Bisexuals face double the discrimination.

A recent study has confirmed what many bisexuals have been saying for years - they face discrimination from both ends of the spectrum.

Some straight people discriminate based on bisexuals' attraction to people of the same sex.

Some in the gay and lesbians communities discriminate based on bisexuals' attraction to people of the opposite sex.

The stigma driving this discrimination is associated with several myths that are perpetuated about people who are bisexual. Here are some examples:

• bisexuals are just promiscuous/overly sexual/sluts
• bisexuals are just gays/lesbians that haven't come out of the closet yet
• bisexuals are sexually greedy
• bisexuals just can't make up their minds
• bisexuals are confused, or going through a phase
• bisexuals can't be sexually monogamous
• bisexuals will cheat on their partners with people of the other sex

Of course, these myths are complete baloney, but they persist nonetheless.

The following article does a great job of reviewing the study and discussing the discrimination that many bisexuals experience.

From the DailyBeast:

Are Bisexuals Shut Out of the LGBT Club?
New studies show that bi people are being excluded by both straight and gay peers.
by Samantha Allen

No, bisexuals don’t have twice as much sex as everyone else. But there is mounting evidence to suggest that they experience double the types of discrimination as their gay and lesbian peers.

Two studies published in the December 2015 issue of the Journal of Bisexuality confirm what bi people have been saying for some time: The discrimination they face within the LGBT community is as real as the discrimination they face outside of it. As the U.S. enters its first full year of marriage equality and the battle for transgender rights continues, these studies point to the persistent but often ignored problem of biphobia among gay men and lesbians.

In one study, Counseling Psychology Ph.D. student Tangela Roberts and two professors at the University of Massachusetts surveyed 745 bisexual people about their experiences of discrimination in various social contexts. They found that the biphobia their respondents experienced from gay men and lesbians was not equal to, but still disturbingly comparable to, what they experienced from straight people.

Read the rest here: link.

What it's like to be a romance novels cover model.

Curious about what it takes to be a romance novels cover model?

The romance novel industry is growing at a rapid rate. In 2013, it was worth almost 1.1 billion dollars and the expectations are that it's going to be worth even more as new reading platforms continue to develop.

Consumers are no longer satisfied with paintings of Fabio gracing the covers. They're demanding photos of men, and variety. While the demand is there, the money for models isn't.

From the New York Times:

With Romance Novels Booming, Beefcake Sells, but It Doesn’t Pay
This corner of the book world is red hot and among the most innovative, with
e-books and apps, and it needs a steady stream of fresh-faced cover models.
By Laura M. Holson

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Jason Aaron Baca is good-looking, not handsome like the Ryans (Gosling and Reynolds) or rugged like Daniel Craig, who is fetching in a tailored Tom Ford suit. But when Mr. Baca, 42, slipped on a pair of dark aviator glasses recently, he looked remarkably like Tom Cruise in “Top Gun.”

He was dressed for work in a khaki military jumpsuit. And even though it was barely noon, he had already stopped by the gym to make sure his biceps and legs looked combat-strong. His assignment: To be a military helicopter pilot saved in a crash by a female rescuer with whom he once had a torrid affair. Now that they’re reunited, their passions have flared.

Mr. Baca is a cover model for romance novels. He has been on nearly 500 book covers, by his own account — one of scores of men like him vying to be heroic heartthrobs. Not since the flaxen-haired Fabio Lanzoni dominated drugstore book racks in the 1980s and 1990s, with his lion’s mane and bulging biceps, have cover models been in such demand.

Read the rest here: link.

Vice documentary: Reversing Female Circumcision - The Cut That Heals.

I've posted about female genital mutilation (FGM)/cutting several times in the past. Check the links for a description of the procedures and the rationals behind them (link, link, and link).

This recent documentary by Vice follows the story of a Somali woman who pursues surgery to restore her sexual functioning, which she lost when she underwent FGM. Check it out.

On the International Day for Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, VICE News reports on a little-known surgery that restores sexual function to the clitoris for women who had their genitals mutilated as children. We meet and follow a 32-year-old prospective patient who was mutilated at the age of six in Somalia, and who now lives and works as a nurse in the United States.

Stephen Colbert on the drug flibanserin.

