Yakuza Porn: experimental online exhibit @ GramercyGallery.net

Go Mishima’s body of work is a testament to the tenacity and overwhelming presence of homo-eroticism and its aesthetic emergence across the globe. In contrast to both Tom of Finland and Japanese conservative society he is a special case in the hidden histories of queer culture, sex, and desire. His beautifully rendered visions of lust and intimacy are available exclusively online at 19th Gramercy Gallery gramercygallery.net until September 1st.
 

In no other medium are the visual pulses of erotic fantasy better manifested than in illustration. Beyond film or photography, an illustrator wields total control; from the hues in the flesh of his models to the re-proportioning of their anatomy (skeletal, muscular and genital distortions are too common). The illustrator creates context, all subtle details compiled to give an exact and comprehensive perspective on sex and the experience of it, real or not. Homo-erotic illustration has been dominated by Tom of Finland who has erased away all other artists in an already obscure genre. He’s left in their place his conception of the 70’s and 80’s, a gay world of authoritative archetypes- the well known scenes of a cop in jodhpurs with a comically large cock, squeezed by an equally beefy hooligan in the bushes. MORE PICS POST JUMP.

 Mishima was an illustrator of the same vein, greatly inspired by Tom of Finland and creating his own unique codes on the engagement of male love. Unlike the West, where homosexuals were publicly affronting society, (slowly and) steadily gaining acceptance; Japan was a culture that wouldn’t merely denounce homosexuality; it would not even acknowledge its existence. Also unlike the West, the representation of human genitals is strictly forbidden even in pornography, hence the well-known pixel effect. Mishima stood against both these norms with his illustrations and later his magazine Sabu that entertained a hyper masculine Yakuza style male ideal that would also come into vogue in Western gay culture during the 70’s.

 While ToF had his police officers and military men, Mishima had his Yakuza gangsters, their cropped hair and tattoos becoming the signifiers for heavy and hard masculinity instead of the Western clone look of moustache and leather. It was Mishima’s experience in the underground nightlife and vice of postwar Japan that would cement the Yakuza in his pantheon of erotic characters. In contrast, today there is a popular genre of Manga called Yaoi, it is essentially boy on boy romance written by women for a teenage girl readership. In Yaoi, the boys are effeminate, slight, and submissive, a disingenuous albeit acceptable portrayal of homosexuality in a conservative culture.

Go Mishima’s body of work is a testament to the tenacity and overwhelming presence of homo-eroticism and its aesthetic emergence across the globe. In contrast to both Tom of Finland and Japanese conservative society he is a special case in the hidden histories of queer culture, sex, and desire. His beautifully rendered visions of lust and intimacy are available exclusively online at 19th Gramercy Gallery http://www.gramercygallery.net/ until September 1st

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