Sex appeal as fine art

You have only to check out my bookshelf to find that erections have hardly been absent from "serious" gay photography collections. Even overt, explicit and insertive sex has had its moments. Yet I can't recall books with such specific, focused intent on - well, call it what you will, sex art or art sex, as the new collections from Tom Bianchi and Mark Henderson. You'll no doubt remember how much I enjoy the work of these men. Yet even to a fan such as I, their new books surpass their previous efforts, making me wholeheartedly embrace both.

Bianchi declares that the depiction of gay sex can be fine art right in his title, Fine Art Sex (Bruno Gmunder, 120 pages, $43.99). He believes in the transformative power of sex, and the blessings of viewing it, in art and as art. He doesn't draw lines between his life and his art. "My mental and physical passions merge in a spiritual synthesis," he claims in the book. "I revel in connecting the dots between a gorgeous melody, a beautiful wine, a wonderfully engineered sports car, a moving film, and the powerful, elegant arc of an erect penis."

One of those powerful, elegant arcs belongs to Bianchi, who is singular among photographers for appearing, bonered and beautiful, alongside and engaged with his models. So cut him some slack for being a bit defensive in his introductory essay "Art History," which reads in spots like one of those prefaces that gay pulps had in the 1950s, making claims for the book's Social Relevance. Bianchi is not so much justifying as stating his credo and inspiration. What his career has brought him, he writes, "are wonderful men who share my desire to celebrate our sexual energies as freely as you see here."

"These pictures," he writes, "are love letters - passionate, boner-provoking love letters." He's arranged his letters in themes. The section named "Time One" documents the first intimate physical experience he had with his lover, while "My Passion" revels in the sexual power his lover projects. Sections named "Eros Avatar," "Primal Rite" and "Hard/Now" record wild spirit and flashes of erotic energy.

In "Underwater," Bianchi plays with the variables of light, angle and proximity that underwater photography offers; he revels in weightlessness, as well as the distortions and refractions of light and water. He enjoys having to surrender a greater degree of control to underwater conditions, because he finds the results are always surprising. I'm only a little surprised to find these underwater shots the most beautiful I've seen of that strange genre, and which include submerged jacking off, cocksucking, fucking, and even foot-fucking.

In other sections, you'll see light bondage and sling play, cum shots galore, and a most playful three-way. You'll see Bianchi snapping a mirrored reflection of himself sticking a finger up his lover's butt as they play. In the black-tiled shower he calls "a combustion chamber for sexual heat," he gives a model beautiful light and a mirror to display what he has created of himself. Then he gathers a group of bodybuilders on the day after their competition and gets them naked in his hotel room, saying it was "more shaved muscle than I've ever had in bed at one time." Just reading those words, "more shaved muscle than I've ever had," gets me hard.

Mark Henderson's follow-up to Suburban Pleasures and Household Idols is Poolside: Hot Guys in Cool Water (Bruno Gmunder, 112 oversize pages, $78.99). It retains the extensive digital enhancements of his previous books, along with their enclosed settings, this time a lush garden surrounding a colorfully tiled pool. And while the book doesn't budge from his fascination with incredibly handsome men possessed of heated sexual charisma, it sure ups the ante on erections. Indeed, his subtitle would be more correct if it changed "Hot Guys in Cool Water" to "Hard Guys in Cool Water."

His models may be hard, but unlike Bianchi, Henderson doesn't offer explicit sex. There's neither insertion nor cum shot. But in almost every photo, he speaks Boner as his primary language. He's also unlike Bianchi in that his agenda is much simpler. Come, he says, pour yourself a cocktail, and lounge around my pool in the company of my boned-up friends.

Most of the loungers are porn stars, including Marcus Mojo, Reese Rideout, Chris Rockway, Tyler Torro, Jeremy Walker, and Brady Jensen. As one on-line reviewer at Amazon wrote, they offer "maximum overload of all the senses."

Some people say that I'm obsessed with erections, as if there's something wrong in that. But even if you won't say it, you know in your heart that there's nothing as beautiful as a boner. And when they're seen in such artfully created photographs, well, what blessing those sights convey.