Last year, the drug flibanserin, trade name Addyi, was approved by the US Federal Drug and Administration, the regulatory body overseeing the approval of medical drugs (among other things). The drug is intended to treat low sexual desire in females, once other concerns are ruled out (i.e., relationship problems, anxiety, etc.).

The approval was met with major criticism, as the effectiveness appeared low and the side effects can be significant. Also, many clinicians (and researchers) argue that there are more effective, non-medication ways to treat low sexual desire.

Although there isn't good data available yet, it seems like it's not been that successful - in other words, very few prescriptions have been written for the drug.

In this clip from last fall, Colbert takes a swipe at the drug, and many would likely agree.

Good news, ladies. Also, there's some bad news. Subscribe To "The Late Show" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/ColbertYouTube For more content from "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", click HERE: http://bit.ly/1AKISnR Click HERE to download the Colbr App: http://apple.co/1Qqgwk4 "The Late Show" on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1df139Y "The Late Show" on Twitter: http://bit.ly/1dMzZzG "The Late Show" on Google+: http://bit.ly/1JlGgzw Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream live TV, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access.

Gen Z much more accepting of non-binary identities and orientations.

Recognition and acceptance of LGBT(QIA) identities and rights have come a long way in the last few decades. Each newer generation is more accepting than the previous, and as such, younger generations have very different perspectives than older generations.

Researchers from The Innovation Group, a "creative think tank," (i.e., non-academic), asked Gen Zers about sexuality and gender. The results were recently reported online and presented at SXSW.

From Broadly:

Teens These Days Are Queer AF, New Study Says
by Zing Tsjeng

A new survey of young Americans aged 13 to 20 years old (also known, in marketing-speak, as "Generation Z") has found that they are far more open-minded and permissive than their older millennial counterparts when it comes to issues of gender and sexuality.

According to a report by trend forecasting agency J. Walter Thompson Innovation Group, only 48 percent of Gen Zs identify as exclusively heterosexual, compared to 65 percent of millennials aged 21 to 34.

On a scale of zero to six, where zero signified "completely straight" and six meant "completely homosexual," more than a third of the young demographic chose a number between one and five, indicating that they were bisexual to some degree. Only 24 percent of their older counterparts identified this way.

Fifty-six percent of 13-to-20-year-olds said that they knew someone who went by gender neutral pronouns such as "they," "them," or "ze," compared to 43 percent of people aged 28 to 34 years old. Over a third of Gen Z respondents also strongly agreed that gender did not define a person as much as it used to. This figure dropped to 23 percent among millennials who were 28 and up.

Read the rest here: link.

And some infographics:

More infographics here: link. 

Dove's viral ad campaigns: Evolution and Real Beauty Sketches.

Repost.

The media often feeds into our ideals when it comes to physical appearance and attractiveness. It's also likely that our ideals inform what the media chooses to portray (in other words, it's a two-way street).

When it comes to celebrities, this makes sense - they are paid to be our fantasies. And when it comes to marketing and advertising, there is clearly value in connecting products and experiences with people who are very attractive. This, in and of  itself, isn't necessarily a concern.

It does become a concern, though, when people start to compare themselves and others to these ideals, ideals which are largely unrealistic. For some people, these comparisons aren't just passing thoughts - they become fixated on them, and go down the rabbit hole of anxiety and negative self-image.

Additionally, almost all media images and even TV/movies/commercials involve significant production (e.g., makeup, hair, etc.) and employ digital manipulation, typically in post-processing (e.g., photoshop), to make actors and models even more so-called attractive. So the comparisons that consumers are making are not even with real people.

Dove has come up with several marketing campaigns intended to challenge beauty ideals portrayed in media.

Keep in mind the Dove is owned by Unilever, who also own Axe. Axe isn't exactly social progressive when it comes to healthy representations of women in particular. Also keep in mind that these are marketing campaigns - they were intended to increase Dove's sales, and they were very successful in doing so. So are these campaigns really about making the world a better place, or are they about making shitloads of money off of women's insecurities, but in an indirect way?

