'TV for the Boys'

This is the scene recently in Las Vegas, Nevada when some of

the 'boys' involved in the adult entertainment industry decided to

share their wares with customers. In essence, this is like a showroom

display, only instead of a bright shiny car in a showroom, or a train

set, they are showing some 'adult entertainment', which has

increasing traction and acceptance now not only in the US but in much

of the Western and part of the Eastern world. Your ratings and

critiques are invited and most welcome. Please do not make this a

plebiscite on whether you like and/or accept 'adult entertainment';

it is a social comment on its prevalence. If you rate harshly or very

critically, please submit a helpful and constructive comment to help

improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy (if that's your thing, or at

least be enlightened if it is not)! John (I am reminded that this is

an 'adult' web site and note this is posted, as are all my photos, in

the interest of photographic merit, and -- like many of my photos --

for its social comment). jc (Adm. see comment below)

This is posted, as are many of my photos, for 'social comment' and artistic merit, and not for titillation. I do not make a business of posting 'nudes' generally or 'controversial' photos and do not seek controversy.

 

This is from the floor of the the Adult Video News (AVN) convention in Las Vegas this year which drew over 100,000 attendees, and this photo is one scene from that convention.

 

Posting it was a judgment call of mine, and if you choose to override my posting and censor, that is not of overriding importance to me; it is your site. Previous such postings have been allowed; see last year's post from same convention, which were well received (also as social comment and for artistic and photographic

merit).

 

I have no desire to 'test bounds' or 'break rules' -- if Administration finds it objectionable, please contact me and take whatever action you feel appropriate in relation to this photo.

 

(for the record)

 

John (Crosley)

 

Addendum: April 17, 2008

 

This has received rather 'normal' attention with a good number of 'views' since it was posted earlier this month, and the Administration has not contacted me, and this photo remains posted in my portfolio here.

 

I cannot be sure if this is what Richard Nixon called 'benign neglect' by the Administration or if it means that 'under the circumstances' of its posting, as explained above, it is accepted, or even if the Administration is blind to its having been posted here.

 

If they are aware if has been posted, I am thankful to them them for allowing you, my viewers, to share in this capture, for it tells more in one photo about the status of 'porn' in our society than I could write in several thousand well-chosen words.

 

J©

Do you think you may be watching the decline of modern civilization, the fall of another great Empire. no faith in our leaders, lust and perversion become more main stream. some people who see life in a bigger picture know it is coming, not all people see history and ignore it, I think one of the best examples of this is the Roman soldier on a American Express card! Those who forget the past are condemned to the future! I'm sure the greedy will say I won't be here when it happens! A wise man told me there are four things that make you, who you are, commitment, courage, compassion and conscience! (Don't look back) I'm sure you are just an outsider a photographer, I looked at some of your portfolio and see you photographer war also. Be careful!

I am a bit lost here: this way the boys do not see the tv screen. One boy is hidden behind his hands. The boys are quite a bit more grainy than the tv image. I getteh initial idea, but not why you worked it out like this.

Your comments are so thoroughly thought out and so sincerely held, obviously, that I feel there is little to add. Your belief I understand is that the country is essentially 'going to hell in a hand basket' to borrow a once-popular phrase, because of pornography.

 

But this is sex for pay, and that's the world's oldest profession. It was written about in both books of the Bible - the Jewish Bible (Old Testament) and the Christian book (New Testament).

 

Being a 'profession' doesn't make it good, and mention in the bible does not legitimize it.

 

After all, the Bible told us to stone adulterers (to death) and had numerous stories about all sorts of killings, even among family members; in fact the world got its start by a fratricide among God's grandchildren (Cain killed Abel).

 

And of course, Cain and Able, being the only children of Adam and Eve, then were left entirely alone on this earth. (yet somehow, somewhere, and without any mention in the Bible of where they came from, Adam and Eve's children were able to marry.

 

Where did those two young women come from if Cain and Abel were the only children of the first and only humans -- Adam and Eve. So, that's a great mystery, and one not solved or resolved by a strict construction of the Bible.

