The Male Nude & The Female Gaze

Photographs by Jennifer Folsom
Interview by Melanie Biehle

“We see so little representation of women in their 40s and 50s having genuine desire... The idea that I would seek out these encounters has caused a little bit of gossip in my small town. I’m seen as a bit scandalous in some circles and it’s been terribly hard to find venues to show the work.”

When 46-year-old photographer Jennifer Folsom picked up her camera, something shifted. She no longer felt invisible. In fact, she felt powerful. And she wanted to explore her reclaimed visibility in a way that made sense to her: through art. So Folsom embarked on a photography project that would explore a shift in power dynamics by photographing nude male models. 

Nudes have long been a fascination and inspiration for artists. Go to any art gallery or take a stroll around Manhattan (Hello, Audrey Munson). And while contemporary artists are reclaiming the nude to expand and challenge our ideas of beauty and vulnerability, most nudes still depict the female form.

Folsom wanted to see what would happen if she changed that. Now, four years after embarking on a project that would challenge what she knew about herself, her desire, gender dynamics, Tinder, and true vulnerability, she shares what she’s learned in a conversation with fellow artist, Melanie Biehle. 

Looking back at your younger self and the intimate moments/relationships you shared with men versus the woman behind the camera now, what changes have you observed within yourself?

When I first started this project four years ago I thought a big part of it was an expression of the freedom I felt from my divorce, and to some degree I’m sure it is. But the big difference between that young photographer and the one now is confidence. 

This work enabled me to be in an intimate space with men where I often feel very insecure. Behind the lens, I entered into these situations with confidence and felt a power dynamic change. Many of my models would describe me this way and it felt a little strange, but I’ve been able to take that confidence and power and move it into my relationships a little as well.

Working with models and having very intimate conversations with the men during the shoots allowed me to work on my communication. For years, I was often afraid to reveal my true feelings and desires. Now I’ve been given a new way to express them and many opportunities to talk about intimate subjects in a relatively safe space. 

Is the male nude a new subject matter for your art?

I’ve always been drawn to the male form as subject matter. I painted watercolors of male nudes in high school, and in college I started making my first photographic artistic nudes of males. While I did create some images of my ex-husband before we were married, my 16-year marriage simply suppressed the subject.

“Even with so much changing and growing, it’s still a bit on the fringe to talk about desire, sex, intimacy and wanting it all especially as a middle-aged woman with two children.”

Why do you think that the male nude is more taboo than the female?

I think it’s power dynamics. Male nudes have often been created by men for the pleasure of other men. Much of the work gaining traction within the label of the “female gaze” or women artists is women revealing other women or themselves. This view doesn’t truly threaten the patriarchal power dynamic so it's widely accepted. 

Women looking at men, cis men, nude everyday men, well that turns things around a little too much. Even with so much changing and growing, it’s still a bit on the fringe to talk about desire, sex, intimacy and wanting it all especially as a middle-aged woman with two children. 

We see so little representation of women in their 40s and 50s having genuine desire and bearing their nakedness. The idea that I would seek out these encounters has caused a little bit of gossip in my small town. I’m seen as a bit scandalous in some circles and it’s been terribly hard to find venues to show the work. Even my graduate program wouldn’t allow me access to a campus gallery to show my thesis because they had an unwritten “no penis” policy.

I’ve still had people, including women, tell me that the female form is just more beautiful. I think they are wrong, and that we’ve been conditioned into this way of thinking from an overreaching puritanical culture bias. 

As the scale slides, we are seeing and appreciating all shapes and sizes of female bodies but the male body is still largely absent from the conversation. Right now I’m just a tiny voice in the conversation, but I see it coming up with other women too. I hope that soon it will be more widely accepted and discussed.

What kind of conversations did you have with your models while you were taking the photos? 

At the beginning when I was still figuring things out I was photographing men I was dating, and things had a slightly more awkward feel to them. I was able to bring in that confidence I have from being a photographer for 20 years, but I also hadn’t really dated in 20 years so I was a little in over my head. 

As time passed and I started working with men I wasn’t involved with I often asked them about past relationships and intimate moments, and things just blossomed from there. My background in journalism has given me a knack for asking questions and I know when to probe a little deeper. 

Some men told me stories of childhood sexual abuse and some even mentioned assault as adults, by women. They talked about overcoming near death and surviving cancer. We bonded about getting out of bad relationships and raising children as single parents. I’m not afraid to be vulnerable and share in these instances, and I believe that has carried over into my work. 

Sometimes we were just silly too. It was a balance. Being naked with a stranger isn’t always easy and many of my models were new to being a subject as well as a little out of their element in the dating world.

Since I found most of my models through Tinder, I wasn’t what they were used to encountering. There’s not really a precedent for these kinds of pairings so we were able to redefine roles. I found it amazingly refreshing and I believe the models did too, allowing for a unique space to open up and be vulnerable both physically and emotionally.

“As the scale slides, we are seeing and appreciating all shapes and sizes of female bodies but the male body is still largely absent from the conversation. Right now I’m just a tiny voice in the conversation, but I see it coming up with other women too. I hope that soon it will be more widely accepted and discussed.”

How did you feel behind the camera? How did they feel/what did they express?

Being behind the lens made me feel amazing. I was powerful, confident, and really making art that was exciting and revealing.

It was awesome until during one photo session, maybe after I’d worked with four or five models my subject started masturbating as I was shooting. To this point it had all been pretty rated PG-13. I mean things happen, biology has a way of causing erections in men for all kinds of reasons. But this was different. 

Wow, how did you handle that?

I stopped shooting and sat back on my heels. My model immediately sensed a change in the energy and apologized profusely. I asked him why he decided to make it sexual. He replied that it was wonderfully erotic to be the focus of such an attractive woman and he got caught up in the moment.