First campaign: Evolution

Reginald Pike's Yael Staav takes us from model to billboard in under 60 seconds in this impressive new spot from Dove. Credits: Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto Co-CCOs: Nancy Vonk & Janet Kestin ACD/Writer/Art Director: Tim Piper Production Company: Reginald Pike Director: Yael Staav Music: Vapor Music, Toronto

The next campaign: Real Beauty Sketches

If you haven't seen the ad yet, watch it first before reading the rest of this post:

In one of the most famous Dove films, Real Beauty Sketches explores the gap between how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves. Each woman is the subject of two portraits drawn by FBI-trained forensic artist Gil Zamora: one based on her own description, and the other using a stranger's observations.

Now on the surface, this seems lovely and all - Women, you're more beautiful than you think! Now buy our product! But most commentators have have been highly critical, calling the ad campaign patronizing, manipulative, and worse. Here's some commentary from the Globe and Mail:

Dove’s new campaign: Real beauty or sentimental manipulation?

[...]

Women have reportedly wept over this video. And who could blame them? The soft lighting and schmaltzy music were calculated to jerk those tears out come hell or high water, preferably the latter. For Dove, this latest effort in its successful Real Beauty Campaign, launched in 2004, was a highbrow social experiment. To me, it’s sentimental manipulation, sentimental because it encourages women to rerun that old script of themselves as noble but underappreciated, smart but self-sabotaging, hard-working but undermined by societal beauty pressure. It’s the kind of underdog myth that gets women feeling all cozy and sisterly about their dear, beleaguered psyches, which invariably need a pat on the back.

The Beauty Sketches video felt out of touch not only with modern, confident women in Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In wave of feminism – some might even take it as a backlash to it – but also with the complex etiquette of vanity. Every woman knows that even if she considers herself pretty, it’s inappropriate to brag about it. In an interview situation, she would never go on and on about the beauty of her eyes (hence the unlikeliness of my tongue-in-cheek script). The judgment of her would be cruel. And yet the glaring paradox is that we’re living in a highly narcissistic digital culture that encourages vanity. Just have a look at the comment threads of teenaged girls on Facebook, a fascinating study in vanity manners and disingenuous modesty. Often, they will post a flattering picture of themselves looking beautiful and then express surprise when friends respond with compliments. “Really?” they will write in the thread. “Thx! U R pretty too!”

Almost immediately (and inevitably), a video spoof of the Dove Beauty Sketches campaign surfaced, featuring men who report feeling great about their looks (one says he thinks he looks like a “white Denzel Washington”) while casual onlookers express otherwise. It’s tag line: “Men: You’re less beautiful than you think.” The humour was a powerful and confident response suggesting that, while women acknowledge the differences in vanity issues between the sexes, stereotyping them in such a simplistic fashion is just plain hilarious for all concerned, men and women.

And this is also why I don’t get too worked up about the perceived hypocrisy that a company that sells beauty products (including skinlightening creams in countries such as India) claims to be worried about how women are overly critical about their looks. Hey, that’s marketing, which I think most Western women get. And if they don’t, then they’re not paying attention, because just as we’re bombarded with beauty messages, so are we deluged with commentary about how we should be wary of them.

So, yes, the whole Real Beauty premise is just a cleverly subversive piece of communication: To avoid the beauty industry’s messages about what to look like, you should buy our product. But let’s be honest: In one way or another, women are complicit in these pitches about how to improve themselves. That’s what the fashion/beauty industry is all about. And if we choose to engage in it, it’s mostly because doing so is a lot more fun than paying income tax.

Most women, on the whole, are very aware of which aspects of their looks they like and which parts they hate. That’s life – unless you consult a plastic surgeon. Even Elizabeth Taylor, whose face was a masterpiece, hated her chin. It was too small, apparently. Not that she would have made note of that if she were asked about her appearance. And that’s because she would have known that we hate beautiful women who quibble about their smallest, inconsequential self-perceived flaw.

The spoof video:

Men are not their own worst beauty critics. Only 4% of men around the world consider themselves average looking. At New Feelings Time, we are committed to creating a world where illegitimate beauty is not a source of confidence.

This criticism has been echoed elsewhere, for example:

Reddit thread

Huffington Post

And some more silliness, to lighten things up:

Your balls are more beautiful than you think. Men are their own worst beauty critics. Only 4% of men around the world know how beautiful their balls are. We decided to conduct a compelling social experiment that explores how men view their own balls in contrast to what others see.

