Subversive Visions

From “My First Time with Paige – Nearly Nude Among the Lavender Bushes”

I’ve now creatively collaborated several times with Paige, and there are many sets to come, even before we get to the next photoshoot we’ve already scheduled with each other relatively soon. She is one of a small handful (She’d appreciate the obvious pun that she’s more than a small handful, both behaviorally and physically.) of models with whom the experience is so enjoyable that I allow myself to imagine we could actually be friends.

That’s not really something that could ha...

From the set "Elly Doms Deanna"

In a previous set, Deanna took great pains to give Elly a lot of pleasure. Now, Elly takes pleasure in giving Deanna the pleasure she derives from pain.

Elly pulls at Deanna’s ropes. She tickles her toes along the flesh of Deanna’s inner thigh. She teases Deanna open with a well-placed thumb. She applies the spiky Wartenberg Wheel to Deanna’s most sensitive surfaces above and below. And after she gives her some strokes with the flogger, she eases back against Deanna’s hands befo...

Jennifer Jones - A Happy Accident (In the Shade-Shadows)

If I were designing my camera - I'd put the "Interval Composite" option MUCH farther away from the Interval Images option. But, as often happens when you're trying to create art, some very interesting results can occur when you least expect them. Here are a few of the images from a set of 88 available elsewhere.

And I promise, I'll get back to the blogging within a few weeks. In the meantime, lots of sorting, editing, and posting to do. So enjoy the pictures and, as always, let us kno...

From "Deanna Doms Elly"

Just photos with this one. We'll get back to the blog shortly. In the meantime, enjoy these and look forward to "Elly Doms Deanna," and "Deanna Offers You Elly."

Elly - In Various Stages of Being Tied and...

Still trying to decide about whether the blog tier should be just $1/mo, with the images available at a $3/mo level. Thoughts?

Some Spencer - in case I get any patrons again in the future.

Great set with the great Spencer Parks - not much more to say at the moment. Thinking about a tier where patrons can read the blog for $1/mo and see the pics for $3/mo. I'd ask if you have any thoughts about that, but at the moment I'm the only one with access to read this!

Revealing Details: Why I’m Still an Evangelical (Part Four: Biblicism)

[We’re considering four aspects David Bebbington cites as characterizing Evangelicals from 1730 to the 1980s. This is the third most important element, per my experience among North American Evangelicals.]

Consider any book you read. Authors, editors, publishers, publicists, bookstore owners, and even friends and family members hold opinions regarding it. Because books, fiction/non-fiction, single author/edited anthology, simplified for popular consumption/impenetrab...

A Brief Black-and-White Break with Vivian Cove

Why do we tend toward divisive definitions, forced options, and an us-them mentality that lines we humans up against one another so often?

One Social Psychologist says it’s because we’re "Cognitive Misers." We like what we know better than whatever we have yet to learn. Therefore, any known fact, belief, or experience is defined in terms of "X" and "not-X." Whatever is incompatible with what we know, believe, or have done (which is "right") must be "wrong."

For example, politi...

Revealing Details: Why I’m Still an Evangelical (Part Three: Activism)

[We’re considering here the four characteristics that David Bebbington cites as denoting Evangelicals from the 1730s into the present. (His book was published in 1987.) I’m discussing them very briefly, in reverse order of their importance as I’ve experienced those priorities among North American Evangelicals.]

David Bebbington describes a wide range of Activism in which Evangelicals engage. Some limit themselves only to efforts at converting and congregating those who wi...

Revealing Details: Why I'm Still an Evangelical (Part Two: Definition)

Despite the frequent abuse and misuse of the term, the word Evangelical really doeshave a definition. In 1987, David W. Bebbington published Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s in which he set forth four qualities that had been consistently comprised within Evangelicalism. Evangelicals, he found, held to Biblicism, Crucicentrism, Conversionism, and Activism.

In his book, though, as he explores the historical developments, he...

Revealing Details: Why I'm Still an Evangelical (Part One: Intro)

If I am a follower of Jesus (I consider myself to be.), does any other labeling matter?

Yes, actually. Here’s why.

All Christian traditions and denominations have occurred due to dialogue (becoming debate, and diatribe, and disastrous divisiveness in too many cases). And dialogue is a good thing. It can help us know, for example, why Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians differ on one particular issue (organizational decision-making) when they agree on so much els...

Description or Prescription? (Part Six) – What does Jesus think about all this?

Among theologically-Evangelical scholars, Hebrew scriptures usually take second place to the Greek testament. The question, despite all we glean from Genesis 1-3, is “What did Jesus think about all this?”

Jesus’ radical views on marriage constantly raised theological controversy and political conflict. For that reason alone, all of those teachings are worthy of careful consideration. But one in particular, His contradiction of the Sadducees’ beliefs in Matthew ...