 

Jumping ahead, camp followers followed every major army in history, and your reference to the Centurion on the American Express card -- is that just an allegorical reference, or does it have some meaning that I missed.

 

Certainly the Romans also had 'camp followers' -- paid sex workers or women who traded sexual favors for protection and money from troops.

 

The U.S. Army recognized that soldiers wanted and would get sex, and so they invented the condom and distributed it widely in World War I, so their men could have that sex more safely and not get gonorrhea and syphilis, two horrible and disfiguring (even deadly) diseases.

 

Later, during the '20s and '30s, brothels were a common thing in many (maybe even most) American cities and towns.

 

I'm in Watsonville, California today, and it is a staid farming community with many very religious, conservative people, but once it was a community of brothels that served a huge nearby army fort, now decommissioned (end of cold war bonus).

 

In fact, brothels were common everywhere in my grandfather's day (and my father's youth).

 

It was only after World War II that all those soldiers who wanted to be fathers met up with their brides, and somehow in growing influence of modernisation, brothels no longer fit in so well.

 

We had won the world's last great 'necessary war' and the victory resulted in returning soldiers settling down -- no need then for many prostitutes.

 

Of course, I lived for a while in Nevada and in all but three of their counties, it's 'local option' -- there are brothels down past the school, turn right at the service station (now a filling station), four blocks from the hotel, on that old dirty cul de sac, (where the tourists never look - only those who are in the know, know where to look.)

 

And there they are, sometimes one or two and even sometimes five or six brothels. (You can see one of them featured either on HBO or Showtime.)

 

It seems that paid sex took a holiday during the late '40s, '50s '60s and they were so busy giving it away in the late '60s and '70s, that there was little need for prostitution.

 

In short, this might be called an epicycle in history, a permutation in the ever onward relationship between men and women for a bargaied for exchange.

 

For historical reference, I refer you to 'Fighting Joe' Hooker, a Brigadier general in the Union Army who was very effective (sometimes) as a general.

 

His men loved him for not only was he famous for drinking, he also rounded up prostitutes for his men (and they got the name 'hooker' after him).

 

The Japanese ran 'comfort camps' full of Korean women (kidnapped 'sex slaves'), and the Germans then had their prostitutes, and even now in most major German cities the local men know where to find open and nearly legal prostitution -- same in Netherlands and other countries, such as Belgium (the houses of prostitution in Belgium can be seen from one of Brussel's three main train stations -- Amsterdam has had semi-legal prostitution so long that in one instance I remember the mayor of Amsterdam giving a presentation to Amsterdam's oldest prostitute on the occasion of her retirement from the profession, somewhere in her '60s, as I recall.

 

(not the '60s decade, but she was in her '60s.

 

That was about 10 or 12 years ago). Prostitution thrives in many places in Southeast Asia, but not in the Muslim world. There are substantiated reporets of some Muslim men of wealth being accused of enticing young women with offers of money, taking their passports and then enslaving them as concubines - it's legend in Russia and Ukraine, but also believed to be true, which makes it even more sad.

 

I once knew a Saudi Prince (I believe he was a prince -- he got fabulous sums from Saudi Arabia to school in America) who I am sure upholds Shariah now that he is home in Saudi.

 

In the US he had a mistress, a young woman I knew. They lived together while he went to university. I am sure he is now devoutly Muslim and openly condemns that which he himself practiced.

 

That's a rough history of our present 'hell in a hand basket' situation regarding sex. We just came off an 'epicycle' where first the paid brothels were put out of existence because everybody got married and many got religion, and then, in the '60s, 'love' became 'free' and that has lasted until the present, with pornography having increasingly been legitimized so that it now is commonplace.

 

(General 'Fighting Joe' Hooker was popular with his men, but not with subordinate and superior officers -- he was too great a drinker and was too good to his grunt soldiers, and also, somewhat of a coward, if Museum.org is any source. (I researched much of this, just for you, and have drawn on personal knowledge from having been in '71 countries over quite a few decades. Much of this I know from my days as a journalist and from accouts of people involved in these goings on. I talk with lots of people, and most give me the straight story. If you have proof to the cotrary of anything I say, please correct me.

