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the idea of being female
I was in my twenties when i read a book by Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe. Quite amazing and changed my perception of women for good.
There was one paragraph that boiled things down for me. In it Simone explained how the mere fact of having a monthly event that you cannot control and which can and very often does have a powerful impact on how you feel, changes your self perception. Men don't have periods, there is nothing totally outside of our control that shapes how we feel.
According to Simone this leads to a different perception of self, one that is not as stable, unshakeable. Now, me being male obviously doesn't allow for more than guessing on what all this means, but it really stuck with me.
I find genitalia an interesting subject to paint. But i try to do it in a rather non-sexual way, if that makes any sense. I do not want to evoke arousal, or not very much of it, but rather another kind of interest.
It is a borderline walk and one can easily go down the road of being too sexual. Don't get me wrong, i have no problem with art being arousing, after all, painters had made good business for centuries being the pornographers of noble people. Yet i myself want to touch on the subject from a slightly different angle, still showing everything, but at the same time not going "there", if you know what i mean.
Or maybe i am just a hypocrite ...