Marty Klein with a fresh take on sexuality and pornography.

Dr. Marty Klein, one North America's best know sex therapists, recently published a piece on pornography and sexuality. It's a much more nuanced view than you would normally encounter. He reinforces the idea of personal choice and acceptance. Check it out:

Rule 34: What It Says About Your Sexuality

Rule 34: If it exists, or you can imagine it, there is porn of it. No exceptions.

[...]

Rule 34 reminds us exactly what pornography is: a library of human eroticism. Pornography is a celebration of how humans can stretch their erotic imagination—sometimes in ways that disturb you or me. Nevertheless, pornography celebrates the erotic imagination BEYOND specific content. Like the ability to imagine the future, and the knowledge that we’re going to die, the enormous range of pornography is uniquely human.

Rule 34 also reminds us that people don’t necessarily want to do what they fantasize about. Sex with Kramer, George, & Jerry at the same time? Sex with a dolphin? Sex with someone about to be guillotined for stealing a loaf of bread? Sex with your grandmother at high noon on Times Square? A threesome with Batman & Robin?

[...]

Rule 34 helps us understand that about sexuality. Your porn isn’t right, it’s just your porn. That goes for No Porn, and Gentle Porn, too: it isn’t right, it’s just your way. And that goes for our sexuality in general—our way isn’t the right way, it’s just our way. A good sexual relationship involves people whose respective ways mesh: one person expands their vocabulary, or both do, or one narrows theirs, or both do. As long as people can fit together with dignity and celebration (um, there’s MY values again), it doesn’t matter what they do.

Go read the whole piece here: link.

Vice doc: Polyamorous unicorns.

Another post on the theme of not-to-everybody's-taste. But a poignant example of sexual and identity diversity.

From the description:

When a charismatic former alcoholic named Shaft had his life changed by Burning Man, he realized that he actually identifies as a unicorn. No longer able to face the monotony of work and life in the real world, he decided to form a polyamorous and hedonistic movement with other like-minded unicorns.

Donning glittery horns and galloping through London's streets, Shaft's unicorns set about trying to create a free-love utopia.

But as the unicorn revolution begins to clash with the realities of life and love, some of the "glampede" became disillusioned, and Shaft's reasons for starting this whole thing came into question.

Is this the hedonistic, free love revolution we were promised in the 60s? Or is it as fake as the unicorn horns they wear, a desperate and clever ploy by Shaft to escape his own inner loneliness by starting a cult?

When a charismatic former alcoholic named Shaft had his life changed by Burning Man, he realized that he actually identifies as a unicorn. No longer able to face the monotony of work and life in the real world, he decided to form a polyamorous and hedonistic movement with other like-minded unicorns.

Is it possible to be a feminist and like rough sex?

The feminist movement, in its various forms, has fought long and hard against gender power inequality and the oppression of women by men (intentional and unintentional).

When it comes to sex, power is almost always at play. And in the context of consensual sexual experiences, playing with power dynamics can be hot and a fun part of sexual experiences. Rough sex is an extension of power.

For opposite sex couples, it might seem that feminism and male dominance in the bedroom are incompatible. But that's not necessarily the case, as explained in this article.

From Mashable:

Can you be a feminist and like rough sex?
By Yana Tallon-Hicks

Slapping, choking, spitting — if a woman gets off on a little consensual degradation in the bedroom, does that make her less of a feminist?

Many women who demand equal pay by day and harder spanks by night wake up feeling conflicted (and a little bruised) about their two favorite F-words: feminism and fucking.

Almost every version of feminism has been hell-bent on equalizing power structures and fighting gender-based oppression. But those feminists who are also hell-bent on bending over in the bedroom — using those very same power structures to get off — may be faced with questions about whether or not their political walk matches their pillow talk.

“I love being spat on during sex,” says Zoe, a 28-year-old graduate student I’m sipping espressos with. “The nastier the spit, the better. Does that make me a bad feminist? Do I need to burn all of my Audre Lorde books? Give back my Smith College degree?” She tosses aside a lock of hair as she laughs at the ridiculousness of her own rhetorical questions. I wonder how many times she’s caught a loogie.