 

Now it is true that this country is losing its prominence in world affairs. We once were the nation of morality, but we started two wars for which there was no justification and thereby took tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands, or in Viet Nam, even millions) of lives.

 

Defense Secretary McNamara under President Johnson spent his final years apologizing for the war he made 'efficient' bringing with him the 'business' methods he had learned and employed as an automobile company chief, to weapons procurement and deployment, as well as fighting. He said flatly the war was NOT justified and he apologized to the end of his life for his transgressions in aiding that war.

 

I was in Viet Nam, yes, with cameras. But I wouldn't have gone there if I had known what now is acknowledged fact: The Gulf of Tonkin 'incident' never really happened. That was our trigger to go to war against North Viet Nam and the US government now admits it told us (citizens and the world) lies about what supposedly triggered that war, and those alleged events of Gulf of Tonkin never really happened.

 

That war, then, was unjustified, and all those people I saw get killed didn't have to. I was a coward then, but didn't know why. I didn't understand that war, but supposed it was patriotic to fight, and I was there with cameras and later drew an exemption from going back.

 

Imagine killing other people because someone 'invents' a war!

 

And did that just happen in Iraq?

 

You be the judge.

 

Where are those drone missiles with nuclear warheads that Condaleeza Rice said could hit the Eastern Seaboard, and where were they going to be launched from?

 

And what about that uranium 'yellowcake' in Nigeria that Joseph Wilson wrote to the US didn't exist, but was cited (falsely) to the UN by Colin Powell as 'evidence' that Iraq was pursuing nuclear weapons.

 

And where was there Iraqi nuclear program. The official US answer is that it never happened in the way we were told (sold?) -- no buried arms in Syria or anywhere, Sadam had given up his nuclear plans under allied constraints arising from having lost the prior Gulf war.

 

He was a bad guy, but he wasn't a threat to us -- just his own people. And if it was worth stopping him to save his people from him, why didn't we go into Rwanda and save millions from being slaughtered? (No Oil in Rwanda?) (Because they were black people?)

 

Well, back to going to heck in a hand basket. A poll I saw reported on yesterday said about 84% of American people think the country is going in the 'wrong direction' lead by our leader, George W. Bush.

 

I suggest and acknowledge there has been an explosion in pornography - that is an established fact, and this photo is partial example of that.

 

That there could be a porno 'expo' is proof enough.

 

But oddly enough, at that same Exposition, there were no bare female parts -- not even breasts.

 

Any sexuality was on a video screen and that was rare, also.

 

There were buxom and pretty women (not necessarily the same) in abundance, but even those who 'acted' in porn, were not touching anyone or allowing themselves to be touched.

 

One porn actress in a close pose with a man I saw, felt that he touched her and she yelled out loud that he was 'molesting' her, and that was forbidden.

 

She was an 'actress' albeit of porn, and just because she'd pose in a raunchy and suggestive manner didn't mean she was a prostitute or someone who would let an ordinary man touch her!

 

No sex, no pudenda, no breasts.

 

In actuality, for sexuality, the porn exposition was mostly a

This may look contrived because it depicts a contrived scene. These guys are in a living room type setting but they're not watching the porn at all.

 

The guys' faces were dark and had to be rescued by bringing out some detail; accounting for grain (digital noise) -- grain appearance behind them is because of the backdrop texture.

 

Hokey?

 

You bet.

 

The whole thing was hokey.

 

These guys are having a good laugh because they're trying to get rich by showing people what people paid huge amounts to see . . . and giving them nothing more than a DVD sex scene or two and lots of hoopla.

 

I'd be laughing and enjoying myself too.

 

The hands are up in a clap of celebration or joy (maybe at a good joke), but the guy's hands are not held up in hiding.

 

John (Crosley)

The commenter above suggested that somehow this scene is 'false' or essentially hokey.

 

I agree, it is a completely fabricated scene, brought to you by those guys enjoying themselves in the background who are NOT watching this.