As I sighed, we talked and I told him that he had stolen my power. That what I believe was a reversal of roles and shift of power wasn’t exactly what was happening. 

All these men were still looking at me. I was still an object of desire, clothed, behind my lens and that was a role I cannot escape. This sentiment has been confirmed by several of my models. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by that revelation, but it did change the dynamic a little bit. Sometimes I used it to my advantage and others I tried to minimize it.

Many of my models revealed wanting to work with me to gain some confidence of their own – to be bold and naked in a safe encounter where they weren’t being asked to perform sexually, but could just be in their own skin. They often mentioned that I was wonderfully reassuring and easy to work with, so to some degree, I was helping them build some confidence as well. 

Sometimes we are more similar than we think.

“Some men told me stories of childhood sexual abuse and some even mentioned assault as adults, by women. They talked about overcoming near death and surviving cancer. We bonded about getting out of bad relationships and raising children as single parents.”

I'd love to hear more about your experience with dating after divorce. A lot of women find themselves in the same place...basically relearning who they are with themselves again. What has that been like for you? How did you move forward and allow yourself to be vulnerable again?

When most folks were dating and learning about themselves in their 20s I was in two serious relationships. The latter became my husband of 16 years. 

When our marriage ended I was clueless. I actually didn’t date for a year because I was enjoying my alone time so much. I liked being in charge of my own life and living the way I wanted. I never really realized it during my marriage, but my ex-husband was a rather controlling person and I modeled who he wanted me to be. Whenever I started to reveal some of my darker side, and my desires, they were often shut down pretty quickly. 

I entered the dating world a bit like a made-for-TV movie. It was New Year’s Eve, totally unexpected and amazingly erotic. I met and began dating a 28-year-old bartender. I was 41. He turned out to be engaged. It was a disaster. But still, there was beauty in the experience. At the time of my divorce, I hadn’t had a sex drive for almost a decade. That bartender reawakened my desire. He reminded me that I was a passionate and sometimes insatiable woman. 

After that, I did what most singles do these days. I downloaded Tinder and began the crazy process of meeting people online. Since I was in grad school, everything had project potential and I started taking screenshots of all the profiles, sorting them, and documenting my dates.

Unfortunately, grad school deadlines made dating a full-time job, and being that vulnerable and putting myself out there that much took its toll. By May I was emotionally exhausted and had a small emotional breakdown. When you experience the highs and lows of acceptance and rejection in rapid succession, it's draining. 

I refocused on just photographing men nude in their spaces without dating them. That relieved a lot of pressure. Of course, I was finding my models through the Tinder app, and they were single, and I was single…so some of those encounters took a romantic path. One of my models joked that my project was about auditioning lovers. 

I have met some amazing men through this work. One I fell in love with one, and although that path wasn’t fully reciprocated we are still really good friends. Creating this work did screen men in a way. They had to be appreciative of what I was doing, and comfortable with the fact that I was seeing other naked men on a regular basis. We could have in depth conversations about power dynamics and societal roles early on, so I knew which men I would connect best with. 

It was nice, because the project took the stress off of that first meeting. I was able to initiate things, and we were just collaborating. After that sometimes we just parted ways and sometimes we decided to meet again on a less professional level.

What was the most important thing you learned from this project? 

I’ve learned a lot about masculine/feminine relationships and the dating rituals through making this work, but the most important thing I learned was from a romance that blossomed after a collaboration. I learned that we can experience and feel that magical love more than once in our lives. It may not last forever and it may not be reciprocated, but now I know for sure that my heart and mind are capable of those feelings. 

Tell us more about that.

The first man I ever photographed nude was my first love. It was one of those box full of letters, swoony kinds of love. I was 16 when we met, and we never really dated. We were best friends. And although we were extremely intimate, emotionally and physically, we didn’t have sex with each other. He was gay, or maybe bisexual, and actually dated a few of my friends. The one time we actually had sex in college, he told me that I was the only woman he’d ever been with where he didn’t have to think about being with a man. 

I loved him so hard it hurt. I never thought I’d have feelings that powerful again. I’d chalked it up to hormones, music, and adolescence. But a few years ago I met someone and experienced that same crazy rush. I felt 16 again, only this time with sexual intimacy and desire fulfilled. It was an amazing summer. 

What about now?

Now, I’m a bit more realistic. I’ve met a lot of men. Many of them I don’t connect with. I’m quirky and empowered by my work. I don’t follow the rules and that doesn’t work for a lot of people.

I’ve seen a lot of men naked. They harbor similar insecurities about weight and size and how women see them. We are all human. I’ve also become surprisingly comfortable in my own skin. When you show a four-foot picture of your naked bum and breasts on a gallery wall to the world, it becomes less of an issue. 

I want to show my vulnerable, sexual, and sassy 46-year-old self to the world. I have days when I’m lonely, but some days I also realize I’m pretty amazing.

“I’ve learned a lot about masculine/feminine relationships and the dating rituals through making this work, but the most important thing I learned was from a romance that blossomed after a collaboration. I learned that we can experience and feel that magical love more than once in our lives.”

What do you want other women to know?

Dating is risky and sometimes it feels like the rewards just aren’t there. 

The male/female dance has been choreographed for a really long time, and it’s up to you to decide if you want to deviate from the traditional steps and patterns. I see a lot of young women doing just that, but it's okay for us older ladies to do it too. It’s new and a little scary but totally worth it.

True connections are a joy. 

Being single has brought a whole new community into my life that I never would have had if I hadn’t been divorced. I can’t imagine my life without them. Any new relationship I might encounter is better because of this. I will never look to a single person for most of my emotional needs again, I have an entire entourage that I’ve never really had before. I also have male friends again, and I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed that. 

Dark days happen, it’s important to find your people.