Blasphemy! Cane them! Blasphemy!
You might think that it’s been awhile since allegations of blasphemy featured prominently in threatened legal proceedings. You might think that, but you’d be wrong.
If it’s true, as it seems to be, that these photos were taken in a working church without the permission of its owners and proprietor, I think we can righteously condemn the photographer as being — at least — a bit of a prat. But I confess, when I look at the photos, it’s not hard to imagine an alternate world in which they are the documentary record of a schoolgirl field-trip outing gone bad due to youthful high spirits and insufficient chaperonage:
Whatever the proper degree of condemnation for the photographer in our world, in that alternative fantasy world I think we all know what ought to happen to these young ladies for their blasphemous conduct. Just think, what would Abel do?
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If part of what has fueled my fascination with BDSM/spanking all these years is the deep seated and indoctrinated conviction that it is somehow “wrong” and outside the boundaries of socially accepted behavior – a conviction that makes my passion burn even hotter – then this photo shoot leaves me almost breathless. If it were shot in an art studio, with lush drapes and burning candles, I don’t know that I’d bother with it other than to say that it’s tastefully done; tame, but well crafted. But the forbidden nature of the setting is just so… what is the right word?
As they say in real estate, “location, location, location…”
Dear Spankboss,
I find this most interesting, perhaps for a slightly different reason than some.
First, the artist is really an artist, not a porn producer.
Next, the quality of the photography is high: most of the spanking pictures produced in the last 10 years have been of horrible quality. There are fewer and fewer practicing photographers: digital cameras mean that ANYONE can produce a clear image. But the photographs are often awful overall and the impact of the photograph sorely lacking.
Thanks for posting this.
THis is a really nice photo set. Nothing blasphemous about it.
As someone who would rather the church stays out of my sex life, I see it as only fair that I don’t impose my sex life on the church.
Shame, because they’re nice photos…
I do so object to being called a ‘bit of a prat’!
As ‘John’ said in this thread, I am an artist before all things and as such, being a prat is secondary to the production of art. Any man and his dog can call themselves a photographer in this digital age. All it takes is a camera and a copy of Photoshop. If you look beyond these ‘church’ photos and consider the fact that my website features all kinds of fetish imagery and sexuality you’d see that above all what I promote is tolerance in all it’s forms.
You guys and girls so fond of spanking are lumped with all the other sexual deviants by polite society… Yet BDSM features quite heavily on my site. I do believe that I actually feature a cane or two. Do I criticise you for your tastes? Or do I support you?
Let the man that lives in a glass house throw no stones eh?
Thank you those that commented for the compliments, I truly do appreciate them.
LOL — in one breath you object, and in the next, you admit the charge!
Hey Andy, thanks for stopping by.
Most in our spanking community believe in basic civility, just like regular citizens, just like we were taught in kindergarten: ask before taking a cookie, thank you when we do. Is it the case that some regular citizens don’t pay us the same respect because we’re perverts? Sure. Does it matter? Not really.
If you want to claim that The Mandate Of Your Art Drives You To Flaut Convention And Frees You From the Dictates Of Civility, well, OK. Society needs artists and they do tend to be a rebellious and unconventional lot. But if you’ve got to break some eggs in order to make breakfast, what then is the point in objecting when somebody calls you Andy The Eggsmasher?
Seems to me, you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too.
Hi Spankboss,
I believe in civility and respect as much as the next man but, to ask? to shoot in a church? What would the answer have been?
To do what I had to do as an artist I chose not to ask beforehand; Andy the Eggsmasher I like far more than Andy the Prat. Art does make artists flaunt convention and as artists sometimes we have to free ourselves from the dictates of civility. Many artist produce controversial work and I for one am not the first… Take Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ or Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary and they are just as offensive to Christians if not more so and in my mind quite incomprehensible. I don’t care what essay you write to justify your art in some meaningful ‘this is a visual representation of the abuse I suffered as a growing teen’ angst, at the end of the day you’re still offending people.
At least I was honest after the fact in so many ways. There was no justification to what I did other than I wanted to do it. I didn’t set out to offend anyone and kept what I was doing quiet for quite a few years before I got caught out. As a man that believes in God I wasn’t offended or sickened by what I did. Though many religious people were. I truly believe that God and worship are more than a house of bricks; a church by bible definition is a gathering of people not a building. Who makes that building holy? Not God; men do.
God is the main factor here and God is everywhere. God is in a field of poppies or a secluded forest glade as much as He inhabits a place of worship made by man. Are Christians as morally offended by the people that shoot nudes on a beach? They should be… The bible states that all sin is equal.
To me this isn’t about religion at all. It’s about property and trust. It’s about a building owned by some people left open for use by some other people with the expectation that it would be used with a certain sort of respect.
You came along and abused that trust. In my eyes, that makes you, yes, a bit of a prat, however high-minded and artistic your motives.
I don’t want to make a big fight about this; that’s why I said “a bit of a”. I wasn’t trying to levy heavy-handed moral condemnation here; just doing my version of a bit of a tsk-tsk.
I’m not even very clear why that bothers you. You seem to welcome controversy; well here I am, the conservative soil controversy needs in order to gain some traction. Without a few people like me, controversy would be impossible, right?
I believe in being nice to people, in not abusing trust when it’s offered, and in not taking advantage of some poor old parish priest who is responsible for a beautiful old church but who doesn’t have the staff or the energy to keep an eye on it for all the hours when the doors are unlocked. I don’t particularly believe in God, so I don’t give two hoots about what actually happened in the church. I just don’t think you get to “free yourself from the dictates of civility” and then dodge the extremely light opprobrium that gets dished out by your fellow man for doing so. And that’s what, in my mind, I was doing with my “bit of a prat” choice of phrasing … dishing out just a smidge of mild, modest, minor social disapproval.
If you don’t like it, don’t go abusing the trust of country priests. Or setting yourself above “the dictates of civility”. But if you must do those things, For Art, then by all means do them, and… maybe have a slightly thicker skin when people criticize you for your choice?
Because it hardly seems fair that you seem to want to have it both ways… you want to enjoy the transgression and to enjoy an immunity to even the mildest criticism for it. And that baffles me.
Okay… I completely understand the argument about property and trust and I’m guilty as charged. I really am! But. Let me throw a question out here.
Would you and the public mete out the same condemnation to all of those photographers that go urban? Urbex? http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums
Why is ‘urbex’ accepted by the public and celebrated and published when all of the buildings used then are supposedly owned by someone else? What is the difference between shooting in an abandoned hospital, mental asylum, school or railway building, often when the photographer has to ‘break-in’ to what I do?
Why is urbex photography seen as socially acceptable where what I do is not?
Well, for one thing you’d have to go and have that argument with somebody who had heard of “urbex”, because I haven’t. So I’m not one of the ones who considers all that “socially accepted” or is in a position to defend it.
For another, you describe those properties as abandoned. The property you and I are discussing? Wasn’t.
Seems like a huge and obvious difference to me.
The English language is rich and varied. Why on earth would you use the phrase a bit of a prat? He certainly took a liberty! And being an “artist” as he terms it excuses nothing. However the church has been taking liberties for thousands of years so I really wouldn’t worry about it. For my money you owe the gentleman an apology.
I used that phrase because, in my judgment, it best communicated my opinion of him. That still being true, why apologize?
Perhaps you should try and improve your vocabulary, you may then be able to express yourself without belittling other people. Then again, it may be you don’t care because in your judgement you are right!!
My vocabulary is fine. I expressed myself just as I desired to.