 

In that sense, this is a documentary photograph.

 

It depicts a reality, that is somehow hard to comprehend unless one understands the dynamics of what was happening (see above).

 

Instead over 100,000 people (I think more) paid huge sums (was it $45 a day or $65 a day?) to get into this thing to 'meet the stars'.

 

I met a few.

 

Amber Lynn was one -- porn star of the '70s, looking well, like a porn star of the '70s outta look in the year 2008. A little wrinkly.

 

I saw just about everybody who was anybody in porn

but I don't feel any richer for the experience.

 

P.T. Barnum was right.

 

And those people he spoke about will pay huge sums to prove that is what they are.

 

(No photos and I wouldn't have been there. Also, there's more sex generally in a Victoria's Secret catalog, than was on display here, or maybe the same in an Abercrombie & Fitch, catalog. The event was all sizzle and no bacon.)

 

John (Crosley)

I have to copy this and save it. You said so much. Um, caffiene? I also loved everything you said. Free thought and speech!

It honestly gave the photo content.

If you can find any factual errors, please point them out; I don't generally write without authority, except my knowledge of the Bible is largely secondary, although I did read the whole thing at one time, and I cannot recall if both Cain and Able had wives or only Cain, but that is about the limit of my uncertainty in what I wrote.

 

I freely acknowledge errors, as editors and editing (and fact checking) are meant to keep things honest, and I have a pretty good name for saying things 'straight' and being 'careful' with facts.

 

So, if you (or anyone else) has documents which contradict what I have said (in any significant part), and want to contradict me, feel free, but do cite your authority and not just 'I read it on the Internet', because that's no source for anything.

 

State precisely what you dispute, the source of authority for the dispute (and not just 'good sense' or 'logic' because they don't always apply and your 'good sense' or someone else's may be my folderol.

 

I applaud you for having read the above, whether you agree or disagree; they're a personal essay and as you said are meant to give content (and context) to the photo above.

 

In essence, since the first commentator started to say that porn is making the US go downhill, I was ready for that, otherwise I would have written nothing.

 

I mainly write such things, not to vent, but to state the facts clearly, and if anyone disputes those as 'facts' they are free to challenge and correct, but it is necessary to state authority

 

(Hint: Anne Coulter is no authority for anything but bombast and self-promotion, and having heard El Rushbah state it doesn't hold water with me.)

 

But a clear autobiographical statement by McNamara near the end of his life saying the Vietnamese war was honest and justified, and printed by a reputable publishing house would carry weight with me (but I know someone who spoke to McNamara and heard him apologize personally for the lies and the war, . . . so what are you gonna do?)

 

Of course, Mike this challenge isn't meant really for you, since you are open-minded, but it's for the people who think I got it all wrong; that I'm falsifying facts. If that's the case, correct me, but do it with authority.

 

Regrettably for most critics, I once was a journalist, I've been to Vietnam with a camera, seen the deaths and bombings, believed what my government told me, only to learn rather recently (in my life) that the war was based or started on a lie -- more than a fib -- a complete fabrication.

 

Do we learn from history, then?

 

If so, how did we get into Iraq?

 

Cheney himself is recorded as saying (during the Gulf War I) that the whole country of Iraq would self-destruct into ethnic and factional fighting, if we tried to take Baghdad and all Iraq.

 

Do you or anybody have contrary authority?

 

Bush's own treasury secretary said at the first cabinet meeting ever, Bush raised the subject of how to make war with Iraq - how to cook up a war.

 

His former friend and biographer said that when and if elected president, Bush wanted to be a 'war president' because they were presidents who carried the greatest weight and authority in history - and were the best remembered.

 

I'd be glad to hear anything from McNamara and would be completely happy if I were absolutely wrong.

 

And what about PNAC (Project for a New American Century) which lays out the whole Bush Administration's goals, published in the late '90s and signed by all the top right-wing neocons?

 

Bush has been quite true to that document's goals, even if it has been disavowed by its own architect within the last year or so.

 

Signers include nearly all neocons and include Perl, Cheney, Condaleeza Rice (I believe).

