally be older then the men, but there maybe one woman, perhaps the cinematographer, who would be about the age of the men and with no prior experience in porn, but with good experience as a cinematographer. All of the women would lead normal lives. One could have children and have to leave early to pick them up at school. Another may be pregnant. They could have husbands or boyfriends. The women would always be dressed and would not have sexual contact with the actors. Dramatic tension would come from the women being in a line of work that is predominately done by men.

The story would clearly be about the women. All scenes and all dialogue would involve at least one woman and there would be scenes and dialogue without any men. It would be the women’s feelings and aspersions that the story would primarily be about. We will learn about the men through conversations the women have with each other or with the men and through the thoughts of the women. The women would come up with all of the ideas, although they would consult with the men before filming. In coming up with ideas the women would be innovative and would gear the stories not only to the gay male audience, but also to women.

Moonlight and Roses,

PS Does anyone have an idea of how many stories on this site are depicted from a woman’s point of view?
 
In my comment #32, dated November 15, 2016 I linked to an article by Esther Gabriel entitled “No More Double Standards: A Love Letter to Naked Men.” Esther also has a website entitled “Naked Men, Happy Women.” As suggested by its name it is a website devoted to images of naked men. In a way it is an online magazine showing many pictures of nude men and it also has articles dealing with sex. It can be found here: http://nakedmenhappywomen.org/.

Moonlight and Roses,
 
Earlier I wrote about two female artists, Giulia Lama (born 1681) and Angelica Kauffman (born 1741), who both depicted the male nude. Here are two others. First is Angelique Mongez who produced the work “Theseus and Pirithous Clearing the Earth of Brigands, Deliver Two Women from the Hands of their Abductors” (c.1806) see here for what I believe is a study for a larger work: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ea/4c/51/ea4c51ee22e2f6500b0d0857099c07ec.jpg. It is my understanding that the larger work was done in oil and is 11 by 15 feet. What interests me is that Angelique Mongez depicted Theseus and Pirithous, the men saving the women nude, while the bad guys are clothed.

Evelyn De Morgan was born in 1855 and has produced a number of depictions of the male nude. My favorite is “Phosphorus and Hesperus” (1882).” Phosphorus represents the morning star, while Hesperus represents the evening star. Since both the morning and the evening star are not really stars, but the same object the planet Venus, they cannot be in the sky at the same time. Therefore the painting shows one awake with a lit torch and the other asleep with his torch extinguished. The painting can be found here: http://www.handgemalt24.de/media/im...s-und-Hesperus-von-Evelyn-de-Morgan-25392.jpg.

Moonlight and Roses,
 
Earlier I wrote about two female artists, Giulia Lama (Phosporus and Hesperus” (1882).” http://www.handgemalt24.de/media/im...s-und-Hesperus-von-Evelyn-de-Morgan-25392.jpg

Interesting - for me, their facial profiles are quite feminine, like any number of pre-Raphaelite belles dames.

Moonlight, you might be interested in books by Bram Dijkstra, an academic critic who is interested in the portrayal of men and women in art over the last two centuries. His latest treatise "Naked" explores many of the themes you discuss here, in an American art context.

Btw, do you run this as a blog somewhere? You should - you would be able to combine you words and the illustrations. I would have thought an art oriented blog site would get you more response than you're getting here. Naoko Smith has a good example of a word/art blog - you can find a link to it on her author's profile.

It's not that your thread is not interesting (it is), but your focus is more on visual portrayal than the written portrayal. This isn't a criticism, by the way, just an observation.

Maybe we writers should offer up examples of written portrayals of men that catch our eye - I'll start with the next post
 
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A written portrayal of the male form

Source: https://www.literotica.com/s/city-of-angels

The hand at the window was manicured, deeply tanned and Evan saw a heavy silver Rolex. His senses heightened, as soon as he got close Evan smelled the alcohol, along with a deep whiff of, what was it, gardenias? There was a bouquet of flowers crumpled in the passenger seat. It was a lush, heavy, and sexy scent—something he was sure he'd smelled once in his ex's apartment.

"License and registration, please."

"Officer," came a slightly slurred voice, "This is a new—"

"You have your paperwork?" Evan interrupted him. "Pink slip?"

"Yes, uh. . ." the man mumbled as he foraged in the glove compartment.

"I'm going to need you to step out of the car," Evan ordered. At 6'1 or so, the man was several inches taller than Evan, and just as built.

"Turn around." The man obediently did as he was told and passively held his hands behind him. Well this was different. No resistance, no asshole comments. He acted like he knew he'd done something bad. Evan held onto one strong, warm forearm as he slipped on the cuffs. It wasn't till he heard the click that he glanced up and saw a handsome face with red-rimmed blue eyes, dirty blond hair, and two days thick growth of beard.

Evan ran the check on the man's information, looking for old tag numbers. Craig Symons, 30, unmarried, address in Malibu, no record, no citations or arrests. Well, he might have both now.

