If you have a stomach for blood, check out Jim Duvall's photos of me with lots of
blood in a bath tub. If you don't, they are a series of photos of me "using" a straight razor to cut my wrist, covering myself with blood and masturbating. (Good lord, I just wrote that, didn't I?)
There has been a lot of fussing and arguing and discussion about these photos. It has been wonderful seeing so many people talking about art that I helped make. The most fascinating part has been reading all the the motivations that have been assigned to the creators. I thought I would share my story behind my involvement in these photos and my part of the collaborative process.
I've been squeamish about blood, needles, hooks and cuttings ever since I found out people did that in their BDSM play. For being the kid who used to pick my scabs so I could suck the blood, and the menstruating woman who had no qualms about getting messy, it seems strange upon contemplation. I spent some time recently trying to figure out how blood play came to be something I was squicked by.
When I was 17, Planned Parenthood implemented HIV screening. The receptionist really pushed me to check the boxes of risk factors I wasn't sure of, because "it's better to just say yes if you aren't 100% sure the answer is no." So, I had had blood drawn for the first time in my life to test me for a really scary disease no one knew a whole lot about except that it killed you. When you are nervous because something is new and scared this new thing will uncover terrible information, one is understandably going to make some associations. The nurse took two very small (5cc's or less) vials of blood and I exclaimed in panic "You're taking too much!"
Another correlation is that I had a hysterectomy before I got involved in the public BDSM scene so my relationship to blood had changed by the fact that I could no longer bleed for 5 days and survive. My opinion for the last 8 years has been that my blood should stay inside of me.
I've been poking at this fear of blood play a bit since I began dating Jim, mostly because he gets off on fear and I figure this is something I can give him that won't be psychologically damaging for me. I have done needle play with him a handful of times. Literally, five times. I have done a hook pull. A dear friend who is fond of medical staples has had a go at me twice. Mind you, this is over a 5 year period. I was slowly edging into doing more with fantasies bubbling up of more intense blood related scenes. Mostly keeping them as fantasies.
And then I saw a scene that made it possible for me to grok bloodlust. I was out at Paradise and the lovely
Lorelei and a play partner of her's set up in the middle of the field, him braced against a stone pillar and her dressed all in white, including stylish white sunglasses as eye protection. She began the scene using a chainmail flogger to "bring the blood to the surface" and just as it started to break his skin, she switched to piercing him with largish gauge needles. Now, he had done a bit of research and determined how he could decrease the clotting factors in his blood for the express purpose of having a bloodier scene. When Lorelei pulled the needles out of his back, the blood streamed down. She resumed flogging him and on every back swing, that chainmail flogger left more blood on her white outfit. The splattering was quite artful. Every few strokes, she would pause a moment, sometimes even pressing into him, making bloody marks on the front of her hips and breasts where she had hugged him.
I really understood the concept of blood lust watching that scene. The blood pouring out of those piercings was so full of life. The rich red colour was astoundingly beautiful. Passionate is the word that keeps coming to mind. The life force represented by his blood and the way she reveled in it was mesmerizing.
Yeah, I wanted to feel that direct connection with life force.
So, I boldly asked a friend if she would want to do some blood play with me, perhaps in the context of a photo shoot. If something is for art, it's always easier for me. She and Jim started talking about using his claw foot tub as the centerpiece. A date was set for her to draw my blood and the rest is history.
Now, I have had very little experience with suicide so it's not as an emotionally charged subject for me as it is for others. While I did do a tiny bit of cutting as a teenager, it wasn't something that I did with regularity or sincerity. For me, being in that bath tub with my own blood sprayed all over me, it was all about reveling in that life force. I was covered in blood red passion. Literally, blood red. The texture of the blood was enticing and sexy. The idea that I could touch the essence of life was overwhelmingly powerful. I became giddy during the shoot an it had everything to do with playing in that taboo substance.
When we filled the tub and the blood tinged the water, my experience changed. Bathing in life giving blood is profound. I was in a primordial womb of my own making. Emerging from that bath was like birthing myself. The fear I had once had about my blood being outside of my body seemed silly, now. Having your blood outside of your body didn't have to be traumatic and dangerous. Facing one's fears does not always yield the expected results. I certainly didn't think I would be so excited to do something like that again.
This account doesn't mean that all of those other thoughts and opinions about those photos aren't valid. Not in the least. Art means whatever it means to you. There is no right answer. Yes, the artist is often trying to communicate something. And it's ok if what you see in art is different than the artist intended. Really, that can't be helped. Good art gives you a chance to
see something inside of yourself. It confronts your beliefs and feelings on any given subject, sometimes in a jarring way.
