Tag Archives: homoerotic

The Camera Loved Peter Johnson

Until now, I had avoided seeing Chop Suey (2001). The title alone suggested nothing that would interest me.

Then a friend encouraged me to watch it and followed up with a cryptic message.

“An elephant appears several times in Chop Suey. It might be the same elephant that wandered into the room and now refuses to leave.”

I knew exactly what he meant.

For those who have never seen Chop Suey, it is a documentary anchored around Bruce Weber’s relationship with Peter Johnson, a handsome high-school wrestler from Wisconsin who became a fashion model. Based on Weber’s photo book The Chop Suey Club (1999), it has been described as a visual memoir, using Johnson as a window into the director’s own youth, longing and pursuit of an unattainable ideal.

The film wanders freely between footage of Johnson and archival clips featuring the openly lesbian lounge singer Frances Faye, surfer Christian Fletcher, actor Jan-Michael Vincent, British explorer Sir Wilfred Thesiger, former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, and, amongst others, the elephant. I challenge anyone to understand immediately what the hell is going on.

But that was the nature of Weber’s filmmaking.

My friend’s remark referred to the recent controversy surrounding Weber, the photographer-cum-filmmaker who shot to fame in the late 1970s and helped reshape advertising throughout the 1980s by becoming one of the first photographers to present male models as overt sexual objects.

At the height of his career he could command more than $20,000 a day. Then came allegations of sexual misconduct and exploitation. Weber denied the accusations, and several lawsuits were later settled out of court.

There are simply too many good photographs for me to turn my back on him.

Speaking at the film’s release, Weber said:

“I just hoped this film might be interesting for students or anyone who ever picked up a camera in their life. It’s a film about how things don’t have to go in their normal progression. I hope that somebody in a small town somewhere might be inspired by it to go their own way.”

Everything in Chop Suey revolves around Peter Johnson and Weber’s fascination with youthful male beauty.

For somebody as shallow-minded as myself, that makes for compelling viewing.

Weber met the 15-year-old Johnson at Dan Gable’s Wrestling Camp in Iowa in 1996. Over the following four years he documented the young man’s maturation as he embarked on a modelling career and eventually started a family.

“I thought that Chop Suey might be the right name for a boy from Wisconsin.”

The documentary is unapologetically homoerotic. Johnson appears clothed, semi-clothed and fully naked. It feels less like voyeurism than the gaze of an artist worshipping his young, athletic and heterosexual muse, exploring longing, unrequited desire and the aesthetics of the male physique.

“Peter Johnson really got a great confidence in himself. He was able to look people straight in the eye, and he wasn’t embarrassed that he was a great poseur.”

Weber has been married to film producer Nan Bush since 1977, a fact that inevitably prompts questions about his own sexuality.

The camera seems hopelessly in love with Johnson, lingering over him in shot after shot. Weber saw in him something almost mythic: youth, beauty and a perfection that could never quite be possessed. Johnson, meanwhile, appears blissfully unaware of the spell he cast. He comes across simply as a decent small-town boy, happy to indulge Weber’s fascination but never defined by it.

When the filming ended, Johnson quietly stepped away from the mythology that had grown up around him. Rather than pursue immortality as somebody else’s muse, he chose anonymity, marriage and the raising of three children. In doing so, he achieved something far rarer than eternal youth: an ordinary life, fully lived.

So, was my friend right to suggest that I might like Chop Suey?

You bet he was.

Boys Burn Quiet: The Man from Baghdad Knew

He was called Sajjad, and there was something dangerous about him. Rumour had it that he came from Baghdad and had fled to Europe to escape death threats from an armed militia. A man probably in his forties, he sat in the corner of the small bar smoking cheap cigarettes and drinking zammù — a mixture of water and aniseed. He seemed to look at nothing in particular, yet you understood that he heard everything. When he spoke, it sounded almost aggressive, and that frightened most people.