 

It stated the county needed some sort of 'wakeup call' (my words) a 'second Pearl Harbor' (the document's words, how prophetic).

 

That document is on the Internet and you can Google.com and read the entirety - I have.

 

It has not been disavowed by any of its signers -- at least the assertions in the document are acknowledged factually to have been signed by the major neocons.

 

Go get the document and read it; look next at the signers and then compare the document's asserted plans and goals with recent history.

 

It's very prophetic.

 

It's the plans for the US foreign policy for the last seven years, all laid out in the late '90s, before 911 and says the US needs a Second Pearl Harbor (my capitalization--its words) if the goals are to be achieved.

 

The goal?

 

American dominance in the New American Century.

 

No wonder 84% of Americans feel that America is on the wrong path, according to that poll I cited in the essay above.

 

So, Mike, copy this too, but take it as evidence of my certainty as well as certitude.

 

I can be wrong, and I wish I were.

 

Regrettably, I don't think I am.

 

Helpful side note: I'm not registered as a Democrat or Independent, either, but I am registered, and to a major party (at least last I looked). Oh, and not a Libertarian either.

 

Thanks for the helpful comment.

 

John (Crosley)

John, I don't know about a God or a Devil, but I do know about good and evil! I'm clean and sober going into my seventh year. someone dies when your gettin' high you watch as people go through there pockets to see if they have any money or dope! I lived a very dangerous life with violent people, you know when in Rome do as the Romans do. I know you did'nt start the fire it was always burning, your just showing people how big it is getting. your not here to change anything just generate interest, like (I'm not fonda Hanoi Jane!) people can be put in three categories you have those that make thing happen, those that watch things happen and those that are confused of what is happening! I like to think of myself as a maker of things happening. In a nutshell the media is putting out the fire with gasoline, and they know it. Janet Jackson wardrobe problem during the superbowl halftime show, pure marketing genius! Billy Joel(songwriter)said I would rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints...! Ever Saint has a past ever sinner has a future. evil is like a vine on a tree looking for support for growth, and you know what happens to the tree when the vine gets to big, just the tree dies not the vine it finds another tree. Where am I going with all these thoughts I don't know yet, but I know changes is coming and I am going to make it happen, rumors have started wars!

Thanks for letting us into your private thoughts. I'll let your remarks stand on their own so their impact can be felt by all readers, unfiltered by any remarks from me, and you will be heard with the full authority of your own words.

 

John (Crosley)

John, a lot of writing that is too much for me. The main thing in this photo is: documentary as it is! That is what the western world is about: tv for the boys. And boys will be boys!!!

With or with out war!

And about Amsterdam: prostitution is legal yes! Thank goodness!!!

 

And for centuries!

But not for long! A shame!

With regards.

 

It is my understanding that you, Joke, are a woman -- female -- and it is interesting to find a Dutch woman's view.

 

Yes, there has been frantic searches for old deeds and property histories that reveal long ago prostitution on certain premises once used for other things, so owners could claim the right to conduct prostitution on their premises or enterprising sleuths could find old property uses in archives that gave the right to do prostitution on a premises and then buy the premises and convert their use to prostitution and make much more money. in rents.

 

Most men don't want to commit 'sex crimes' but some have powerful motivations, and I understand that rape in Holland is almost unheard of.

 

Feminists have told us that 'rape' is a crime of hate, but it also seems to be a crime of lust as well, and although the 'hate' may be there, if you take the lust component and defuse it, it seems that the hate doesn't end up in sex crimes, or they diminish drastically -- crimes such as rape. Your country has been the paragon of enlightenment, in my eyes.

 

I understand there are rules or laws to keep pimps from employing prostitutes -- and the crime that seems to generate and the subjugation of the women.

 

At one time there were a lot of beautiful Eastern Europe women such as from Lithau and other places, in the Red Light storefronts of Amsterdam, but the presence of Russian Mafia followed, so it was made a law that every prostitute in a place must have present her documents showing her right to be in Holland legally, while she plied her 'profession'.

