‘Asking for it’ feminist photography exhibition

May 9th, 2008

A controversial art show which uses photographs of naked men to draw attention to women’s vulnerability launches tonight (Friday 9 May 08) at Ladyfest London.

‘Asking for it’ is a series of photographs of men – some clothed, some completely naked. Photographer Alex Brew approached men outside offices, pubs, cafes and ‘gentlemen’s venues’ and confronted them with her camera.

Sometimes she asked the men to fully or partially undress in a more private space – in an alleyway, a car park, at their place, or at hers.

As the exhibition explains, ‘Alex followed her fear into these situations of potential male violence and disapproval: situations where passivity, acquiescence and submission feel safer or more appealing than taking control.’

‘The images show both domestic and public scenes. The nudity brings to mind a close relationship and sex and yet these are strangers or acquaintances. No sex is on offer. No money’s exchanged. The series confuses our understanding of what a stranger is and brings to mind domestic violence and rape.’

cityscowl ‘The images illuminate the risks women take everyday in a culture that believes that the stranger is more dangerous than the man by your side in spite of the statistics that show the opposite.’

‘Women – unlike men – are most likely to be attacked, raped or killed by a man known to her.’

“Women take risks all the time,” says Alex. “Two women a week are killed by a partner or ex-partner according to Homicide Statistics. I’m dealing with a culture that’s comfortable with women being exposed to those risks provided she doesn’t challenge the man she’s risking it for.”

“I’ve been told to be careful now in a way that I wasn’t when I was 18 going out wearing very little and getting wrecked. That’s thought to be safer than what I’m doing now. It’s this belief that submission is safer. It is used as a survival tactic.”

tattooman “But as the statistics on rape and domestic violence show, this leads to a spiral of violence against women but a violence that is pushed indoors.”

“Most female rape victims are raped by a man known to her. And at least one in four women experiences domestic violence at some time in her life according to Refuge, a charity that I worked for on their National Domestic Violence Helpline.”

“This project is risky in a country where any sign of sexual intent in the female is classed as asking for rape and where domestic violence and rape don’t carry as heavy a penalty as stranger violence.”

nakedman