This guy just reeked of money. It wasn't only his car. It was the perfect haircut and teeth, the personal trainer body, the unique cologne, the expensive linen shirt and casually torn jeans. He had everything but the arrogant attitude. On the contrary, he seemed utterly defeated and depressed. Evan wondered if this had been some kind of unconscious suicide run.

As he wrote out the speeding ticket, he suddenly felt like someone was standing behind him—as if a mouth was softly breathing on his neck or some unseen presence was sensing his every thought. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and a familiar trickle of excitement creep down his spine. He recognized that tingling feeling; it could only mean that this guy was gay. Hmmm, he wouldn't have thought so. He was very good-looking, gorgeous even, but nothing in his manner or voice would have suggested it. But Evan knew the meaning of the prickling sensation down his back; he only got that vibe when he was around gay men.
 
Electricblue, I agree that Evelyn De Morgan’s work was in the pre-Raphaelite style, but to me the figures in “Phosphorus and Hesperus” look like young men, even by just looking at their profiles. I looked up Bram Dijkstra and plan to read about his ideas. Thank you for writing that my thread is interesting and I agree with you that it is more about the visual than the written, however I don’t feel it would be suited to an art oriented blog site. I have no problem with people giving examples of written descriptions of the male form as the focus of visual attraction, as long as they are excerpts and not too long. Recently I have written that I would like to expand this topic to stories about women, so I would also like examples of that. I am interested in ideas that are unusual in our culture and, I feel, two of them are the presenting of the male form as the focus of visual attraction and stories about women, particularly stories about women in movies. In my comment #113 dated December 21, 2016, I wrote an outline of a story that did both. Originally I started this thread as a very long response to Charley H’s topic about “Nude Beauty: male vs. female.” I do not have a blog, but I have posted 18 short articles about female artists, not all of whom have depicted the male nude, on Deviantart at http://tom1947.deviantart.com/gallery/ under the name Tom1947. Thank you for your contributions.

Moonlight and Roses (Tom1947),
 
Continuing the idea of stories about women, but where men are the focus of visual attraction (also see comment #113, dated December 21, 2016) I thought of the following two possibilities:

First, an older woman, who had been a ballerina, starts a ballet company/school. All of the non-dancing employees are women – choreographer, makeup artists, costume designers, set designers, etc. are women and all of the dancers are young men.

Next, two women are fashion designers of male clothing. The models are all young men.

Both of these stories would be about the women’s feelings and aspirations. The women would be the assertive and more active characters, while the men would be more passive and be the focus of visual attraction. This visual attraction does not have to be in regard to the nude male. In the story of the ballet company/school the visual attraction of the young men would not just be the static beauty of their forms, but also be the beauty of their motion and their expressions. As to the fashion designer story the women would get to “dress” the young men and the author would also get to “experiment” with the clothing worn by the men.

Moonlight and Roses,
 
Previously I posted links to websites that show photographs of the male form both clothed and nude, these were in comment 22, November 14, 2016, about male ballet dancers, and in comment 114, December 23, 2016, about “Naked Men, Happy Women.” The link at the bottom of this post is to a third such site. It is entitled “Little Miss Shy” and the author writes “Hello! I’m a 24 French girl. I love my boyfriend, music, art, nude and sex.” There are many photographs of nude and partly nude men on this site and some of women.
http://misslittleshy.tumblr.com/

Moonlight and Roses,
 
I like fairies and other such mythical beings. That is one reason I like ballet. Not only do many of the stories of ballets deal with such beings, but the ballet dancers themselves seem to me to be mythical beings even when they are depicting humans. However, from what I’ve seen fairies and other such mythical beings are either mostly depicted as female or when they are depicted as male they are presented as not being that attractive. So, I have searched for images of attractive male fairies.

This first links goes to a pinterest site: https://www.pinterest.com/explore/male-fairy/, while the second goes to a short, just over 2 minute long “Speed Paint” digital painting of a male fairy. Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DhE-sTQSjE. His face may seem to be of a female, but that may be because of the eye shadow and that the eyes appear bigger than normal. I don’t know if female eyes (meaning the whole eye) are relatively larger than male eyes or if that is artistic convention.

Lake in the Moonlight and Le Spectre de la Rose,
 
The main character of this story is a woman named Wilma. She is very shy, has never been married, is in her late 30s or 40s and has only one friend another woman who she has known since elementary school. This other woman is married. Wilma wears glasses, dresses in a plain, unstylish manner and because of this she looks older than she is and is the type of person who people do not notice. She is a nice, kind person, with a pleasant heart shaped face, but because of her shyness most people do not get to know how kind she is. Her major interest, outside of her fantasies is books and because of this she is a librarian. It is her fantasies that the story is about.

