6 kinky, not entirely SFW photos from the BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! archive
Queer fine art photography platform BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! launched in 2020. Here, founder Ghislain Pascal shares key fetish-themed images from the BOYS! archive, and reflects on the project’s meteoric rise
Sometimes I look at stuff and think ‘that’s gone a little too far’. Then I’ll think, ‘This was happening in the 70s! Put your big boy pants on!’ One man’s kink is another man’s repulsion – you have to accept it.
A photographer once sent me a picture of someone peeing in someone’s mouth. I took it out, put it back in… It was actually a really beautiful picture. Nobody bought it, but sometimes you include things based on merit.
We’ve never looked at kink as a specific theme at BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! but it’s there: jockstraps, trainers, leather, peeing, a lot of masks. Especially with gay and queer photography, the photographer’s personal fetishes come through.
The reference point, for me, is always Robert Mapplethorpe. He made kink very present in his photography, whether whips or bondage.
“Less willies“
My mantra, though, is always, ‘less willies’! I don’t want BOYS! to be perceived as another ‘sexy pictures’ outlet. There are loads of magazines, like Crotch and Yummy, that do that really well.
But I wouldn’t consider them – and I don’t think they’d consider themselves – ‘fine art photography’. That’s the prism I look through when curating. Over the years, my curation’s gotten artier. I try to make it distinct. I want to be surprised.
Art, at the end of the day, is about beauty; something you want to hang on your wall and enjoy, to look at. If it’s kinky, and maybe you’re not comfortable hanging it in your living room… hang it in your bedroom! At my house in rural France, as you go up, the mood changes. My living room’s very safe, but by the time you get to my private bathroom, that’s where the kinky stuff is!
Boys to men
BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! was born out of The Little Black Gallery, my photography gallery set up in London in 2008, representing famous photographers from around the world.
I began buying photography; a lot of it queer and gay, although not exclusively. Through that, I became friends with Canadian photographer Tyler Udall, former Fashion Director of Dazed and Another Man. I bought his work and started exhibiting it, but to be honest, it didn’t go down well with our clients in Chelsea. But I loved it.
One of the shows we called BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! to get people interested. We auctioned images online. Due to the success of that, did our first book.
After that, Covid came, and the magazine was born. It was all very spontaneous – no grand plan, no strategy. Now, it’s overtaken my whole bloody life! Books, magazines, zines, the gallery, the podcast, exhibitions. All in all, it’s about 10 to 12 people on the payroll. It just keeps growing.
Taste (me when he’s kissing you)
Not to blow my own trumpet, but I find it really easy to curate images. Photographers can be the worst editors of their own images! They pick the worst pictures sometimes. I also find it funny talking to art directors on magazines who say: ‘We spent days choosing the images…’ I’m like: ‘Really? It takes me five minutes.’ It’s instinctive.
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Attitude – the world’s biggest LGBTQ+ media brand and Europe’s best-selling magazine for gay men – is launching Attitude Uncut, an all-new digital magazine that will be published six times a year (between Attitude print issues) and available exclusively on Apple News+ and via the Attitude app. Featuring long-read journalism inspired by themes resonating within the LGBTQ+ community, each issue will provide a deep dive into topics as varied as sexuality, identity, health, relationships and beyond. The first issue – themed ‘Kink’ – is inspired by hit film Pillion, in cinemas from 28 November. Set in the world of fetish, it stars Alexander Skarsgård and former Harry Potter star Harry Melling who, after a chance meeting in a pub, begin a love affair that takes them both on an unexpected journey of self-discovery.
Subscribe to Attitude magazine in print, download the Attitude app, and follow Attitude on Apple News+. Plus, find Attitude on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X and YouTube.