 

That drove out many illegals who had snuck across various borders and also helped Dutch, Italian, French and other 'girls' be free of competition from lower-priced and beautiful competition from Eastern Europe, where there are many poor but very beautiful women. without 'legal' Schengen status.

 

I understand religious zealots are about to get it banned entirely which just will drive it 'underground'.

 

I remember Italian priests and nuns in separate groups walking and peering through the Red Light District in 'walking tours', as the Red Light district is a famous attraction of Amsterdam with the 'girls' often waving back or just ignoring them . . the nuns and priests did not seem to look on these girls as 'sinners' in my view, either.

 

Too bad if it goes; I think the city will pay a big price in lost tourism, not just from customers, but from those who celebrate freedom.

 

I have lived in Amsterdam for some time in the past, and it was quite interesting, as I lived near the Red Light District, and it was all very safe, predictable and usual -- and no problems at all.

 

I didn't patronize the 'joints' or the girls -- it was far too commercial for me . . . so many guilders for this, but if I remove this, then it's so many additional guilders and if you touch that, so many more, but you can't do this and that (almost always kissing . . . which is one thing prostitutes don't do, is how one told me.)

 

So, Amsterdam never was the place of sexual freedom for me, but it symbolizes keeping the state out of morality and religion.

 

We cherish our religious freedom in the US; by law the state must stay out of religion, but increasingly religious zealots are pushing the boundaries.

 

When I live in Reno, Nev., prostitution was outlawed, and the local District Attorney once got a court ruling to burn down a rolling (on trailers) brothel, if it crossed the county line (the owner moved it among three adjoining counties on a regular basis when the 'heat' got too hot in one or the other counties.)

 

And the district attorney and sheriff torched the joint, only to find it growing like a hydra in an adjoining county. The US government for taxes used to run that same brothel under court supervision, but later that was seen to be unseemly and it was ordered closed.

 

Now, I hear, it has been or soon will be re-opened, just a short taxi drive away from Reno, near where other, lesser houses have been operating.

 

I understand a big hit on cable television has been a reality show about one house of prostitution from nearby Lyon or Douglas County . . . .

 

Prostitution, even legalized sort, in Nevada brings some pretty awful women; the opposite of what it sometimes has brought to Amsterdam, where many prostitutes are quite pretty, and some are also very, very smart, financing the rest of their lives on their saved earnings in some cases.

 

And, as noted above, I think, I remember the mayor of Amsterdam giving the oldest working prostitute a retirement ceremony.

 

My, how things change.

 

Prostitution illegal in Holland.

 

What next?

 

Marijuana and hashish laws to be enforced? (legally they are outlawed but in reality tolerated, last the Dutch police told me.)

 

Quelle horreure!

 

I agree with you --- pity.

 

John (Crosley)

You do make a lot of good valid points here. If I were to name what I believe to be the biggest single thing that would lead to the decline of AGE (America's Great Empire) it would be apathy and not pornography or anything to do with moral values in any way. Morals affect the individual, apathy affects society. I think greed also plays a large role in this, but greed is somewhat dependent on apathy (at least in the political sense).

 

You are correct about the Bible listing Cain, Abel and later, Seth as sons of Adam and Eve with no daughters being mentioned. There is a scripture not included in the Bible for specific reasons called "The Book of Jubilees" which mentions daughters and claims a total of 10 sons (and I think an equal number of daughters) I believe for Adam and Eve. It even goes on to list grandchildren, great-....etc. I just wanted to fill in some gaps.

 

Now, about the photo in question...I find it to be somewhat of a commentary on today's attitude toward the sex industry in general which is "who cares, so long as all involved are consenting adults". It isn't up to me to decide whether that's a good thing or bad thing, that's up to each person to decide for him/herself.

 

Overall, nice job.

Thank you for noting the 'Book of Jubilee' -- obviously one of those 'books' of the Bible found to be not true or somehow fabricated when church leaders got together to choose from the various 'books' that were being circulated -- which ones would become the Bible and which would be sent to history's garbage heap - consigned there as being heretical or just not 'genuine'.