Alfio whispered in our ears: “If that man speaks to you, you must answer politely. Ignore him and he might turn unpleasant.”

And so we pretended that the threat in the corner did not exist.

“Mithli?” the man called Sajjad barked.

We hoped the word was not meant for our ears and ignored him.

“Mithli?” he shouted again, and this time there was no doubt that he was referring to us. His tone was far from friendly.

“Omosessuale? Homosexual?” he growled.

Severin smiled nervously and nodded.

The man called Sajjad looked at us with contempt, and for a moment we expected him to pull out a dagger and slaughter us. Instead, he spat on the floor. Then he slammed his fist against the table, causing his empty glass to topple over and smash on the floor. He jumped to his feet and hurried outside, but as he passed us he grunted a single phrase:

“Abu Nuwas.”

And that was the first time I had ever heard the name.

Afterwards, I wondered whether the man called Sajjad truly hated homosexuals, or whether he had been trying, in some strange way, to show sympathy. Was he imparting knowledge to us? Or was he simply a man of unsound mind?

Later, I discovered who Abu Nuwas was.

Born in Iran to a family of mixed Persian and Arab heritage, Abu Nuwas eventually settled in Baghdad during the late eighth century and became famed for his erotic verse, as well as his love of the debauched and degenerate. He was celebrated as one of the most influential Arabic poets of all time: renowned for his wine and hunting poems, but equally notorious for the profane and provocative imagery he used to subvert the authority of the caliph and mock the excesses of the court.

In one verse he called sodomy the “true jihad”. In another, two young boys fall in love and, instead of praying five times a day, fornicate five times whenever the call to prayer echoes across the city.

In the Muslim world, eroticism was regarded as sinful, while homo-eroticism was considered something beyond the ordinary boundaries of sin. Yet Abu Nuwas wrote without fear of execution or ostracism — and remarkably, that still appears to hold true today.

There is a statue of him in Baghdad, created by the renowned Iraqi sculptor Ismail Fattah Turk. It stands along Abu Nuwas Street on the banks of the Tigris River.

It took a long time for his work to be translated, and not everybody welcomed it. In 2001, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture reportedly burned around 6,000 copies of Abu Nuwas’s poetry, condemning it as homoerotic and offensive to Islam.

I have since discovered two verses that are perhaps the best known of his so-called “homoerotic” works, and, in the hands of the translator, are distinctly modern. When I read them, I imagine the man called Sajjad reciting them aloud — perhaps choking on the words and spitting on the floor.

Love in Bloom
I die of love for him, perfect in every way,
Lost in the strains of wafting music.
My eyes are fixed upon his delightful body
And I do not wonder at his beauty.
His waist is a sapling, his face a moon,
And loveliness rolls off his rosy cheek
I die of love for you, but keep this secret:
The tie that binds us is an unbreakable rope.
How much time did your creation take, O angel?
So what! All I want is to sing your praises.

In the Bath House
In the bath-house, the mysteries hidden by trousers
Are revealed to you.
All becomes radiantly manifest.
Feast your eyes without restraint!
You see handsome buttocks, shapely trim torsos,
You hear the guys whispering pious formulas
to one another
(“God is Great!” “Praise be to God!”)
Ah, what a palace of pleasure is the bath-house!
Even when the towel-bearers come in
And spoil the fun a bit.

How beautiful maleness is, if it finds its right expression

There’s something sneaky going on in the subconscious — innocence, purity, chaos, sweat. Dirty white socks hit all of it at once. They spark that weird little thrill: the musk, the heat, the trace of someone’s body still clinging to the cotton. It’s a micro-kink, sure, but the power comes from whatever story you attach to them — private, charged, and way more psychological than you’d ever admit out loud.

