February 4, 2000 -- 12:13 AM EST

NOTE: Possible offensive nude images of late 1800's erotic stereocards. Skip to the index for another entry.

I pitched a mild hissy when I found two of my photo books out in the garage. They don't belong there. They are out-of-print books! One has a little damage on the corner but nothing too evil. I get mad when one of the "nice books" has something happen to it. I pay quite a bit of money for those! I don't give a horse's patootie if one of the iguanas poops on one of my $5.99 Agatha Christie paperbacks because I can go get another. I get mad, but I don't get ANGRY.

I keep the nice books away from iguana reach though because if anything happens to them I get more than mad, I have conniptions! I don't pay $50 and over for books to get pooped on or torn, or live in the garage exposed to bugs and humidity or UV fading!

These are compiled by Serge Nazarieff and they cover early erotic photographs and stereocards. One of my photo instructors wanted to know where I had gotten them because she was so excited -- stereocards are rare, and nude stereocards even rarer and book collections of them are even rarer still.

I told her I got them at Fairvilla and she was surprised and decided she needed to go there then. For those not in the know, Fairvilla is one of the largest adult stores here.

I am in the process of buying most of the "good" books out of there. It makes me laugh that the only place I can get quality books about erotic art and art history is right next to the skin mags and the bondage gear. Sometimes Borders and Barnes & Noble might carry a few, but rarely do I find them there so I don't hold my breath.

I think they had the right idea way back when, with stereocards. While I personally don't need visual masturbatory aids, if you are going to jack off to a picture, isn't it better to do it to a photo you can view in 3-D? I think so!

I have this desire to Xerox some of these and mount them on cards and then build me a stereocard viewer so I can see naked ladies in 3-D! So far I've only gotten around to Xeroxing two, but I'll get there. Eventually.

Yet another of my strange hobbies.

Stereo cards when viewed with a viewer appear in 3-D

Anyway, there is a lot of story going on behind these photos. A lot of the women in them simply needed the money and would do anything to get it. So that part is sad. I talked about that once long before in another entry somewhere.

But the part I do like is that I get a chance to look at nude female bodies before.

• before arm pit and leg shaving
• before the mega make-up
• before hairspray and gel mania
• before color photography
• before the cheesy leapordskin outfits and the baby oiled bodies and deep tans you see in in skin mags today
• before stomach and thigh and butt obsession and boob jobs

Some of the poses don't change -- the wide open beavers and the line of women in a row bent over showing their fannies. After a 150 years, we've been through all the poses and then some! That's why I am not interested in today's porn. There is no originality, and bad color balancing, and the women are too altered.

I do like these though, from 1850 right on through to about the 1930's. And that's pushing it. You get somewhere around there and then it does nothing for me, it gets too much like today -- too altered. Too thin, too made-up, too nasty, too lacking in finesse.

I don't get excited looking at pictures of some woman getting a facial. I might get excited about a picture of me getting a facial, but not some random woman and some random man. I have no emotional connection there and I can't invoke sexy feelings without feeling some emotional spark.

Art vs. porn; erotica vs. smut. Art and erotica invoke feelings for me, so I can feel passionate or sensual or even just appreciative. Porn and smut just makes me feel bored and annoyed.

"Hey, Paul, how come if these skin mags are geared toward average men as fantasy eye-candy junk, they don't show more photos of the bald, beer gut guy getting it on with all the babes instead of these hulking Mr. Universes? Isn't the point to project yourself into the image? Do you think men run around feeling unmanly because they don't look like Mr. America? Like some twisted body image thing happening?"

"I never thought about it that way, but that makes sense."

"Ok, so why do you like to look at porn?"

"I like women. Women are beautiful. And I don't want a relationship with any of these women. I have a relationship with you. All I want is eye candy. I really don't pay much attention to the guys. I just want to see women. And it pisses me off when they are too thin or have boob jobs. Some other guy might like that, but I don't. "

"So why do you subscribe to like, Playboy, and not Lesbian Lust? Lots of women, no men, most of the time, pretty normal looking. Well, normal for magazines."

"This is going to make you laugh, but I really do like reading the articles!"

"But if you could invent your idea of perfect erotic materials, what would it involve?"

"Details."

"Details?"

"Details. See a cunny, you've seen them all! I'm in it for the details. Look at these two women in this layout. The colors are soft. They are sitting on a swing. The whole visual theme is like Victorian romantic stuff. Here we see her face in profile, and she is dressed with the laces just untied. Not removed, just untied. She's pulling at the other woman's laces and all we see of her is the back of her head and her bare back. Look at the way there is tension in the fabric while she is tugging at her dress. Details!"

"You are talking about erotica then. Where one image is striking, and your imagination can take over and build on that. I can see why you like that photo the best." I waved my hand over the entire layout to where the girls are finally naked and the obligatory open beaver shots come in. "All this together though, is like some prepackaged fantasy dealie where you don't even have to exercise your imagination. Like we've gotten so lazy or controlled we don't even want to fantasize by ourselves but need someone else to map it out for you. It's so 1984!"

"1984?"

"Julia. The girl who wore the red sash for the Junior Anti-Sex league but dates and screws Winston. She works in the sex department generating sexual media for the proles to help keep them under control. So they vent off steam and frustration through sex and not get to a point where they mutiny. That kind of junk."

"Oh, the book. I got confused there thinking about the year like time."

"Don't you think it's like 1984?"

"I haven't read 1984 in a very long time and I just want to sit here and read my articles and look at eye-candy and just not be thinking for a while and you keep asking me these questions! ACK! Can't we have a discussion later? It's not that I don't want to talk to you. I just want to not be thinking for a while. Is that so bad!?"

"Fine!" I laughed. "You go ahead and sit there and look at your old poopy pictures and read your poopy old articles and I will go look at mine, Winston!"

He looked grateful. "Thank you, Julia!"

My erotica collection involves the stereocards, art history books, paintings, drawings, stories, etc. I get more out of reading an erotic story than looking at some blond lifting up her skirt at me. I guess I also need details -- mood, setting, environment. An empathy, a connection.

The stories I like best to read need to be as "real" as possible. No seductions of alien creatures (too weird), no violence (hate it), no "was that a dream?" endings (cop out).... I guess I am just as picky about what I want to read as I am what I find erotic to see.

Where was my point?

Oh, right: I don't think women spend enough time looking at bodies of other women so they can stop looking.

Like, if you are going to be looking and comparing yourself to what you see, could you at least look at more than the magazines on the racks next to the check-out line? Really look?

White, black, yellow, red, green, orange women? Tall, short, wide, narrow, smooth, bumpy, fit, unfit women? Baby, girl, teenage, adult, elderly women? Long hair, short hair, no hair women? Glasses, contacts, pierced, tattooed women? Famous women, non-celebrity women? Porn model women, Victoria's Secret women, Reader's Digest women, Geriatric Quarterly women?

The empathy? The connection? Look! We are all different, yet we are all women! You look fine! Every single one, right now, just as you are. Ok, let's stop looking now. Seen all there is to see. Every female form can be a work of art in it's own right!

(And send me Body Gallery photos, gadnabbit!)

~Astrophe

Website: The Body Gallery
Website: The Real Women Project

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