There is a young man, a model by profession, who often frequents the gymnasium—a temple of self-regard, if you will, where modern man sculpts his outward form with a zeal that would make even the most devout medieval penitent blush. This particular youth is enamoured, not with the art of health, but with the artfulness of his own reflection. He imagines himself debonair—a word that in the right hands might evoke poise and ease—but in his case, one could only say he was tolerably good-looking, the kind of handsomeness that posterity will forget the moment youth departs.
One evening, as we chanced to labour upon our respective machines, he ventured to ask me what I thought of the photographs he frequently shared with his coterie of admirers in the curious and crowded bazaar of social media. I offered him what I considered an honest assessment—unembellished, but not unkind. My candour, it would seem, pricked the delicate membrane of his vanity, for without any prompt or provocation, he abruptly remarked that the particular images I had found appealing were especially popular with “the gays” in his circle of models.
Far from taking offense, I confess I was somewhat flattered by this comparison. I had long understood, or at least heard whispered in circles of taste and critique, that those whose affections are drawn toward their own sex often possess an acute sensitivity to aesthetics. This, I suspect, is not mere stereotype but a truth borne out by centuries of artistic tradition. From Michelangelo to Oscar Wilde, history stands witness to the phenomenon. And so, considering my own affections to be resolutely heteronormative, I was not displeased to think myself, by some quirk of natural temperament, still a man of sound artistic sensibilities.
I informed him, quite plainly, that my appreciation of those images had nothing to do with the question of sexual inclination. My judgments were born not of desire but of discipline, for my acquaintance with some of the most seasoned minds in art and cinema had taught me that the eye, once trained, learns to discern quality apart from the distractions of personal fancy. A photograph, I told him, is not an object of lust but of composition. It is not the body that makes the picture but the light, the lines, the texture, the interplay of shadow and form. Desire clouds the eye, but art sharpens it.
Yet, instead of gratitude for this clarification, his countenance grew more rigid, and he clung even more stubbornly to his original notion. With all the solemnity of an oracle, he insisted that the images I had not liked were, in his estimation, the finest, for they made him look “manly” — as opposed to the ones I had praised, which, according to his telling, had made him resemble “a sculpture,” an epithet apparently bestowed upon him by the aforementioned gay admirers.
I tried, with a spirit of gentle pedagogy, to affect upon him that a photograph must first and foremost capture character. The images he favoured were, without doubt, handsome in the superficial sense, but they were bereft of that which would command the interest of a true connoisseur: the precise alignment of light, the subtle composition, the quiet but unmistakable sense of narrative embedded in stillness. A portrait must tell us something about its subject, or else it is nothing but a mirror with pretensions.
For a fleeting moment, he appeared to weigh my words in earnest, as though some corner of his mind had conceded the argument. But then, as if determined to disabuse himself of all higher thought, he allowed himself a snigger and repeated, “Like I said, the pictures I like are manly.” It was a spectacle of immaturity so complete, so unembarrassed, that I saw little use in continuing the exchange. I wished him well in his future endeavours and resumed my exercise, leaving him to his world of muscular self-admiration.
This small encounter, trivial though it seemed, called to my mind an observation I had once read — and which, the more I reflect upon it, the truer it becomes: No subject in art or photography speaks to us more directly than the human body. Indeed, nothing is more intimately known to us, for it is the very form we inhabit, the visible house of our invisible self. Yet, for all its familiarity, no subject is more elusive. Across every culture and era, the depiction of the body has always presented a paradox, for it is at once both matter and spirit, animal and angel, self and stranger. It is the thing we know best and the thing we understand least.
Artistic images of the human body have, unsurprisingly, always drawn controversy. Whether in the sacred prohibitions of Judaism and Islam against image-worship, or in the more modern ideological skirmishes of feminist critique and the politics of gender representation, the body remains a site of conflict. To paint or photograph a human figure is to attempt, with fallible tools, to apprehend an entity that itself is a fusion of contradictions. No wonder, then, that the image of a body can stir so many competing emotions — reverence, discomfort, longing, or even doubt.
