CNN
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How do you see intimacy for older people? There is no end of sex scenes and other smoking content with young people and without windows, but it adapts to a certain age, popular culture greatly attracts a white or treats sex as a line line.
Last year, artist Marilyn Minder set out to change that, gathering a group of men and women over 70 years in her New York study to show a minor side of sex and relationships. In erotic and colorful images, older people are stripped of lingerie or underpants; They hug, kiss and caress the heat of the moment. Photographs call our attention to challenge something that is still seen as taboo, which shows playful and loving moments of pleasure.
“There is a lot for greater sex. Even one of the models I worked with said:” Who wants to see every thesis? “” Mnter recalled in a video call with CNN.
“All my thought process that entered was that we are pioneers,” he continued of the sexualized unpleasant context. “No one has shot older people affectionately, and with no son of elegance. And that was my goal: to make them look very desirable.”
A handful of the following images were originally published in the New York Times magazine, which accompanies a sincere editorial characteristic about the sexual lives of the elderly. MINTER now publishes the series in its entirety in the next book “Elder Sex”, and exhibits them in the New York LGDR gallery. The exhibition, which opened in April, is the first individual exhibition in the city since the Brooklyn Museum set up its retrospective “Pretty/Dirty” in 2016, and presents the highlight of its five decades pulmonary career, as well as other new work work bodies.
In “Elder Sex”, Minter used one of his exclusive aesthetics, which has explored both hyperreist paintings and in photographs: compositions of jewelry bodies of jewelry of bright bodies, apparently reflected. But despite their credentials as one of the most important artists and who break the limits today, and despite the stars like Lady Gaga and Lizzo posing for Su-Minter could not find enough real couples willing to participate.
“We wanted (include) all races, all types of sex,” Miner explained. “We had many problems to get models. I am 74 years old. I asked all my friends in mixed race relationships, in lesbian relationships, and none of them would do it.”
In the end, Miner chose the actors along with the few people they had accepted. He combined them in their study, photographing them behind a frozen glass panel, a trick to achieve the smoking and humid appearance without fighting the ephemeral water vapor. Duration his shots, Minder said that all his models, that they were as old as 89, told him that they still had regular and pleasant sexual lives. His feelings coincided with the people interviewed for the article of the New York Times magazine, which described the deepening of intimacy with his partners later in life, as well as to learn to navigate and appreciate their needs as their bodies aged.
MINTER believes that there is a sense of freedom in sex later in life that, for many people, can take time to achieve.
“When you are young and you have sex, it is a bit more performative than it is when you are 80 years old,” he said. As an elderly, “you are thinking”, this is me. Take it or leave it. I’m just going to enjoy. I will not pretend anything here. ”
MINTER recognizes that sex and self-image are loaded with women of all older women rarely see or take intimate needs, while for younger women, the sexual agency is often a TOOT, TOOT-IT, TOOT-IT.
“When you are 25 years old, there is so much fear of young women who have sex agency, it’s just scary for people,” he said.
Marilyn Minter presents images of ‘smoking’ shower
But the artist sees some progress in whom he looks like desirable on our television screens, which reflects a change of borceador Brader in cultural attitudes around sex. He pointed out photographs in People Magazine comparing the characters of “The Golden Girls” and “Sex and the City”, which are the same age at the time of the reset of the letter in HBO Max (which is owned by the CNN parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery). “The 50s look very different in the 2020s!” An exclaimed subtitle.
The thought “The Golden Girls” also deepened in romance and intimacy, and was widely seen as a notable positive for sex for their time, there is a marked contrast in the way women in their 50 years occur in both shows.
“I thought:” Okay, here it’s why it’s different, “he said.” Number one: people live much longer and are healthier … number two: there is this called Viagra. “MINTER laughed, and added:” But who retired at 54? A home in Florida with three other ladies? That?”
She hopes that “Elder Sex” not only serves as a very necessary visual reference for how intimacy can be in the major ages, but also resonates for people who feel that their wishes and lives are overlooked.
“It gives permission to people who feel shame for their sexual impulses,” he said. “I want this to give them permission to explore that and delete shame.”
“Elder sex“Posted by Jbe Books, it is now available.