Innocent or Prurient

I grow bored of trying to figure out (let alone argue in defense) whether it's prurient or perfectly innocent, but I take delight in any opportunity to strip completely naked outside of the house, especially in the midst of a public environment - even if I am doing so in a private booth, albeit with the hustle and the bustle of the marketplace all around me.

Fitting rooms and family restrooms are ideal for this, although I have to admit to occasionally eyeing those photo booths you see at the mall longingly, with their flimsy curtains and dangerous vulnerability (and photo evidence to take home with you!).

Most people get dressed before leaving the home, remain dressed all day, and only disrobe after returning home. To mix up that continuity by getting naked at any point during the day, outside of the home, is exciting, in a way. I guess whether that feeling is motivated by prurient or innocent intent is a moot point, after all - because as long it's done behind a door or a curtain, it's completely harmless either way.

Hiatus

You may have noticed lately - what with the belated posting times, relatively uninspired photos, and lack of writing to accompany them - that I am struggling with this daily project. I was out of town all last week on short notice (that is, without enough time to prepare a week's worth of quality material), and that's just the tip of the iceberg. So, though I have some great photos from my travels I am looking forward to sharing, the truth is, my basic living conditions - that had previously facilitated this project so well - have changed, and I don't have the freedom I had planned on having to cater to my artistic whims. I can't even guarantee being able to celebrate all the holidays I wanted to celebrate (beginning with an absentee St. Patrick's Day, and continuing through a lackluster Easter).

Instead of struggling to stay afloat, I think it'd be better to take the pressure off and just focus on making the best pictures I can when I can actually manage to do it. This isn't the project I wanted to present to the world, but there are some things in life you just can't control. I have a hard time committing to defeat (especially because it's not my desire to give this project up, but the inaccessibility of the conditions I need to complete it), so I'll continue posting as long as I have something to post, even though I've already become very lenient on deadlines. But if service becomes intermittent at any point, or you encounter a hiatus, well, at least now you won't be surprised.

Covered

As anyone who's ever drafted a public indecency law has surely learned, delineating which patches of skin should be considered "indecent" (when neighboring patches less than an inch adjacent may be deemed perfectly acceptable for public exposure) is an exercise in arbitrariness. That's why these things often focus on landmarks like nipples/areolas, pubic hair, and the genitals themselves (e.g., penis, scrotum, labia, anus). After all, how should one measure the curvature of a breast, or a pair of buttocks?

[description: portrait of a hairless nude torso, with hand covering the genital area]

As it is, though, removing one's pubic hair limits the amount of real estate that must absolutely be covered, giving you some measure of leeway - who's to say if that particular patch of skin lies within the "pubic area" if it is just as hairless as any other? The imagination thrills at the possibilities!

Living Deliciously

[description: fashion selfie in a Satanic t-shirt and tight jeans with erection peeking out]

When I stumbled upon this t-shirt online, I had to have it. It commemorates my favorite scene from The Witch - in my opinion, one of the greatest horror movies of this millennium (not to overhype it, lol). In this scene, the last survivor of a Puritan family living on the outskirts of colonial America, after being rewarded for their divine fervor with the unrelenting torment of an indifferent universe, is given a tantalizing offer by the devil, who asks, "wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" It's not that he's asking her to sell her soul (although it could be interpreted that way), but more that he's giving her permission to enjoy the good things in life (like frolicking naked in the woods, and relishing the pleasure of sexual ecstasy), something her Puritan ideology forbade, and for what? Unending suffering. So why not try the alternative? God wants you to suffer. The devil just wants you to have a good time.

Now let's get real. Blind faith is not a virtue. It is a handicap. Just because I question the authority of men who claim to speak for God, does not make me evil. If I do not believe in a God, it does not mean that I do not believe in goodness. And if I relish antagonism against the church, it's because I rail against the bureaucracy of spirituality, which is a perversion of the divine. God does not dwell in houses made by human hands. Lucifer is the protagonist of the Bible, a courageous rebel standing up to an authoritarian (and genocidal) ruler. Satanism is virtuous in the sense of its original etymology - not as a form of worshiping darkness (a Hollywood fantasy), but standing in the role of God's accuser, demanding justice for wrongdoings. If God is evil, then Satan is our salvation. Consider that the devil is stereotypically depicted using imagery of pagan gods - a literal case of demonizing foreign cultures, committed wholesale by Christian imperialists. The truth is more complex than those who would whitewash history for their own benefit want you to believe.