Of the 1,500+ self-described “kinky” women Jennifer Eve Rehor studied in 2011, the majority were found to have participated in “at least one of the following activities for their own sensual or erotic pleasure: physical humiliation, deprivation, punishment (physical), breath play, obedience/training, verbal abuse/humiliation, other forced activities and service-oriented submission/domestic service.” They did so in the role of the receptive or submissive partner.

Read the rest here, including the ways in which kink, rough sex, and feminism can work in harmony: link.

What Google searches tell us about peoples' sex lives.

Google makes all of its search data publicly available. According to Google, 100 billion searches are done each month. That means a lot of data. And because sex is something that is searched often, there is a treasure trove of sex-related search data for the taking. 

This piece in the New York Times by economist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz digs deep into the Google search data to tell us about our anxieties and the states of our relationships. There are a couple of nifty infographics that summarize his findings. The piece is worth a read - it's fun and informative.

From the New York Times: 

Searching for Sex

ARE you confused by sex? I certainly am.

One of the many reasons sex is puzzling is that we lack reliable data. People lie to friends, lovers, doctors, surveys and themselves.

Three years ago, when I was a graduate student in economics, I began to write about how new data, particularly Google searches, could give us fresh insights into socially sensitive topics. Since then, many people have asked me to write about sex.

I was wary because I wanted to do more research. Now I’m finally ready to report. Call it everything you always wanted to know about sex, but didn’t have the data to ask.

Let’s start with the basics. How much sex are we having? Traditional surveys are no good at answering this question.

I analyzed data from the General Social Survey, a classic source. Heterosexual men 18 and over say that they average 63 sex acts per year, using a condom in 23 percent of them. This adds up to more than 1.6 billion heterosexual condom uses per year.

And one of the infographics: 

Read the rest here: link.

TEDx talk on female genital cutting.

Female genital cutting (FGC), otherwise known as female genital mutilation or female genital circumcision, is the ritual removal of part or all of the vulva. It's practiced in regions of Africa and the Middle East, even though it's illegal in most countries. It tends to be most common in areas of greater gender inequality, where women have no options but to be married. The procedure is required to be eligible for marriage and is considered a rite of passage.

The theory behind FGC is that women will be overcome with desire and will have sex before marriage if their genitals are left intact. FGC is intended to maintain their purity by removing any structures that could bring them sexual pleasure, thus reducing temptation.

FGC is usually done around puberty, and in some places at much younger ages. Usually female village elders will do the procedure, and rarely ever is it performed in sanitary and safe conditions (by western surgical standards).

Gena (thanks!) passed along this TEDx clip of a talk by a woman struggling with her cultural roots as an immigrant growing up in Australia, in relation to her beliefs about FGC. Check it out. 

Khadija Gbla grew up caught between two definitions of what it means to be an "empowered woman." While her Sierra Leonean mother thought that circumsizing her - and thus stifling her sexual urges - was the ultimate form of empowerment, her culture as a teenager in Australia told her that she deserved pleasure and that what happened to her was called "female genital mutilation."

For more posts on FGC click here, here, and here.

What it's like to become a male escort.

Ever wondered what makes people choose to become sex workers, and what it's like to enter the trade?

Motivations to get into sex work vary widely. Some get into it because they love sex and the attention; for others, it's a matter of survival as their choices are extremely limited. For most, the primary motivation is money.

The following is from a blog run by a male escort in New York. Here's the opening from his account of entering the trade:

Becoming an escort…

I spent my 20’s in a marriage in which I was happy and fulfilled in every way except sexually.  I had next to no sex for 13 years.  After an amicable but very sad and painful divorce and a lot of soul searching, I made up my mind that I would explore any kind of sex I had the slightest fancy of curiosity about.  Anything.  I would never judge myself, shame myself, or allow myself to suffer from regret for this decision.  I was going to explore the profound kaleidoscopic spectrum of human sexuality…  Every kind of kink, every dirty secret, every taboo, every delicious, piggy, nasty iteration I could possibly imagine of the most primal and essential male act of fucking.  Escorting was right at the top of my sexual bucket list.  It’s classic ego-driven male sexual fantasy… If you’re an escort, that means your cock is so amazing, your ass is so tight and hot, your stamina so crazy, your ability to get hard so reliable, your moves are so spectacular that people will PAY to have sex with you. It’s the ultimate ego trip.  Ever since I was an underage clubber, I’ve idolized strippers, gogo boys, porn stars, and any other kind of adult entertainer.  I’ve always been hypnotized by them… The confidence, the total commitment to being a sex object, the jacked bodies, big cocks, the flirting… They were just so fucking HOT.  They had such power, they made all the men in the room hard.  Everyone wanted them!  I wanted them.  And being an attention whore since I was a kid, I wanted to BE one of them.  The idea of being one of them gave me both a huge boner AND a delicious ego trip, and that’s a powerful combination.

Go read the rest here (it's the post at the bottom of the page): link.

Video: Jam (as a metaphor for sex).

There is a mind-boggling amount of stuff packed into this 6-minute clip. Everything from sexual learning to relationships, identity, pleasure, and consent. The metaphor of a musical jam provides an interesting perspective and while not perfect for all people, it does impart some important wisdom.

From Karen B. K. Chan:

Video commissioned by the SexEd Project http://sexedproject.org for the exhibition "SexEd: Chapter 1" at Cuchifritos gallery Feb. 9-Mar. 10, 2013. A stop-motion animation by Toronto sex educator Karen B. K. Chan, Jam is a proposal for rethinking how we have sex. Jam proposes an alternate framework for sexual connection that comes directly from musical improvisation.

Pornhub's 2015 review: Porn, porn, and more porn.

For those unfamiliar with Pornhub, it is a pornography sharing website. It's the biggest porn site on the web.

Pornhub has its own data analytics team, and they regularly publish findings from the piles of data that they collect. You can check out their blog, Pornhub Insights, here: link . I've posted from the blog before (I love stuff like this).

Every year, Pornhub Insights publishes its annual review. It's long, and chock full of super interesting data. Here are some of the key, or most interesting, findings of 2015:

• 4,392,486,580 hours of porn were watched
• there were 21.2 billion visits
• the highest page views per capita belonged to the USA at 191 (Canada was 3rd with 165)
• average length of visit was 9 minutes and 16 seconds
• most searched term worldwide was lesbian; teen and stepmom were almost tied for second
• teen and milf were searched almost equally frequently worldwide (although teen still more)
• largest gain in proportion of searches was giantess (giant women), with a 1091% gain
• top searched porn stars worldwide were: Kim Kardashian, Mia Khalifa, and Lisa Ann - these three were far more popular than the all others
• 24% of viewers were women
• the average age of viewers was 35.3, but 60% were millennials (a skewed distribution)

Below is the first of many interesting infographics. Go check out the whole review here: link.

Purity balls.

Second post this week about purity balls. I can't help but be fascinated (I've posted about purity balls previously: link and link).

In many cultures, religious denominations, and families, virginity until marriage is considered sacred. Virginity is typically associated with purity, innocence, virtuosity, and thought of as a gift to a future marital partner. Loss of virginity prior to marriage is equated with being a used, cheapened, damaged, or otherwise unappealing (keep in mind this isn't the case for all people are waiting for marriage to have penetrative sex).

Women are often held to this standard much more so than men (a great example of the double standard). In some cultures, a non-virgin woman is unable to get married, and often times in those cultures, there are no options for women other than being a wife.

Purity balls are a logical extension of the abstinence-only approach in Western culture (particularly North American). If you're unfamiliar with purity balls, the following clip provides a pretty superficial glimpse. Keep in mind that it's from a mainstream American network, so it's a bit sensationalized.

Inside the Christian-faith ritual, where fathers vow to protect their daughters' purity.

Old-school sex advice.

From a 1959 issue of Sexology, courtesy of Modern Mechanix. 1959 is not that long ago. Click to make larger:

Other questions addressing such topics as enlarged vaginas, Spanish Fly, masturbation, and too much foreplay can be found in the other 10 pages. Link here.

Old-school sex advice.

