CarnalNation

Some of you may have read my article on nude modeling, and how it has affected the way I view myself, sexuality, art and society. However, being naked is a very different experience for individual men, and our culture looks much more favorably upon female nudity in general than it does on male nudity. So, wanting to find out what it is like to be a male nude model, I spoke with Arthur, who talks here about power struggles, sexuality versus nudity and why images of naked men make so many people so uncomfortable.

"I started nude modeling about four or five years ago," says Arthur. "A friend of mine was modeling and he looked really great. I was a bit jealous, and I wanted to know, what does it feel like? What does it entail? Will I like it? So I just started modeling for drawing classes."

When I first began modeling, I felt fairly comfortable taking my clothes off (after all, I’d been doing it for years – and hadn’t been paid for it either!) So what did it feel like for Arthur?

"Well, I started taking my clothes off in public even before I began modeling," he says. "I used to be very prudish. Then, one day, I looked in the mirror after a very sunny day and I saw a brown upper body, a white middle part and brown legs. I thought, why am I always wearing swimming trunks at the beach? So I started sun-bathing nude. That was about eight years ago. And, with that experience of public nudity, taking off my clothes for a group of people felt safe for me."

I know that the photographers I work with respect me, and I know they are not going to harm me. However, as a petite female working with men who are physically bigger and stronger than I am (often at locations they are more familiar with than I am), the fear that they could harm me is often somewhere deep in the back of my mind. As a man, did Arthur have this fear when he first began working with photographers two years ago? Are there power struggles between him and the male photographers?

"I felt more anxious at first than I did with the drawing classes," he admits. "With a photographer, it’s more intimate. With a group, it’s not intimate. It’s just you playing a role and being looked at by other people – and you know that those other people, because they’re part of a group, are forced into that role as well. With an individual photographer, because he’s alone with you, you’re not quite sure what role he will take. But I’m strong and big and I’m not easily scared. I don’t have the feeling that the photographer could hurt me – it’s not even a thought in the back of my head.

"The one thing though, if you’re talking about power, is what happens afterwards: what the photographer does with the product. When you sign a contract, you have something fall back on, but you’re still very vulnerable. Will it appear in a place that I would rather not see it appear in?"

The Internet has really changed modeling, as it has all other facets of life. For example, one photographer recently told me that finding nude models is much more difficult now, compared with ten years ago, because many people are concerned about their images going onto the world wide web.

Indeed, before I began modeling, I had to ask myself whether or not I was comfortable with the idea of people stumbling across nude photos of me on the Internet. These days, many people would enter my name into Google before I interviewed them for an article (as I would them). Would I feel comfortable with interviewees seeing nude photos of me? Ultimately, of course, I decided that yes, I would, because I see nothing wrong with it.

However, while Arthur does not believe he is doing anything wrong either, he does not speak with his co-workers about it. "There’s still some residual fear that they might think it’s weird or that modeling might be viewed as a vain thing to do," he says. "But then, maybe it’s bad for me not to trust them, because what I’m saying, essentially, is that they can’t see the difference between nudity and sex.

"I think that’s one of the major misconceptions about being naked, these days. People tend to think naked equals sex, and that’s just a false equation. You’re naked under the shower, you’re born naked – being naked is not just about sex. You could even say that sometimes being naked is less sexual, less seductive than being covered in a very sensual way. Naked is just as is."

Sexual or not, society does have different views of female nudity – which is generally accepted – and male nudity, which is much more taboo. Why is that? What’s our problem with male nudity?

"Well, I can’t speak for women," says Arthur, "but I think for men, seeing another man naked can be threatening somehow, especially when that naked man looks better than they do. Also, I think when a man looks at a picture, he wants to see something that pleases him, and women please (hetero) men. Traditionally, men are hunters, and women are prey, and when a man sees a naked man, he doesn’t see prey, he sees another hunter. Maybe it’s a little unnerving to see a hunter in the position of prey."

But are issues with naked men linked to homophobia? Are straight men afraid they will "turn gay" if they looked at a picture of a naked man?

"Anybody who thinks they’ll turn gay overnight has a very strange way of thinking," says Arthur, laughing. "Say I’m a heterosexual man and I’m looking at a picture of a beautiful woman in a magazine. Other men would walk by and say to themselves, he’s looking at a picture of a beautiful woman – that’s a man! But what if he’s looking at a picture of a naked man? The first thing another person will think is, he must be gay!

"Now, think about a situation in which a woman is looking at another woman in a magazine. Would you think she was a lesbian, or would you think that she’s probably comparing herself to the woman? There’s something different, and I don’t know if it’s cultural, or if it’s a natural difference between the sexes, but men are generally uncomfortable seeing other men naked."

Photo credits:
Slide: Harry Linschoten
Top right: Hans van den Brule
Bottom left: Uncredited