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Original poster

The Guardian, again

32 replies

AnnaMagnani · 27/11/2023 16:53

DH drew my attention to this bonkers article in the Guardian about a man who had a collection of polaroids he had taken of women on his TV, usually undressing.

These are currently in an art exhibition, not incinerated as the stuff left by a dead weirdo, as the person who found the photos then found another of the man himself wearing a bra.

I quote:

Girard believes this single self-portrait changes how we should view the My TV Girls collection. “This is the absolute key to deciphering the mystery enveloping the work,” says Girard. “Tom Wilkins was not a pervert. This archive was a documentation of what he wanted to become.” By taking the pictures, Girard believes, Wilkins appropriated a female body. “That’s the mystery and genius of it. This shows how, in photography, you dive into your subject – you become the subject.

Can I propose another more obvious solution, that he was a pervert, this is how you generate porn in the era before VHS and the internet, and it takes a bit more than putting on a bra to have a female body?

Honestly. Although I was impressed how I've radicalised DH.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/nov/27/creepy-weird-mystery-my-tv-girls-fetish-archive-tom-wilkins

‘They were creepy, a bit weird’: the mystery behind the ‘My TV Girls’ fetish archive

Tom Wilkins took photographs of famous women on his TV screen, often undressing. Was he a peeping tom? It seemed possible – until an astonishing self-portrait emerged

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/nov/27/creepy-weird-mystery-my-tv-girls-fetish-archive-tom-wilkins

OP posts:
Janinejones · 27/11/2023 17:27

Restinggoddess · 27/11/2023 17:10

I notice more husbands are ‘getting it’ when it comes to this issue
Keep going folks - common sense will prevail….. eventually

-common sense will prevail- Or. . .
We will do the right thing after exhausting all other possibilities!

fedupandstuck · 27/11/2023 17:22

"The shots convey a fascination with women’s bodies, and in particular a fetish for nightgowns, bras and breasts. Although they are images of images, the way the photographer appears to view women in the notes is reductive and degrading. It makes viewing them an uncomfortable experience, as if looking through the eyes of an obsessive, misogynistic stalker."

It is an uncomfortable experience, not "as if" looking through the eyes of an obsessive misogynist stalker, it is because you exactly are looking through the eyes of an obsessive misogynist stalker. The possible motivation being in doubt because of the single photo of this man in women's underwear doesn't change anything.

I am unsurprised by the fact that a second man has managed to use the women in these photos for his own aims/profit once he discovered them.

Original poster
AnnaMagnani · 27/11/2023 17:20

@Restinggoddess DH's rant was a wonder!

'This very minute there are thousands of teenage boys wanting to appropriate a woman's body, doesn't make them women, makes them teens wanking' was said, amongst other things.

OP posts:
zanahoria · 27/11/2023 17:12

Initially they thought he was just some bloke compiling wank material from the telly but on discovering he was wearing a bra and knickers they have declared him the Leonardo de nos jours.

Is he alive? We must find this genius who walks among us

Restinggoddess · 27/11/2023 17:10

I notice more husbands are ‘getting it’ when it comes to this issue
Keep going folks - common sense will prevail….. eventually

NecessaryScene · 27/11/2023 17:08

Tom Wilkins was not a pervert. This archive was a documentation of what he wanted to become.

That's a fascinating pair of sentences, with it's elided logical link. Which is that "wanting to become a woman" is normal, therefore we assume that must be the perfectly normal reason for what he's doing.

You could just as easily write:

Tom Wilkins was a pervert. This archive was a documentation of what he wanted to become.

If you take the view that "wanting to become a woman" is perverted in itself, or you acknowledge that it tends to occur along with a whole bunch of other male paraphilia.

Or even if you don't take a perverted-or-not view on "wanting to become a woman", doing that doesn't automatically give you a free pass on all the other stuff you do.

This Girard guy is the Family Guy bartender. "Oh, you're transgender? I had no idea. Do whatever you want, all the time."

Or maybe he just knows what buttons to press to get zero-effort "art" exhibition and newspaper space in 2023...

ValerieDoonican · 27/11/2023 16:57

Fucksake