In this light, I find myself at a loss to comprehend how the young model — and, it must be said, many others like him — arrive at the strange conclusion that an image can be categorised as “gay” or “straight.” Unless the photograph in question depicts its subjects entwined in some unmistakably erotic embrace, or caught mid-act in the throes of human coupling, what else could its sexuality signify? An image is, at best, good or bad — and even that is a judgement laced with subjectivity.
This reflection, meandering as it may seem, was recently enriched by a conversation with two friends. One, a young man named Alex, hailing from London but presently stationed in Bangalore under the employ of a British telecom giant. A man of his late twenties, he occupies an address in one of the more distinguished precincts of the city. He remarked, with no small sense of bewilderment, upon the peculiar obsession of Bangalore’s social elite with two subjects: homophobia and racism. “One might expect,” he observed, “that such matters would trouble the less fortunate, or those whose education had left wide gaps, but not those who sit at the upper echelons of learning, culture, and privilege.”
Alex went on to describe his office, home to some 300 souls, where men and women alike interact freely, even intimately, often holding hands in that unselfconscious Indian fashion that to Western eyes can seem strikingly affectionate, yet carries none of the implications the model would assign to such gestures. He concluded, rather shrewdly, that it was not the general populace but the so-called ‘cream of the crop’ who, perhaps suffering from a surfeit of leisure and not enough true engagement, had grown fond of inventing divisions where none were needed.
My other friend, Nityn, a vivacious and well-bred young man from one of Bangalore’s most respectable families, shared a similar dismay. Schooled at one of the city’s most respected institutions, and seasoned by life in Delhi during his collegiate years, he too had sensed a peculiar shift upon returning to his native soil. Where once a hug between friends was an unremarkable and innocent sign of affection, he now found himself met with sardonic queries: “What’s with this sudden display of affection, bro?” or “Relax, dude, it’s not like we’re parting for eternity.” He marvelled at how this new suspicion, this readiness to ascribe hidden meaning to harmless gestures, had seeped into the very marrow of the city’s social life.
And as if to crown this collection of absurdities, another incident comes to mind — one which would be laughable were it not so revealing. I had occasion, about a year past, to lunch at the venerable Bangalore Club in the company of a well-known coffee planter, whose holdings include a number of resorts and cafés scattered across India. That day, some of his cousins had joined us. I had scarcely lit a cigarette when one of these gentlemen looked at me with visible relief and exclaimed, “Thank God you didn’t hold the cigarette while puffing, man.”
Startled by this odd remark, I enquired what he meant. With unshakable conviction, he explained, “Gays hold onto the body of the cigarette while taking a puff; straight men move their fingers away.” I could not help but ask whether the countless villagers — hardy, tobacco-chewing men who have smoked in precisely that manner since time immemorial — were, by his reasoning, all closeted homosexuals. He met my question with a shrug and a nonchalant, “Maybe.” My companion, knowing my thoughts all too well, signalled discreetly that I ought to let the poor fellow be.
Such episodes provoke one to wonder: what, precisely, is happening to us? The young model’s preoccupation with labelling everything as gay or straight could, I suppose, be dismissed as the petulance of arrested adolescence. But what excuse can we offer for those of us who hail from stable homes and sound educations? Surely, we are capable of distinguishing between a sexual overture and the embrace of genuine affection.
It would be too easy, and too false, to lay the blame at the feet of Western influence or television’s endless parade of vulgarities. Adults are not empty vessels to be filled without resistance; we are creatures of will and conscience, responsible for the architecture of our own beliefs. It seems to me that we would do well to forsake this compulsive habit of examining every gesture, every glance, every image, through the distorting lens of sexuality. The world is already complex enough without this added burden of suspicion. And the sooner we free ourselves from such barren and baseless notions, the better it will be for us all.
