Misadventures traveling on the web.
In the last few days of 2024 I started again to play around with my BlueSky account. BlueSky is a social where you can post uncensored images. I opened my account last April, posted a few images and then forgot about it. At the beginning I disliked the idea that many people re-post others people contents. Recently I realized that it is common way to create new contacts and, as I’m on socials to find inspiration and new muses, I started re-posting what I like and can inspire me like, for example, this post originally made by Msjanssen – note: you need to login to be able to see her profile.
Yesterday I found a post by Valentine Delanque showing the following image:
That was posted with this description:
A photo by Sidney Kapuskar in all its glory. (Thinking about the disappointed sighs of the vulvas fans (with no hair) this place shelter. Bet they are so sad about the censorship of hair.
Last year I had the chance to work with a muse that arrived with hairs covering her intimate parts. I usually don’t have any special requests for my images: from my point of view the most important thing is that my muses, during the session, are able to drop all their masks and be whoever they really are.
I liked the image and the Valentine’s description so I decided to repost it with this comment:
Actually is becoming more and more a problem to find a muse with hair. Had the chance to work with one and loved the way the body looks much more natural, real, true.
Since then I always ask not to shave for our session to find out many women used laser and so hairs are not an option anymore…
Later Valentine commented as follow:
… i hate the use of the word muse and I hate that men discuss women body. I wasn’t talking about women who decide to shave here but just talking about the pervs who post shaved vulvas full frame in here talking about celebrating « women’s beauty ». I am all about supporting women in whatever they do
I immediately felt misunderstood and seen for someone I’m not: it hurt so much that I blocked Valentine.
Then the night brought a new vision and I decided to write back Valentine, trying to explain my point of view, so I unblocked her and, realized that I need more than 300 characters to answer, so I let her know that I was going to prepare this post and add a link to it on this blog.
Here is my answer:
I’m sorry I made you feel the emotion of hate.
We are all right and wrong at the same time, it only depends on the point of view we look at things.
Life is made by duality, as a matter of fact it cannot exist without a woman and a man; lately I understood that each of us lives both a masculine and a feminine side. Sometime this gets us confused so much that we end up in not knowing anymore who/what we are.
From my point of view we are all connected and are part of a huge unique identity that goes under different names, pending the religion we decide to follow.
I’m so sorry if I hurt you by referring to the women we try to create art together as “muses”, but there are some reasons for that.
All and each woman I’ve worked with, showed me their own side of the human being. A side that sometimes made me feel really good and sometimes really bad.Each of them made me learn something about humans and myself, making me a better human being.
Each of them inspired me by their own way of being, and for this reason they became my muses.
Of course there was no connection with everyone, especially at the beginning of my path in photography. However many of them took a special place in my heart and will be with me for the rest of this life – and hopefully future lives as well.
I understand your point about « women’s beauty » but I must say that I also try to understand the “other side”, even though sometimes is so difficult…
As a matter of fact I see a lot of technically good images with “perfect” bodies in beautiful locations, images that most of the time tells me nothing about the model and even less about the photographer…
With my comment I was trying to raise the point that nowadays I see people accept and love themselves less and less, bending to rules that are made by a system that try to separate people so that it can better manipulate them.
Something that I try to underline with my work in the hope I can inspire other humans in connecting with themselves first and all the other species on this planet as a consequence.
So, again, sorry if I hurt you and that you so much for giving me the opportunity to explain a bit about my vision.
While I was about to publish this post I realized Valentine blocked me: pity it could be a good starting point to grow a little bit by learning from each other point of view… she will hopefully change her mind if someone shares with her a link to this post.
This is one of the reasons I don’t like socials, the interaction is way too limited and it is so easy to misunderstand each other.
If you like Sidney Kapuskar image, you can find more of his work on this page.
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To be considered as a “muse” (and not a “model”) is really grateful to me, it just means I can inspire you, someone… that I can have a little part in Art, and this means a lot to me.
No matter hair, skin, scars… The important is to meet who can celebrate who you are, not a consensual picture of what you seem to be. Someone who can catch and need to share what you have to deliver… what else but your soul ?