From a 1959 issue of Sexology, courtesy of Modern Mechanix. 1959 is not that long ago. Click to make larger:

Other questions addressing such topics as enlarged vaginas, Spanish Fly, masturbation, and too much foreplay can be found in the other 10 pages. Link here.

Purity ball portraits.

Repost from Slate.

I really like this piece, as the way Magnusson describes his experiences shooting his subjects moves away from the judgement that typically accompanies pieces on purity balls. And the photos are pretty striking.

Striking Portraits of Fathers and the Daughters Whose Virginity They’ve Pledged to Protect By David Rosenberg

Photographer David Magnusson’s portraits of fathers with their daughters could almost pass for formal shots taken at a father-daughter dance.

Shot with a large format camera, the portraits, taken outdoors with a soft, blue-sky background are part of Magnusson’s book Purity, a series of young girls who have made a pledge to keep their virginity until marriage and their fathers who pledge to help protect them during their journeys.

Magnusson admits he had a strong reaction when he first learned of the purity balls. He thought mostly of gun-wielding fathers trying to protect their daughters. He began to explore the idea of the balls further, reading everything he could find, and reaching out to various balls to see about photographing the fathers and daughters.

He made four trips to the United States to meet with and photograph the fathers and daughters and said the more he learned and met with the participants the more surprised he was about his initial prejudices.

“I had the idea to photograph the portraits to illustrate how our interpretation of the world—and photography as well—has to do a lot with our own values,” he said. “Many of the instantaneous, strong emotional reactions occur when we experience a clash with our own values and what we don’t’ understand.”

Magnusson said it took around six months of reaching out to contacts before he was finally invited to Louisiana to meet with participants. He took seven portraits during that first trip and attended two balls.

“I showed portraits on stage with a tuxedo rented from Al’s formal wear talking about my work,” he said. “I was clear from the start of my intention of trying to visualize the father-daughter relationship.”

He began interviewing the people he photographed and said that also helped shape his ideas of the decisions the young girls had made along with their fathers.

“When you start listening to what separate individuals who are part of a group have to say, it suddenly becomes about people and not just about a group mentality. There are huge diversities within the group and reasons for why they choose these ceremonies.”

He learned that many of the young women were independent thinkers and their fathers were simply trying to protect their loved ones the best way they knew how. Magnusson sent portraits to everyone who participated in the project and said they were all very happy with the results.

“I find it so interesting exactly the same photograph can provoke such a different reaction from a viewer with a different background,” Magnusson said.

Purity, published by Bokförlaget Max Ström is Magnusson’s first book and also his first major solo exhibition. He said had he known the project would take up four years of his life, he might have been terrified to begin it. He did, however, know when to stop working on the project. “You realize if you continue you will change your project but not necessarily improve it,” he said. “You can change it the rest of your life but you hit a point when it’s done and ready to be displayed and if you continue working on it you will turn it into something different.”

See the rest of the photos here.

The Bodyimage Project.

Passed along by Afrooz (thanks!), via Dodson and Ross.

Projects like this are not new, and that's a good thing. Over the last several years, a few have sprung up. Their express purpose is to provide some balance to the highly produced and processed (i.e., digitally manipulated) photos of models and celebrities that you see in the media. These projects are fundamentally about diversity, and how diversity is good.

The Bodyimage Project by Marshall Bradford is still in its development phase. Given its early success, he's committed to something much larger, which will be coming down the pipeline in the near future. For the time being, however, he's posted some photos through his Facebook account.

From the description:

Image is everything. If you don't look like the media tells you to you will never make it in the world. Forget about finding love and happiness. That's what the pretty people get.

Or that's what we are told. I don't really feel that way. As a photographer in Las Vegas I have shot my share of high polish perfect modeling photos and I'm not saying I won't shoot stuff like that in the future. I am also an artist and to that end I have the need to try new things with my art.

My thought with this project I wanted to show what we really look like. I wanted to photograph people simply being themselves and being proud of that. People should love how they look and love themselves first. No matter the way you look you should remember that your happiness comes from within. That's the goal of this work. To allow the subjects own beauty to show. I have learned a lot starting this project and I'm excited to see where it leads me to.

Go check out the project and photos here: link (you need to be on Facebook; also, Facebook doesn't allow photos of genitals and breasts, thus the silly edits)