Gay_Beast1999
Let’s talk about censorship.
Recently, Instagram deleted a sexy account of mine. I was disappointed but now, it’s neither here nor there.
If they want to take it upon themselves to play moral police when I was already pixalizing my penis for them, good on them and good luck.
Art knows no boundaries. My vessel of flesh tells a story, sends a message and to a certain extent empowers my sexuality but that part is blown out of proportion, I am so much more than my sexuality.
My body is a source of pride but as I was posting on my Gay_Beast1999 account, that pride was usurped by a reductive approach of capitalism gone wild.
As a humanist and someone interested in feminist theories, I was constantly torn between feeling I was selling myself on the cheap and rewarded by record shattering amount of likes (mind you 100 was record shattering compared to my alive and well main account). Instagram is reductive. It doesn’t follow you on your journey like Steemit does, it asks what you can do for it, selling your data to the four winds leaving you scattered and depressed.
Facebook does this too to a lesser extent.
Here, the NSFW tag is still mostly uncharted territory. I have seen plagiarized porn, one gay DTuber demystify fetish sex with his homemade porn and a woman do her podcast naked.
I am unfamiliar with the pre Sesta Fosta Tumblr and have little to compare.
Ah yes! There’s also Deviantart. Tehee!
Nudism is very dear to me. It subverts the norm in a constructive way. Allows us to take our bodies back from outdated religious morality and it is not particularly sexual. Form me, human sexuality is part of our identities and peaks through in nudism.
For example, a man can get an erection in a nudist setting. If this happens, I recommend dropping and rolling.
Photo by Talentosa Productions
Other than for this extreme example, sexuality takes a back seat, it is not what nudism is about.
With all the sensorship, the now Sesta Fosta compliant mainstream social media are shutting down an entire branch of art and political expression that is ironically all about freedom.
Won’t you let us be who we are? Does my body have to be dirty?
Photo by Talentosa Productions
The thing that I miss the least about the account is the people I followed to raise myself in the search algorithm. I was subjecting myself to a pornified brainwash, the human body shown to brag and I caught myself doing the same for some less artsy posts.
As a life model, it is important to keep the aesthetics of the body tasteful. I work hard to stay in shape and I do want to show it unimpeded by a clothing brand however eco-friendly. Us male nude models, when we are objectified by being depicted in a painting or a sculpture creates a balance between men, women and non-binary folks. It is important to note that sexuality is in the eye of the beholder, the artistic nude model just happened to pose the way they were born, for the most part!
It would be nice for us to, as a society, face how many Victorian values have survived and to look into how to transcend the colonialist mistakes of the past. Nothing will fix the imperialistic harm done; but how is it so far fetched to hope for less cruelty and more understanding?
I have a past as a sex worker. I am no expert but for me, banishing sexuality to the depths of the dark web does nothing to prevent sex trafficking as Trump’s Sesta Fosta mesures would have us believe. Taking away Craigslist did some good but a lot more harm because after all, sex work is intrinsically linked to poverty. They took away a semi-efficient way to filter clients without proposing any real solution to protect the people of this controversial industry.
With gay beast, I wanted to strike a balance of sexual empowerment and non-sexual nudity. It is my job as an artist to make people think. It may not be plain for the eye to see but art is for some a business. To have a networking tool be taken right from under me with no explaination is absolutely unforgivable.
I just watched an Interview with Elizabet Powell, the managing director of Steemit Inc which is in charge of Steemit.com and some control over the Steem currency. They are ready to rollout ads even for logged in users whenever they can separate the wallet from the social media to strengthen overall security. I hope that they are mindful of the user experience, many of us are sensitive souls who have turned to Steemit because it’s the only place where we can be our true selves. My body is a temple and I hope that Steemit.com will remain a temple too. After all, they are setting the standard for third party apps like Partiko or Steempeak which I have been loving recently.
With this post entry, you are not dealing with Gay Beast anymore, you are dealing with me, someone willing to risk it all just to make a point. Someone asking out loud, questions others are mumbling under their breath. I have an opinion yes, but I am much more interested in the dialogue.
Well I love everything about this post minus the bit about Instagram deleting your account. You are a beautiful man. I have always felt the same way about my body and nudism, and I applaud you for sharing yourself here, sans pixelation ;) I do think that acknowledging the male body as sexual and objectifiable goes a long way toward bringing balance to the omnipresent objectification of the female body. Much love - Carl
Thank you, you have absolutely made my day with your beautiful comment. I am glad we can bond over something as natural and effortless as nudism! All of this is so complex, it is a relief to know we can put our heads together on these issues.
