Exposing Fictionalized Private Lives

Do you think about the lives of our kink/fetish heroes? The more you see, and have access to in terms of images, and video and conferences and blogs and LiveJournal, and Twitter and Facebook and FetLife for those with a *name*…. does it ignite in you the desire for even more? In the worlds of mainstream entertainment, sports and politics the media seems to be feeding a gluttonous appetite. How does this play out in the world of leather/kink/fetish? What do we actually “know” about the Perverati (celebrity perverts)? What does a peek inside their lives actually look like?

Alison Jackson is a photographic artist that uses celebrity look alikes to fabricate glimpses into the fictionalized lives of public personages. Alison Jackson Look(ed) at Celebrity in July 2005 at TEDOxford in England. In her words, the images “titillate” our imaginations. They provide fuel for scandalous contemplation of what lies behind the constructed images of people we *think* we know because of the amount of information we *think* we have about them through the media. She got me thinking about explicitness of photographic images common to our landscape.

There are so many mainstream popular persons that find themselves in what are called compromising positions. Careers can be lost over their activities. To many of us those activities are things that comprise the substance of the lives of the people whose books and videos we purchase. We read the content of their social media lifestream. We listen to their words at conferences, and strive to learn from or emulate their fashion and play styles.

For those who do not have celebrity, many fear being discovered. Fear the privateness of personal desire and natural impetus becoming public. Like mainstream celebrities, we fear loss of employment, family, status and public dignity.

But what to the private unhindered moments of the Perverati look like? Peeing on the toilet might happen in a dungeon. Is it instead the banal? Would images like Alison’s, for us, take the form of a stripping of identity? What would that look like?

Especially when almost every aspect of the banal has a contingent of our community that might find it hawt?

I absolutely LOVE the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) series. TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. They hold conferences where speakers have a maximum of 18 minutes. They videotape the talks, make them available online through their site and on YouTube, and encourage people to share. I often reflect and ruminate on them in the context of my employment and my many passions – including this one. Here’s hoping I’ve covered my creative commons ass.