There really is another Malta, but I suspect it’s the real one
Published:
March 29, 2014 at 9:34am
This ‘model’ photograph is called Abused. And the girls posing for this kind of thing don’t even know it’s yet another male fetish. At least, I hope they don’t.
But then again, there’s only so much that can be put down to stupidity and naivete.
This is the real Malta, isn’t it, and not what you see on the surface.
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https://www.facebook.com/edwardmalliaphotography/photos/pb.126258154072463.-2207520000.1396080916./222810771083867/?type=3&theater
It’s not naivete or stupidity. It’s the normalisation of twisted behaviour.
Like gay adoption
Absolutely! And not only in modelling but in many more spheres. This is extreme professional amateurism – bundled with severe illiteracy, machoism and misogynist bullying.
This is what Muscat understood before the election and fed upon. This IS the real Malta and the PN has failed to understand it and therefore cannot appeal to the majority of the electorate.
Our PM read his marketing and went for the kill. So what does the PN do? I mean marketing-wise?
Daphne, if these photos are shocking you, I’m assuming you haven’t heard of the immensely popular “2 girls 1 cup” type videos all over the internet.
[Daphne – And once more, you miss the point. It is not the photographs which shock me, but the fact that these Maltese village girls and boys don’t understand what they are involved in, or worse, that they do understand and still do it. Why, and for what? It’s perversion for its own sake. Why pose for a perverted photograph, and actually PAY rather than be paid, to have it taken. In the real world, models work – they do this kind of thing for a living. It is not an end in itself. What we are looking at here is an entire business which trades, for some very sick reasons, on the need of these very sheltered and ignorant young people to pose and be admired. It’s going to get them nowhere, and they are actually paying the people who organise these things, who then insist that they own the copyright, which means that they are probably selling these twisted photographs on to God knows where.]
All I’m saying is that ‘art’, pornography and erotica elsewhere is way worse and shocking and misogynistic and whatever else, than this. This is nothing. How would you react if there was an Amsterdam-like red light district and a hardcore porn industry in Malta?
[Daphne – Why would I react? The people getting involved in that generally know exactly what they are doing, which is just the point here: these naive villagers don’t. They think they are ‘modelling’. Oh, and incidentally, that’s how a lot of those involved in work in red-light districts and hard porn started out. So while they do know now what they are doing, they didn’t when they started out. Most girls just get sucked into it, by abusively manipulative individuals, and then find themselves on a downward spiral. So I guess it’s lucky that we don’t have a hardcore porn and big red-light thing going on here in Malta, because this kind of ‘modelling’ would be the recruitment zone.]
” Oh, and incidentally, that’s how a lot of those involved in work in red-light districts and hard porn started out. ”
These kind of illusions and manipulation is what is leading to sex slavery.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/8139722/The-women-sold-into-sex-slavery.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/tricked-beaten-and-sold-as-a-sex-slave–the-diary-of-mia-aged-14-1235529.html
I can perhaps understand a man’s reason for behaving in this manner but cannot fathom why women are stupid enough not to realise they have become part of a widespread disease where women are in the constant need of ego-massaging only to become putty in the hands of repugnant men.
They are not modelling, they are modelling clay.
This is much the norm, that we have a minister who is a regular customer of pole-dancing and gentlemen’s clubs that might be a front for white slavery.
Well done Daphne, so true !
I am confused about what is especially wrong with this picture. Would it be ok if she was posing in a bikini with a smile on her face? Its “perverted” and “twisted” because for once its a picture that isn’t traditionally sexy. I suppose as a work of art its open for interpretation, but I can’t understand what’s so inappropriate about it.
That’s the problem here. Too many people can’t understand what the problem is.
This sort of thing glorifies what it represents. It makes a mockery of the physically abused and abuses the participants. It is exploitative in more ways than one, not least because there’s nothing in it for them except a warped sense of belonging to a fictitious world of pseudo-glamour for ehich they pay rather than being paid.
In art interpretation, context is a defining factor. In a country where traditional art consists of tberfil, fireworks and bandalori tal-festa, there is no framework that defines this sort of thing as art. If you understand art as a thing of beauty please explain what is beautiful about a very real and widespread social problem.
A few years ago the fickle world of fashion glorified “heroin-chic”. It was seen for what it was: a sordid reduction of real human misery to a shallow form of entertainment. None of the people making money out of that lived as desperate heroin addicts, prostituting themselves in condemned buildings any more, I imagine, than those exploiting misogynistic abuse are victims themselves.
Just because our traditional “art” consists of fireworks and bandalori it doesn’t make other art forms inappropriate but on the contrary are welcomed by many.
Traditional Maltese culture is beautiful in its own respect but doesn’t appeal to all.
With the extent of globalization today it is no wonder that sub cultures not only exist but thrive. A lot of artistic movements were originally seen as sick or twisted when they weren’t compliant with the norm but I can’t help feel that this intolerance is a product of closed mindedness.
Hiphop, graffiti and even impressionist or surrealist paintings were all considered perverted at conception but I thought the entire point of living in a democratic state was to have freedom of expression.
Of course this is showbusiness and some people will always be taken advantage of. Although it is a sad truth I think the only way to beat it is to educate children to the point that they will know if they are being taken for a ride. But if consenting adults are ready to pay to have degrading pictures taken I don’t think we should be so quick to condemn photographers for offering this service.
A problem arises when such sub-cultures condone bad things such as the whole “heroine-chic” thing you mentioned, but after all you can turn MTV on and hear a bunch of teenage billionaires sensationalizing drugs, casual sex, violence and any other vices you could think of to a catchy tune.
I’m not saying it’s right, but if you accept one you must accept them all.
If consenting adults pay to have degrading pictures taken, it’s self-immolation, not art. If photographers provide a service against payment, it’s business, not art.
Prostitutes provide services against payment too. Some of their services are more degrading than others, and some of them provide those services even when other options are available to them. But it’s prostitution, not art.
What is wrong with this picture and other similar ones is that they are plastered on Facebook.
Let’s not forget there are children as young as thirteen who have access to them.
There are a lot of pictures on Facebook some much more disturbing than this. Parents are responsible for what their children have access to and no one else.
With a laptop and internet access any child has direct access to the most twisted pornography a long with any mature film or music ever created. Should all art forms that are inappropriate for children be banned then? Or just kept off Facebook?
I see much more sense in not allowing 13-year-olds unsupervised internet access but that’s just me.
Here’s what’s wrong with it:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/jan/09/female-corpses-fashion-trend-marc-jacobs-miley-cyrus
Go on, beat up a woman and she’ll look vulnerable, submissive and still attractive, if not sexy. That’s what this picture portrays. Of course, reality is completely different. This is so warped.
This is actually a fetish some men have. They actually get it from, where else, pornography which is known as ‘abuse porn’.
So now a woman posing as ‘abused’ with make-up smeared on her face is ‘sexy’ art.
I reported it to Facebook as graphic violence. Not sure if it will stick though.
My son would have nightmares for a week were he to see pictures like this.