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Posts Tagged ‘Peter Berlin’
iN MY ROOM : TEENAGE HORMONES & FANTASiES
As an adult I can look back on my teenage years with a certain appreciation. Looking back on some things, like teen crushes for example, can be funny and quite revealing. Not to say being a gay teen in small town Manitoba was easy, because it wasn’t. Part of the frustration for me was that despite the right of passage for all teens to hit puberty and develop acute sexual frustration/curiosity – I never really had an outlet for sex. I kept most of my fantasies and curiosities tucked away in the corners of my own pubescent mind, where I could avoid judgment and preserve what turned me on. You wouldn’t fine me taping pictures of RALPH MACHiO in my locker or giggling with the girls about how dreamy JOEY LAWRENCE was (but in hindsight I’m sure the girls would have gotten it).
Weather you were the girl in school who had posters on her wall of PATRiCK SWAYZE in DiRTY DANCiNG or anyone of the NEW KiDS ON THE BLOCK – or the guy who secretly masturbated to CiNDY CRAWFORD’S PEPSi commercial, it was clearly a normal part of growing up to develop crushes. For me it was safest to develop said crushes on figures I never had to worry about offending or being beaten up by – which sounds funny but its true. So instead I developed my ideas of what a sexy man meant to me, through listening to music or watching television and films. These characters represented, for whatever reason, what I wanted to embody myself in some way, or at the very least – who I wanted to be sexual with.
In honor of our inherent right to explore our sexuality as teens – I’ve come up with as close to a comprehensive list of my own personal TEEN-AGE DREAMS that I can recall. I mean it when I say its our right to dream – because weather you are gay or straight, popular or nerdy – pretty or damn ugly – you must acknowledge your own teen crushes, in the name of all that is funny and nostalgic.
I did begin to notice some re-occurring themes and characteristics shared by all these TEEN DREAMS as I did my research. In no special order these commonalities appear to be:
1. All these men have/had a penchant for tight pants. Whatever that says…
2. They all seem to enjoy heavy posturing and/or showing off.
3. Virility levels are off the charts for most of them…
4. If they weren’t ‘pretty’ there were pretty damn ugly…and these dueling traits carried over to my eventual relationships in reality… food for thought.
All in all – it doesn’t take much for me to recall what it was that originally attracted me to these men – so without further interuption, here they are in alllllllll their glory for YOU to apprecaite!
Who were YOUR teenage fantasies?
THE POWER of PETER BERLiN: HEDONiSM PERSONiFiED
PETER BERLiN (aka Armin Hagen Freiherr von Hoyhingen-Huene) is a notorious gay porn star of the early 1970s, best known for his groundbreaking films THAT BOY and NiGHTS iN BLACK LEATHER. He is also my number one iNFLUENCE in terms of figures who helped shape my outlook on sexuality and what alluring means to me. He certainly made this boy appreciate the art of how to dress seductively – in a way that presses all my right buttons. These influences have undeniably found there way into my own photography – as not only can I relate to his methods (he is an incredibly private man who did his self-portrait work alone) but I also relate to his sensibility that the male body is actually sexier when dressed provocatively. His alter ego, better known as PETER BERLiN is not unlike my own CC TRUBiAK, in that I take from the idea that if utilized effectively, clothing can enhance a character and even provoke because they are often an extension of who we are. Never having been one to get too excited over full-on nudity – I am and remain considerably more affected and turned on by revealing and alluring clothes that enhance what are my favorite parts of the male physic. Even in today’s over-saturated world of porn I find his erotic images timeless in their raw sexuality – and therefore they have a bigger impact than the plethora of male nude images floating around on the net. What they lack comparatively to say the imagery of PETER BERLiN is what BERLiN did best : highly suggestive clothing cloaked in full-on hedonism.
Not only a photographer/porn star he’s an intelligent man with a sensibility I also relate to regarding the working process of photography. What is less known is that the countless covers and photo layouts of PETER BERLiN in gay magazines through the late 1980s were all taken by BERLiN who is himself a professional photographer. His assignments routinely took him to Paris, Rome and London where he photographed celebrities including SOPHiA LOREN, CATHERiNE DENEUVE, JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO, BRiGiTTE BARDOT, ALFRED HiTCHCOCK, JEANNE MOREAU, MAURiCE CHEVALiER, RiCHARD WiDMARK and the clothes designers: PiERRE CARDiN, KARL LAGERFELD and VALENTiNO.When BERLiN turned the camera on himself, he played each of two roles on different halves of the separately exposed negatives wearing his hallmark crotch grabbing costumes (all designed and executed by BERLiN). Even less known, is that PETER BERLiN is a gifted graphic artist. When the handling of black and white negatives in the darkroom occasionally resulted in prints that were slightly underexposed and grayish, he used his touch up pen and brush to darken the lines and increase the contrast. Soon he was using oils, acrylics and watercolors permitting him to enhance, embellish as well as colorize his black and white prints.The next step was the complete transformation or elimination of the backgrounds. He also started cutting up his photographs and creating collages with single or multiple self-images using different backgrounds from magazines including their covers and interior street and nature scenes. BERLiN’S talent as a graphic artist is perhaps best shown in his detailed pencil drawings which are well represented in this first exhibition of PETER BERLiN’S. The body of PETER BERLiN’S creative work defies easy characterization. He challenges conventional notions of art and pornography and is perhaps alone with TOM of FiNLAND in having created iconic images of masculine drag.
For PETER BERLiN’S official website, go to www.peter-berlin.com.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku3likUTIv0&feature=related