In her fantasies she is confidant and assertive. These fantasies are about the attractive and beautiful men she sees throughout her day. In each fantasy she imagines the man being naked and many of her fantasies then become sexual. In one fantasy she is a pirate who rescues a beautiful male from his female captors. The man is naked throughout the fantasy and is very grateful to Wilma for saving him. He is shy and embarrassed about being nude, but she overcomes his shyness and embarrassment with her kindness. Wilma also secretly writes down these fantasies, but near the end of the story her friend accidentally finds them. The friend then sends them anonymously to a female publisher who publishes them. Wilma is at first angry and embarrassed that her friend did this, but comes to be happy about it when she sees the stories in print. With this Wilma becomes more confident and her life changes for the better. It would be a little like “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” a short story by James Thurber.

In this story as in the others I outlined the woman is not there to please men, but the men are there to please Wilma, if only in her fantasies. Also, in this case, the dramatic tension is not external to Wilma, but is within her, between what she feels she should be and what she wants to be. It is not that she would really want the fantasies to be real, but she does want her life to be different, maybe something between her fantasies and reality and at the end she gets that.

Moonlight and Roses,
 
Continuing with the idea of female pirates, in this case a real one, we come to Grainne (Grainnuaile) (Grace) O’Malley. She was born on the west coast of Ireland c.1530. According to the book “The True Story of Grace O’Malley, Ireland’s Pirate Queen” by Anne Chambers “She was married twice, divorced once, took a lover when she wanted, and gave birth to one of her sons on the deck of her own ship.” Here is a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8z48fxGJSE about her that is a part of a series about Warrior Women. Other videos in this series, as well as more about Grace O’Malley can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/XenaChi/playlists.

The story of Princess Merida as told in the Disney animated film “Brave” (2012) reminds me of the story of Grace O’Malley.

Moonlight and Roses,
 
With fire glaring in her eyes and her cutlass shining Wilma O’Malley, the pirate scourge of the Irish coast, leapt into combat against three female renegades. Within no time her adversaries scattered. Quickly turning and with one deft stroke she cut the bonds holding the naked young man to the huge oak tree. Thus released Jack Sparrow (for that was his name) slid to the ground. With sympathy and something more Wilma gazed at the young man’s face. His hair was light brown, long and tossed about and his face sported a four day growth of beard, while the hair on his chest was light brown and curly. As he slowly opened his eyes his liberator was able to see that they were bright blue – a bonny blue. Wilma then with her bandana and water from her flask wiped some grease from his face. She was slowly bringing her lips to his when she was interrupted by his voice.

“Miss does the library have the book “Famous Pirates of History” or not.”

Looking upward Wilma saw the young man who was addressing her. She saw his bright bonny blue eyes, his light brown tossed hair and his curly light brown chest hair which stuck out from his tight shirt as the top three buttons were undone. “Sorry, yes” the librarian meekly stated as she lowered her eyes to her desk and hoped that he did not see the flustered look on her face. She fumbled around with some papers then finding what she was looking for again stated she was sorry and continued with “that particular book is now on loan, but should be returned next week.” As her eyes went to his face she again noticed the patch on his shirt, the one over his hard right pectoral muscle, which showed he worked for Sparrow’s oil change company and again saw the grease mark on his face partly obscuring his four day growth of beard.

“Thank you” the young man replied and with softness in his eyes and an appreciative smile he apologized for being abrupt earlier.

As he walked away Wilma called out “come in next week we should have the book by then.” Then realizing she was staring at his cute behind in his tight worn jeans she, with a blush, quickly turned her gaze to the papers on her desk.

I stated before that I am a man and some readers might think that I wrote the above as a man would, in that it would not be the way that a woman would think or feel. That would be a valid point. So, if you feel that way let me know how you would change it to make it more like what a woman would think or feel, but keep in mind that one of my purposes is to examine current gender roles and in doing that I would distinguish between how a woman would write due to her being born female or due to her being brought up in this culture as a female. The same would go for men.

Moonlight and Roses,
 
In an article by Emma Hart, to be found at the link at the end of this post, she writes:

“So let’s settle a few things. Your penis does not look stupid. Consider it next to any other body part viewed in isolation: the knee, for instance, or the elbow. The ear. A cock looks nothing like as stupid as an ear. It’s just that we’re not conditioned to be ashamed of our ears. There’s nothing inherently ridiculous about the shape of a penis: it’s a column-shape. It’s practically designed to be caressed. It might bounce about if unrestrained when you walk, but so do breasts, and nobody thinks breasts look stupid. Nobody.”

She continues with:

“Female bodies are gorgeous. Male bodies are also gorgeous. Just speaking for myself, one of the things I want for and in men is for them to be comfortable with their own bodies, with their own desires. Own them. It’s dead sexy. The next time you see your penis, try thinking of it as a cuddly natural giver.”

I particularly like her statement encouraging “. . . men to be comfortable with their own bodies . . .” and to think of the penis “. . . as a cuddly natural giver.” Here is the link to the article: http://publicaddress.net/up-front/oh-cock/.

Tom,
 
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