 

Did those church leaders ever make a mistake; perhaps a 'true' book was discarded and one that was 'fake' now is part of the Holy Bible, at least as seen by the Catholic Church based in Rome, and perhaps also the Eastern Orthodoxy, which has a separate existence now, and largely is ignored by the Western World and other parts of the world which are lead by the Prelate in Rome.

 

It is written and Gospel (word of God, literally 'God speak' or 'speech) that the Pope is infallible, so why then did Pope John Paul have to apologize for past failings of the Roman Catholic Church. If Pope Pius XII (did I get the number right?) made mistakes and somehow collaborated with the Nazis and Fascists before and during World War II and surely did not speak out against them, wasn't that also the doing of God, since the Pope (Pius in this instance) was the embodiment of God's word on this earth?

 

At least that suggests that the papal occupants are 'fallible' which is something that one doesn't expect from the person chosen as the person God has chosen to direct his Church on earth or as God's spokesman.

 

And, the Church (Roman Catholic) truely at one time presented itself as the 'only church' and all other churches as somewhat heretical, at last before the New Spirit of Ecumenism took hold and somehow now we see various branches of Christianity, and even Judaism starting to respect each other, or at least saying they do so publicly.

 

What happened in the Church that brought us the Inquisition? Whence came Torquemada? All was done in the name of the Church.

 

The Church of England presently began as an offshoot of Catholicism because a king could not secure a divorce from the Pope, so he took over the Church and Anglicized it; it remains as the Anglican Communion.

 

The Crusades for which the Arab world has never forgiven Christians or Christianity was part of official Church doctrine and the same with the Children's crusades. Arab followers of Muhammad et al., were seen as heretics and therefore were sort of non-persons in the eyes of the Church and 'believers' -- they were non-humans, which is a treatment Hitler gave to Jews - depicting them as somehow prehuman and animal-like or devil-like.

 

The New Ecumenism suggests things are not so simple, but what about a Pope (or Popes) who fostered and did not condemn such aggressions in the name of the Church?

 

Was that Pope acting fallibly or infallibly and did what he said and did reflect the words and will of God, or that of something else?

 

I frankly don't recall having heard of Seth, but it's been over 30 years since I read both Testaments in their entirety. Same with the story of their having been 10 sons and daughters. If Cain and Abel married, then, since there were no others on earth, did they marry their sisters?

 

And if so, is it so that the world is descendant of incest -- brother marrying sister? So, the great mystery remains if one reads the story of creation literally and not as allegory. If Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel and there were no others, who could they marry, since there was no mention of any other people (other people is entirely contrary to the whole story of Creation of mankind, yet these two men went out and married!

 

If the 'Book of Jubilee' is correct and there were a total of 10 kids of Adam and Eve, but no others (in keeping strictly with that story), where did the wives come from? Were they the sisters? Isn't that incest?

 

Either the Old Testament's story of the creation of man is not true or it is incomplete; (or as some suggest, it is allegory, and mean to teach about 'touching the forbidden fruit' and other such allegorical things, which thus somehow explains the view that now mankind has some sort of 'original sin' which must be cast off -- perhaps by Confession to God.

 

In the Roman Catholic Church that meant telling everything (however scandalous) to the priest and asking for forgiveness (and some sort of penitential punishment such as saying so many 'Holy Marys'), but in the Anglican Communion it was self-service as self-confessing without the need for a priest to intervene as God's pipeline, as the Anglican view is that God can hear those prayers and the priest is for conducting preaching sermons, keeping the Church Holy, and committing various sacramental duties, but somehow not in to exploring the private thoughts of parishioners.

 

I was raised in the Anglican tradition, and was almost completely ignorant of Catholicism as I was reared and as such had no particular views on it, except to note that all the wealthy Catholics in my town had exceedingly large families, as 'birth control' was forbidden and sex was reserved for procreation only, so procreate those Catholic citizens of my home town did -- at least those rich enough to afford lots of kiddies.