As for the deleted account, the timing was perfect. I was getting a bit obsessed with it and it got me back here. I like to know what kind of people I’m dealing with. People here to take the money but gone to hire proper costumer service when those jobs are needed. And to think so many businesses trust IG with their brand.
Like I said, I will keep using my other account but reluctantly.
Thanks again for dropping by, always amazing to get your insight.
There are a lot of resistance in here when it comes to this type of content as well but at least the censorship is done by the audience and not any big company. Keep bringing more. 👍
Posted using Partiko Android
That's what I call a braveheart post!
Have a wonderful week
Tom
Posted using Partiko Android
Thanks for the support!
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I've only just seen this, lol.
I think, like with anything, nudity can be portrayed in a positive sense (like the woman who was posting nude yoga poses - just beautiful) or it can be portrayed in a tacky, nasty sense. There's nothing about the human body that is inherently nasty or dirty. That's the Victorian/Puritan morality that still afflicts this continent.
Because of this "morality" - it causes all sorts of false conflicts - and plenty of real ones. My own struggles with "how far to go" in my romance stories is just one of these conflicts. As I point out in one of my more recent chapters of Acting the Part, we are brought up with this sense that we are more than animals (which we are), but that we are to rise above our animal nature. Yet, most of us (if not all) are only alive because our parents succumbed to that animal nature at least once.
When I lived in the UK, I was awakened a lot to a more natural way of viewing the body. Lower necklines than what would be acceptable in the US, nudity on the beach (naked children and topless sunbathers were normal) and even clothing-optional beaches with a fairly vague line in between... these things helped me realize that a naked human body was normal.
Again, we can admire the human form, human relationships or we can hide everything away - to cause an ever-deepening hunger in our society (as happens now) - which inevitably leads to all forms of depravity and abuse. I would rather learn and teach the former.
Almost my own post, lol.
Anyway, I mostly wanted to stop by and see what your NSFW stuff was - and say that I support you.
It’s especially nice to get comments after payout like this, thank you! I agree that Europe has a leg up, unfettered by a lot of our North American taboos around nudity. Nudism is pure and beautiful but with porn it’s a different story.
There is so much violence in that industry and the problems around hyper idealized body types we see in the media certainly influences pornography where a boob job is a way to make more money and be more successful. Like with most media, society is stuck digesting content made by men, for men.
That is why I encourage you with the steamier scenes in your novels. More is left to the imagination and coming from a woman’s point of view, you get to redefine sexuality in a larger sense.
Much of the porn made by women for women is still trying to compete with the mainstream and except for very niche studio, don’t give you an idea of a world where porn is less violent and sexist. Not to mention the bottom shaming and internalized guilt in gay erotica.
Britain was fairly prudish by European standards, but it was open enough to teach me a lot. I mean, you can have magazines with actual pictures of women giving birth (not just illustrations like we do in the US), but it takes a French magazine to show an advert of a boy peeing, lol.
Back in the US again, it's hard for me to find shirts I like to wear because the necklines are so high and choking. I frequently alter my necklines to give me some space.
I have recently been researching other written romance novels - mostly from the 80s because that's what's available for free. ;-)
It has been a real education - the attitudes between men and women at the time (or at least what the authors have decided to feature.) There are many things that were acceptable then that are not acceptable now. I've even thrown away two of them now due to the romanticizing of violent/abusive relationships which isn't healthy for anyone. These things have also taught me about my responsibility as a writer - to try to portray healthy relationships (at least from my personal perspective) - and to show negative relationships as being unhealthy.
I've mostly chosen the "fly on the wall" approach to my steamy scenes - I am trying to shy short of the NSFW tag, but that's about the limit for me now. I don't shy away from some of the nitty-gritty though I rarely feel the need to be explicit.
I read recently the fact that porn is not only addictive, but it's progressive - you need more to satisfy the same "needs." Again, male vs female can be very different (both positive and negative, for sure.)
I've not really exposed myself to gay erotica because it's not really for me, but I am not going to shame someone for going there. (I do have a lesbian couple in my stories, though their next story is currently on hold because I'm working on the generation before them right now.) Who knows, maybe another will make themselves known to me. I just had another handicapped person turn up as well. I don't push it, I let them come to me when it seems right. Obviously, my personal pov can make gay relationships difficult to portray.