There is still taboo surrounding discourse about expressions of sexuality and pleasure. When it is spoken about, it’s often corrupted by shame, embarrassment or ignorance. In popular media, fetishism and kink are capitalized for consumer audiences or represented synonymously with “perversion”, “lust”, and “disorder”. Conversations usually happen in whispers -- and whispers are exactly where stigma thrives.
INTO is a documentary project tat explores and investigates kink and fetish in the gay community in Toronto. The project aims to demystify and celebrate alternative sexualities by challenging stereotypes about fetish and kink and to provide identity to people who often misunderstood and misrepresented. Everyone I have photographed throughout this series has taught me something new – about the nature of the erotic impulse, about sexual desire, about spirituality, about humanity. They have shown me that no matter how we are wired to express love, freedom is having the courage to be who we really are. INTO is intended to inspire conversations and provoke questions about expressions of pleasure and sexuality. What does it really mean to desire? To be vulnerable? To express sexuality and pleasure in unconventional ways? To delight in our own bodies and preferences and of those of the people that share it?
Each portrait in my series consists of two photographs side-by-side. One represents the participant(s) in their daily lives and one that represents how they express their sexuality. The two images exist as one portrait: physically and inextricably linked. Just like the subject and their sexual identity. The portraits are environmental and shot on location in the subject’s home. This provides not only a glimpse into their personal life but also portrays an essential element to fetish/kink itself - vulnerability. Although the participants have indeed made themselves extremely vulnerable, they are encouraged to confront the camera, the audience and even the act of being seen itself, with their gaze.