 

And, by Holy Edict, they ate fish on Friday. Every restaurant served clam chowder soup on Friday; for Fish on Friday day. It was decreed from Rome -- a sin if you didn't eat fish on Friday. Then one day it just stopped. Fish no longer was required on Friday, or any day. It was no longer a sin to have a hamburger or steak on Friday. That's what I knew about being a Catholic -- Fish on Friday and the fish store packed on Friday afternoon.

 

So, I have no bias for or against Catholicism from my background. My neighbors were Catholic, but I hardly knew them; their kids went to a separate school and didn't mix . . . then moved away to much larger house, in keeping with the need to care for so many children. . . .

 

Some of my classmates were Jewish, but frankly I never knew or cared which ones; no one particularly seemed to care about religion as I grew up, or even knew one or the other's religion. Words of hate about religion were never heard in my schools or schoolyards.

 

I 'grew up' in the great '50s, saw Joseph McCarthy's hate on television, but also saw him after he flamed like a great firework, suddenly shut down "Sir, have you no shame?' I heard addressed to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, which I heard on live television of the Army-McCarthy hearings, which was eargerly watched nationwide. I did not know the fear that McCarthy caused in people, but see it in retrospect. My grandfather, born in Russia (or German parents), denied vehemently to me that he was born in Russia and made me promise never to repeat that story again (my mother had told me the truth) He waa afraid a 'Russian connection (he left in about 1893 or so, somehow would be used to cost him his job, as he would be labeled (as Russian born) a Communist. There was fear in his eyes, which I can see in retrospect.

 

There is always someone full of hate; Joseph McCarthy unillustrious career was based on hating Communist and finding them or ComSymps (Communist sympathizers) hiding under every rock.

 

I grew up rather blissfully unaware of almost all of that.

 

It is a profound regret that I was not a Civil Rights marcher, since that was where my heart was. To leave school then meant being drafted, then surely being sent to Viet Nam to die in the war that (then) defense Secretary Mcnamara spent the rest of his life apologizing for, and acknowledging it (as our government has) that is was started based on a government lie to the nation and to the world.

 

I did go to Viet Nam, and sure enough, those soldiers who were fighting contained far more black men than one encounters in the population. They mostly couldn't afford to continue their schooling and get a draft deferment, so they got drafted and went to Viet Nam in great numbers, many to die.

 

I was not rich, but went to college and didn't get killed. I recognized that inequality when I went as a civilian to Viet Nam with a camera. I was a 'rich kid' who got out of the military because I had a draft deferment for higher education (my asthma later got me 4F'd (ineligible for the draft), so iI didn't have to get drafted aftwards and return as a soldier. I later got a very high draft lottery number, guaranteeing I would never have to fight.

 

So, my memory of Viet Nam is as a young civilian with a camera, who had asked to be a 'war photographer' but got turned down and worked my way over there anyway, only to leave a few months later from a gunshot wound.

 

That is a world I grew up in.

 

The above photo is representation of a part of the world in which I live now, but only a part.

 

I try to document now what I see, and to add words to those photos, for those who did not experience what I did, so my prejudices and views can be put in their proper place.

 

The very act of taking a photograph is a choice.

 

Framing it is a choice.

 

The moment one hits the shutter release is a choice.

 

How to 'edit' or otherwise work the contrast in such a photo is a choice. Same with how to crop it, if cropped (this is not cropped); but the men's faces were darker since the 'screen' was quite bright and I wanted them all to show in this photo.

 

Everything in photography is a form of 'editing' especially in a photo such as this.

 

I have put my personal history (part of it at least) into view, so one can help understand why I took this photo and how it came into being.

 

It may stand on its own, but how it came about is the result of my thought procresses. I am trying by these essays to let my viewers in on my thought processes -- something some photographers have eschewed.

 

I know that often photos reflect what is within the frame. But sometimes if helps to put things into perspective, which is what this long post (and others above) are meant

Great capture, is the man on the left hiding his face from your lens?

Yes, Sex sells.

The man, left, is turning to converse with his cohorts as they all relax between their porn selling duties - that's all.

Nothing more, so far as I could tell.  I think I was pretty inconspicuous in the crowd, many with cameras.

john

John (Crosley)