i haven't made a personal post in awhile... i've kind of just been keeping that in my diary or in private convos and the occaissional discord vent channel, but this has been bugging me and i think someone out there would probably share the same frustrations i guess.
so, i was in the city the other day on a department-wide field trip to a few museums and galleries in the area, and i had a lot of fun and felt very deeply inspired (i might make a separate post about a breakthrough i experienced on this trip, maybe not, i have like 3 other blog ideas i've had stored away for months now and haven't touched...). my favorite part about that trip was the tamara de lempicka exhibition in the first museum we went to. i don't think i've heard of her up until that point, either that or it was a couple of years ago in my late modern and contemporary class that i didn't pay as much attention to as i should've, but now i'm hooked on her work. they had a few of her nude studies on display and wow, it made me want to go back into conte again (why did i ever stop?) and do more figure studies for fun... and her nude paintings, god i was so enamored. the women in the paintings were allowed to enjoy themselves, it's a total subversion of the male gaze and a reclaimation of their own bodies and pleasures. i ended up getting postcard prints of the girls, springand la belle rafaëla. whenever i showed my (non queer) friends what i got or talked about the exhibit and how much i loved it, i would get met with "oh of course, you're a lesbian i'm not suprised". i got tired of that very quickly (and this is far from the only time something like this happened). like yeah, my lesbianism does play a part in it, but it's not as big of a role as people made it out to be. i was also thinking about the forms, how the artist made these paintings for her rather than for the male gaze, and dammit i think i can just appreciate how bodies look considering i fucking have one and you do as well and i'm literally an artist who draws people 99 percent of the time. my queerness is simply a layer above all of that and is not the full reason i was drawn to her work.
when people say that to me, it's like they're telling me they think that i only ever think about sex and only like nudity in art because i get off to it or whatever. whether they realize it or not, they are contributing to the harmful stereotype that queerness is inherently perverted and is only about the sexual aspects... i usually just laugh it off and not think about it too much, maybe even play into it a bit, but something about that day made me realize how fucking tired i am of it and how i should stop contributing to that. it wouldn't make sense if my straight friend was telling me about a nude painting of a guy and i go "oh of course you liked that one since you're straight", so why do people think they can say things like that to me? don't get me wrong, i do partake in the more sexual aspects of queerness, i've sought out sexy art because it's sexy, hell i even read yuri (like actual yuri as in porn, not just the fluffy gl no sex just cute relationship stuff), but i'm not like that all the time and people seem to just not get that. i'm tired of being boiled down to borderline sex pest. i feel like it's hard for me to look at or create art like that because i'm worried about people not knowing why and just thinking "that's her being a homo as usual, nothing more to it" and it's affecting my work and how i navigate the world. whenever i see a portrait of a naked women there's something deep down in me telling me that i need to avert my eyes like how i'd try so hard not to look at the victoria's secret display window in the mall when i was younger... i feel dirty in a way. i'm actively fighting that of course, and i'm trying to let myself reclaim my sexuality the way those women in the paintings have done. i need to just let people be wrong about me i guess. it'll be a very hard thing to do and due to certain conditions i might not be able to fully shake it, but i need to continue to live my life in spite of that.