OCTOBER 2020
Prior to this project, I knew very little about Gender Fluidity. Yet, I found it fascinating. I explored this topic with friend Andy Roefels, who is the model for this series.
I learned something; Gender Fluidity is a perilously vulnerable act. Insecure individuals may see willingly-vulnerable people as a threat; A freed individual may expose a void in another. Survival, then, becomes necessary: Conform in public, but be yourself in welcomed settings. The result, unfortunately, is that one discounts themselves to protect insecure strangers from that void... Overcoming this paradox has to be a monumental task.
When that realization clicks from within; What you feel is infinitely more important than what strangers think... This moment has unrecognized social benefits: Loving and caring for others is infinitely easier when you internally realize that love... A basic concept realized after a complex journey.
It's only lipstick, right? After the photoshoot, the photo’s subject shared this small technicality with me. The rules of one object change when applied to a different gender. We've normalized cosmetics on a woman, but not a man. An absurd convention... Moreover, we ostracize those who break the rules: "How dare they make me feel insecure about my societal notions? Keep them away from me." What a sad society we are.
Some gender-fluid individuals prefer to flaunt a decorated outfit with jewelry befitting to their most honest selves. It's as though these individuals commemorate themselves when reaching a highly-valued level of self-contentment. A decadent display of respect for one's self and body.
What piques your desires? The right detail plus past experiences can stimulate one's arousal. However, we compartmentalize our desires into nurtured, oversimplified buckets of sexual orientation. Perhaps some of us compartmentalize these feelings as a method to escape our insecurities... But, desire is desire and nothing else. Let that guide you.
I wasn't far off when I first thought of "play thing". I was later told that the ability of choose is the play thing: which outfit, hairstyle, jewelry etc. fit a specific mood? This is important because a gender fluid person is in control when exercising this choice.
Hair does not naturally split like this but collapses into one entity…
At first, I thought this was a victorious stance. The photo's subject helped me extrapolate that it's the final form. The naturally conceptual fusion of male and female; No gender has a monopoly on certain human traits and/or characteristics... Indeed, Gender Fluidity is nothing short of fascinating.