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| © Robert Maplethorpe. |
This photograph by Maplethorpe has a very strong and direct element of voyeurism.
The viewer is given direct access to an erotic and intimate sex act we are invited to stare, to gaze, we are free to watch...
Maplethorpe has ensured we can do this primarily through the framing of the photograph.
The woman's head is cropped off, we can only see the top of the mans head (though this is quite ambiguous because it could be a woman).
The woman is dressed in a basque, stockings and shoes. The clothing adds to the appeal of the photograph making it more pornographic and erotic. If the woman was naked this would change the meaning and the symbolism of the image from erotic and possibly pornographic to something more loving and meaningful.
The gaze of the viewer is made easier because, our stare, our curiosity, our gaze goes unmet and unchallenged. We are free to watch and look as long as we wish, we can look upon this photograph and its intimacy because there is no extra-diegetic gaze coming back from the performers to confront our invasion on there act of eroticism.
Our gaze is further strengthened because the couple are anonymous, we cannot see their faces, they in turn cannot see ours, there is no air of confrontation, no eye contact, no facial expressions to challenge those looking upon this act of love making.
This greatly strengthens the power the viewer over the viewed a constituent of panoptiscism a theory of developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault.
We are free to look for as long as we wish, unnoticed and unchallenged.
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