Charlie / I will make him appear extremely homoerotic

Levi in the Bath – Charlie Marseilles

“Shameless. He floats naked in the water, the light rippling over chest and stomach. His lips, as if caught between a breath and a moan, his hand loose at his side like he’s waiting to be grabbed. There’s nothing soft about it – just flesh, need, and the unspoken dare in his stillness. Every line built for touch, for heat, waiting to be claimed. The invitation to take what you want. The sight is blunt, undeniable: he wants to be used.”

Charlie had taken his art in a new direction. He was bored, disillusioned with paintings of landscapes, objects and street scenes. A flirtation with what he called ‘art contemporain’ had ended in frustration. “Circles, squares, solid colours, lines, zig-zags … they mean nothing to me!”

The first that I knew about this new path was when I returned home to find Levi, our former lodger, sprawled on the sofa in just his underwear. “It isn’t what it looks like,” he flushed. ”I’m only doing it as a favour.”

Charlie shouted from the bathroom. “I am ready now. The bathtub is full and my camera is ready.” I was bemused to say the least.

Charlie wandered into the room. “Ah, you are home, mon ami. I need the bathroom for thirty minutes while I photograph Levi.”

The Polish boy with the Yorkshire accent followed him along the corridor and into the brightly lit bathroom. With a certain amount of embarrassment he stepped into the bath. “Lay down, Levi, and put your head underwater. I am going to stand on both sides of the bath and take photos from above.”

I watched from the doorway and listened while Levi was told to take deep breaths and submerge himself. Then he had to raise his right arm, then his left, and then both of them together. All the time, Charlie was precariously balancing, taking shot after shot.

When they had finished, Levi stood up, looking satisfyingly toned, and dripping from head to toe. Charlie looked him up and down. “As I suspected, you have a little dick, but we cannot all be lucky. You can get dry now.”

“I feel stupid,” Levi told him, “and I haven’t brought any dry boxer shorts.” Charlie flicked through the images and appeared not to have heard him, so I went to a bedroom drawer and gave him a pair of mine to change into.

That night Charlie spent hours searching for the right photo. The next morning he visited a local print shop and had it blown up to the size of a small poster. He placed it on an artist’s easel and studied it. “I am going to use this photo to create my next painting,” he announced. “If it is successful then I am going to start painting beautiful men from now onwards.”

I reminded him that there had been a time when he would have considered Levi anything but beautiful. “That was the case,” he replied, “but I needed somebody that I knew who was willing to model for me, and when I have finished, I will make him appear extremely homoerotic which is something he is definitely not.”

It’s a beautiful sound. And it’s a sound that I love

Image: Archer Iñíguez

Flup, flup, flup, flup. That’s the only way to describe it. Flup, flup, flup, flup. It dawned on me that the flup, flup, flup, flup had a regularity about it. Maybe every thirty minutes, never more than forty five, but the sound can be heard from early morning to late evening. When does a sound become a sign? I suppose it is when you want it to be. That flupping noise is made by Kieran, the farm boy who I’ve known since he was fourteen. That was five years ago, and now he’s grown into a handsome young man of nineteen. He works in nothing but a pair of filthy old denim jeans and a pair of wellington boots that flup along the road so that you are never in any doubt as to where he might be. I thought that farmers would be busy milking cows or ploughing fields, but Kieran spends his days flupping along. I end up waiting for flups and hide behind a wall to watch him stroll by. His bare chest will be covered in cow shit, and hay, or any other agricultural detritus, and it becomes fantastically homoerotic.

That Moment / It is sexual and sensuous, but might also be threatening

Something stopped me in my tracks.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

I had to think before answering.

“The role that concealment plays in the eroticism of underwear calls attention to the body beneath. But at this moment, there is so much writing on the waistband of your Calvin Kleins that I need to make sure that there isn’t a warning attached.”

Yes, I know what people say about guys with big feet

“It’s been a tough day,” Tom said. “Let’s take a walk and we’ll sit outside a coffee shop.” And in that cold winter sunshine things started to look up.

