Sex for Thought        
Rotem Yaniv
Gay Male Sex Workers Photography

How would you imagine a room full of photographs of naked men? Would you visualize it as exciting? Tasteless? Erotic? Bothering? Appropriate? Jules de Niverville had a very clear picture in his head when he created "Lucky Numbers", a photographic exhibition of gay male sex workers living in New York City. He decided to record his subjects in their natural surroundings, without romanticizing or stylizing the result, thus creating a realistic and humble description of this rushed and extreme lifestyle.

De Niverville arranged two vertical photos in every horizontal frame (an arrangement called a diptych). The young men did not pose for him but instead acted naturally in front of his camera. There is no use of special lighting, so most of the pictures are blurry because of motion and slow exposure. Some of the pictures are not focused and the emphasis lies on the background or foreground instead of the subject. All of these elements create a sensation of mundane everyday life, as if some of the pictures were taken by a friend and not a professional photographer. This is how De Niverville planned and executed his art; this ordinariness is the very factor that makes the collection interesting. The depiction of such an extreme subject in a less than provocative light encourages viewers to think about sex workers from a different, unprejudiced, point of view. Individually, each diptych calls for attention to small details: signs on a wire-fence, a drummer dull, or a piece of rope to create certain tensions with the human subjects. When viewed together from a distance the pictures assemble a greater, unified, composition. Each picture contains a different body part: an elbow, a finger, a knee, an armpit, buttocks, an eye, a neck, a penis, a shoulder, and some show several parts or the entire body. De Niverville explains this focus on separate organs as an act of pulling out the subjects' vulnerability. He attempts to penetrate the biased image of gay sex workers and show that they are as human as anyone else. They are ordinary men, doing ordinary activities: drinking beer on the counter, lying on the bed with arms behind the head, or hugging a stuffed doll. The exhibition shows their life behind the scenes, yet still makes it clear that these are men who get paid for having sex by inserting nudity into most of the composition.

And now, you, my courageous reader, might ask yourself, "Is he serious? Does this guy really expect me to spend time looking at blurry pictures of naked men?" There is no definite answer to this line of thought because the exhibition may interest only a certain public. But then again, you might consider putting aside your sexual prejudices and try to think about gay sex workers from a different angle. If so, look out for the next time Jules de Niverville comes to town.

The exhibition was presented at La Petite Mort Gallery on 306 Cumberland St., Downtown Ottawa.

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