A crucial trait for any artist who wants to be taken seriously is to clearly demonstrate a personal and genuine emotional awareness of what the characters he depicts in his scenes are thinking and feeling. In real life most people have at least heard of the concept of IQ or intelligence quotient which measures human intelligence. Lesser known to most people is the concept of EQ or emotional quotient which measures perceptions, interpretations, controls and evaluations of human emotions. An artist who demonstrates high EQ can anticipate being taken seriously compared to an artist who scores low in EQ. I see this as being just how the world works.
As a gay male artist, my creation and depiction of characters in scenes strongly benefit from my ability to identify and describe how my male characters think and feel. Is there sexual attention and attraction towards other male characters? Let’s find out.
I strive to pinpoint what any man I create as a character feels and the many ways in which that man is motivated by his sexuality. The male characters that I create deliberately demonstrate to the audience how they are worthy of a man’s sexual attention and attraction. In real life, men can and do feel sexual attention towards other men regardless of their own particular sexual orientation or gender identity so I feel confident when I use this truth as the basis for creating realistic and credible characters for my audience. This kind of male attraction to other men may be denied by most straight men, but their denials will never mitigate what is happening out there in the world. Why? Because sexual attention towards a man by another man is a fact of contemporary life today.
As a gay male artist, I use this fact to guide me in the creative visual works that I create. I am known for depicting male characters in situations in which sexual attention towards men by other men springs from an imbalance of power. Expressing it simply and directly, this power dynamic I frequently use in my visual and text storytelling happens in situations where one of the men holds a higher status or position of authority over another man. The more powerful or the dominant authority man knows he has many advantages over the other man. That point in a scenario or scene is where the story usually begins which depicts a sexual attention one man has for another man based upon the imbalance of power which favors him over the other guy.
The real-world impact of sexual attention towards men by other men on a man’s mental health and well-being should not be ignored. As a male artist I know I have a responsibility to spell out such mental health and well-being issues that stem from an imbalance of power between two men. In the real world, men who experience unwanted sexual advances feel ashamed, violated, and damaged. This is followed by self-esteem problems for them and possibly culminates in the development of anxiety or depression leading to a decline in overall quality of life. Meanwhile, in a fictional dramatic conflict involving some aspect of violence these real-world aspects can be one of the best places upon which to build a compelling story of two men.
Conflict and drama in real life are stressful and draw away a man’s energies and enthusiasm for life. However, conflict and drama in fictional storytelling is desirable for an artist or storyteller to rely upon otherwise the result creative work may come across as dull to audiences.
I create visually-appealing male characters and then plunge them into situations in which they survive or not. This storytelling framework is one of the traits for which I am known. Violence and loss of life for men caused by other men are well-known in the real world and often such components of reality are at the core of my visual and text storytelling.
As a peaceful and pro-social person in real life, I do not advocate for the use of violence or causing the loss of life. But my creative works are renowned for demonstrating how violence and the loss of life caused by men upon other men can in fictional storytelling become realistic elements of sexual attention, attractiveness and arousal both for the characters depicted and also for the male viewers who are paying attention to what I create.