Deanna by the Window - as I take a brief break from the blog.

From Deanna: By the Window – Three Sets in One

The delightful Deanna deserves decisiveness. And that’s what you have here. Despite appearances, this is not the indecisiveness that comes from having too many choices of editing styles. Instead, you get the advantage of our decisiveness providing you with all three edits of the 28 wonderful images here.

In the original set, the overcast skies provide a lovely, artistic sidelight from the window by which she stands, sits, and stra...

Description or Prescription? (Part Five) – How do humans represent the image and likeness of God Themself?

In Genesis 1:26, God Themself describes Their pattern and purpose in creating humankind. “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness.” We are created as a tangible representation of deity’s interrelationship: one God, eternally existing in three Persons.

Even this early in scripture, the Trinity seeks to explain Themself – not just to humankind, but through humankind. It is not just our existence, but our relationships and behaviors in which the nat...

Description or Prescription? (Part Four) – What was the original sin?

What do we know so far? [1] Careful scripture reading requires that we determine what is description and what is prescription. [2] The primary passage in Genesis (3:16-19) about “Biblical marriage” is a descriptionof the damage done by The Fall, not a prescription for normative, healthy, blessed sex. And [3] the original commandments given by God Themself began with the prescription that we should “be fruitful,” whether or not that results ...

Description or Prescription? (Part Three) – What was the original prescription?

Instead of a prescription for the place and practice of sexuality, Genesis 3:16-19 gives a description of how traditional marriage became a symptom of our damaged sexuality. We have generally adopted the disease as though it is the cure. Where and how, then, do we find normative, healthy, blessed sex? If cisgendered heteronormative monogamy is not God’s prescription for sex, despite what most Christians claim, then what are our relationships supposed to b...

Description or Prescription? (Part Two)

A description = “This is what it is.” A prescription = “This is what it should be.” For more on how those two become confused, see Part One. But confusion is not always the issue.

Some on each side of this divide in my life (astride both the theologically-Evangelical Christian community and the LGBTQIA+ community) purposefully interchange the two.

Theologically, the failure to differentiate description from prescription is most damaging in Genesis 3:16-19. Portrayed as pre...

Description or Prescription? (Part One)

“This is what works for me” is a description. “This is what works for everyone else” is a prescription.

In dialogue about our spirituality, sexuality, or other philosophical topics, it can be nearly impossible to hear someone else’s description of “what I choose to do” without taking it to be a prescription for “what you should choose to do.” Likewise, when I find something that is eminently beneficial to me, it’s hard not to describe it in such a way that sounds lik...

"Subversive" How? 3 of 3 posts

"When you say that your Visions are Subversive, what does that mean?"

There are three facets to my Subversive Visions. In the first, subversion means removing the mistaken assumptions between my two communities, the Queer Community and theologically-Evangelical Christianity. In the second, subversion looks at the message of scripture beneath (sub-) scripture verses that many lift out of context (usually to support patently unbiblical beliefs). The third focus of these Subversive Visions...

More Mina (by mistake)

Here's a bonus set showing what happens when Mr. Big Thumbs hits "interval-composite" instead of the interval setting that lets me keep my hands busy with other obligations during and between images. 

Mina ended up doing the sheer-wrap/Dance of a Single Veil three times in all...with a great attitude and work-ethic that honored the vision I'd apparently communicated well enough to inspire her...well, at least her patience with the process(es). 

In addition to the set we ...

"Subversive" How? 2 of 3 posts

"When you say that your Visions are Subversive, what does that mean?"

There are three ways that I consider my visions to be Subversive. This is the second.

As an Evangelical, theologically speaking (see the first of these three posts for why that's important to note), my subversion is also directed at a practice that distracts from and even destroys the three-part dialogue of scripture, prayer, and community.

Puritanical fundamentalism relies less on comprehensive reading/st...

"Subversive" How? 1 of 3 posts

"When you say that your Visions are Subversive, what does that mean?"

There are three ways that I consider my visions to be Subversive. Here's the first.

In the traditional definition, to subvert something is to tear down, remove, or hinder a structure or system, a power or authority. In our society, two such structures are designed to "keep things (or people) in their place."

What made me subversive is that over the course of decades and decades of ministry in various venue...

My First-Ever Patreon Post - ft. Vivian Cove

It seems fitting that my first-ever Patreon post should feature the model I have shot most often, and through whom I have become acquainted with several other wonderful models and photographers as well. She also speaks kindly about me, enhancing my reputation before others even meet me. Of course, this also raises their expectations of both my personality and my skills. So...double-edged sword, that.

The shots above are from a wonderful shoot just this past weekend. Of the thirty or so...