He sat back, put his long legs on the table, and drank his latte. I noticed that he had extraordinarily big feet.

“I’ve just realised that I didn’t put on clean underwear,” he remarked, and then he took one of ten thousand puffs on a blackberry, blueberry and raspberry vape. Tom was the coolest guy in the world.

I tried to say something clever, but it sounded like “mwah,” and he gave me a funny look.

And so, I made discreet notes on my phone before realising that the guy standing behind me was reading everything, and I hoped that he wouldn’t say anything that might embarrass me.

It is hard, just as cruel as it is glamorous

Image: Pablo Pamucio

It was long overdue and might have been a mistake, but I checked the email repeatedly, and it was certainly meant for me.

The photographer was from Brazil, and he’d chosen me after looking at my online portfolio. This wasn’t going to be a fashion shoot for a glossy magazine. Pablo had a reputation for taking raunchy images, and I hoped that he might make me look like the boys who made me feel inadequate.

The email didn’t give a lot away, but I knew there would be a lot of flesh, and the images might end up on the right side of Tumblr’s community guidelines.

I’d been to photoshoots before and hoped that it didn’t involve a room full of ego-driven males.

Don’t get me wrong. I know a lot of easy going guys, but there are many more self-centred boys involved. It’s an insecure business, one where you’ll be gone by the time you are thirty, and beneath the bravado is the fear that it can quickly be taken away.

The reality is that agencies no longer look at your body or looks. They are far more interested in how many Instagram followers you have, and that puts added pressure on. But that isn’t everything. I have an Insta-famous friend who does a lot of major campaigns and almost nobody knows who he is.

On the day, I turned up at an old factory located in the East End. It was split into separate business units, and Park Studio was on the second floor.

I walked up the staircase with its peeling walls and realised that money hadn’t been mentioned. The shoot would offer little financial reward and fell into the category of providing exposure only. I wouldn’t be leaving my job at Waitrose anytime soon.

I was relieved to find that there were only a handful of people present, those who made things happen. Photography assistant, stylist, make-up artist and the guy who handed out coffee.

After the obligatory hugs and kisses, I was directed behind a screen that served as the changing area. There was another guy who was half-undressed. He was called Luca and was from Italy. We blushed as we swapped our cheap underwear for snowy white Calvin Kleins.

We walked across to the big screen that would serve as the background to the shoot and made small talk. I discovered that Luca’s girlfriend was waiting outside.

At times like this, you mustn’t be self-conscious. Even when you’re practically naked next to a straight guy who you’d assumed was also gay. I was anxious not to make a fool of myself.

Pablo ignored us, played with his cameras, and barked orders about lighting and shading. When he realised that the main event was before him, he gave instructions as to what we should do, explaining the postures he wanted, and the way we had to interact.

The theme was ‘Boys Who Tease’ and that required Luka to be the dominant one, holding, touching, slinging me over his shoulder and placing his arms around me.

This went on for hours, Pablo firing shot after shot, and inventing new angles in which to enhance his standing in the photographic world.

We’d arrived well-groomed and smelling sweet, but by the time Pablo had burnt through his umpteenth roll of film, we were sweating under the hot spotlights, and he complained that our bodies were wet and glistening.

The assistant threw us towels and we wiped each other down. I told Luca that I was enjoying the experience, and he cocked an inquisitive eye.

For the final shots of the day, I had to crouch in front of Luca, who stood motionless with his arms by his side. Pablo told me to close my eyes and tilt my forehead until it touched the band of his Calvins. I was only a hairbreadth away from his crotch, and the slightest movement would have meant that my nose rubbed against his dick.

This was a tricky situation.

Pablo said to hold the position. I tried not to breathe, but I could sense Luca’s trembling body, and smelt baby oil and talcum powder on him. I was scared that I might embarrass myself, and started thinking about my checkout job at Waitrose, about what I might eat later, and about Luca’s girlfriend waiting in the street outside.