Shiri Zin

Shiri Zinn

Conceptual designer Shiri Zinn centres her work on modern day perceptions of eroticism and empowerment. Her work represents a dynamic fusion of art, jewellery, fashion accessory and product design.

It challenges the boundaries between what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable for public consumption, and questions value judgments made by key influencers including media, fashion and product industries.Shiri Zinn believes it is only through quality that we can challenge prejudices and preconceived notions about sexuality.

I also intend to challenge these prejudices and uncover unexpected glamour in this marketplace through the medium of design.

A selection of fine pieces includes:

•Handcrafted pink / red molten solid glass piece with marabou feather tail, Swarovski crystals and sterling silver stand• Handcrafted black molten solid glass piece with sterling silver stand• Handcrafted double-ended aqua and black solid glass piece with a diamond-studded band of sixty Swarovski crystals• Handcrafted natural Brazilian quartz crystal piece with sterling silver stand• Handcrafted one meter fine turquoise snake skin whip with diamond-studded handle and blue zircon set stone

All silver is hallmarked and made by Formula One trophy makers.Swarovski crystals are set by Debeers trophy award setters. Each piece is stamped with a limited edition number and engraved with the artist's signature.

Pleasurable Materials
Solid organic glass is the latest material to be used in sex toy manufacture. It allows for a more weighty feeling and is a wonderfully receptive material to warm & cold sensations. Feather is a profoundly sensual material, while diamonds have seduced us for centuries.

www.shirizinn.com

CMNF for ART

Nude art models are models who pose for photographers, painters, sculptors, and other artists as part of their work.

Models are frequently used for training art students, but are also employed by accomplished artists.

Throughout the history of Western Art, drawing the human figure from living models was considered the most useful tool in developing the skill of draftsmanship.

In the art school classroom setting, the purpose is to learn how to draw humans of all different shapes, ages and ethnicities, so there are no real limitations on who the model can be. In some cases, the model may pose with various props, one or more other models, animals, against real or artificial background, in natural or artificial light etc.

Models for life drawing classes are often entirely nude, apart from visually non-obstructive personal items such as small jewelry and sometimes eyeglasses. In a job advertisement seeking nude models, this may be referred to as being "undraped" or "disrobed".

In Western countries, there is generally no objection to either sex posing nude f

or or drawing members of the opposite sex. However, this was not always so in the past, particularly prior to the 20th century. In 1886 Thomas Eakins was famously dismissed from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art for removing the loincloth from a male model in a mixed classroom.

Similarly, Victorian modesty required the female model to pose nude with her face draped (LEFT).

European arts academies did not allow women to study the nude at all until the end of the nineteenth century.

CMNF in ART HISTORY

Clothed male, nude female (on the internet sometimes abbreviated to CMNF) is a genre of erotica featuring one or more nude women and one or more clothed men.

One-sided female nudity has been depicted in art, particularly in the Orientalist paintings of the 19th-century. A typical scene would often contain depictions of white slavery in which one or several nude females would be displayed before an audience of men as part of a slave auction. The archetypal example of this type of scene is Jean-Léon Gérôme's The Slave Market 1884, in which a nude female slave is examined by a potential buyer. (LEFT)

Outside of the Orientalist style, a less popular CMNF theme in 19th-century art was the knight-errant, in which the stereotype of the damsel in distress was used to explore the erotic subtext of the powerful knight coming to the rescue of a helpless female.

The best known example of this is John Everett Millais' painting Knight Errant 1870, in which a nude woman has been tied to a tree and a knight is shown cutting her loose.(LEFT)

The painting initially created controversy when it was first displayed, because the nude female was shown facing her rescuer, a posture which was considered too sexually suggestive for European audiences. John Everett Millais repainted the figure so that she was looking away from her rescuer.

Édouard Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe ("The Luncheon on the Grass"), in which a nude woman is depicted having lunch with two fully clothed men, is another famous painting whose themes were controversial when it was first displayed in 1863.

This reaction of shock by 19th-century audiences highlights the potential of CMNF as a mechanism for both challenging and reinforcing gender stereotypes.

HIGH-END DESIGN

Sex TOYS

High End Sex Toys

Sex toys have come a long way since the days when doctors treated “hysteria” by manipulating a woman’s genitals until she achieved release. Early vibrators were sold as portable muscle massagers, with the notion they might be applied with great success to the genitals left to the consumer’s imagination. The sexual revolution changed this, of course, with low-rent sex shops openly selling jelly dildos and made-in-China battery-powered wands.

About 10 years ago, something fascinating and perhaps inevitable occurred: Small manufacturers hired designers and engineers and sometimes even consulted actual women to create “designer” gizmos that cost $100 or more, justifying the expense with promises of superior quality, innovative design and “modern tech” innards.

More recently, luxury boutiques have pushed prices higher by presenting toys as objets d'art. Unlike most sex toys which are mass manufactured and designed with little thought for usability or longevity, high end sex toys are designed as much for their beauty as for their function, and are manufactured from high quality materials that are chosen for their practicality and aesthetic.Practical, yes, but they also look so natural on your coffee table your friends will never know it’s been in their host’s pussy or butt. Sneaky - Sculptural - Sexy

It is worth noting that most of the people who are making high end sex toys are not from inside the adult sex toy industry. Instead they tend to come with backgrounds in industrial, graphic, or conceptual design, and marketing. The obvious (and possibly only) drawback to the high end sex toys currently available is price. With retail prices ranging from $150.00 to over $1000.00, high end sex toys are out of the reach and remain within a niche market.

$$$$$

World's Most Expensive Sex Toy

Saturday, March 20, 2010, The Age - Odd Spot

A Paris jeweller is selling a 40,000 euro ($A59,154) 18-carat diamond ring mounted in a sex toy that it claims is the world's most expensive erotic novelty.

'This sex toy was designed for rich people who want to declare their love in a special way,' said Jean-Francois Tokars, a manager at Maison Victor on Paris' posh place Vendome.

The luxury sex toy is a white gold dildo that comes in various sizes and comes apart to release the ring studded with 117 diamonds.

Maison Victor has already sold several sex toys that Tokars described as a 'very high end product'.

PARIS

High-End Erotic Design

Anti-Sex Feminism

Anti-Sex Feminism

"A woman reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual." - Gloria Steinem

"When pornography is… normal, a whole population of men is primed to dehumanise women and to enjoy inflicting assault sexually… Pornography is the perfect preparation - motivator and instruction manual in one - for… sexual atrocities." - Catharine MacKinnon

Pornography + Pop Culture =

My Pro-Sex Defense

Pro-Sex Defense

As a "pro-sex" feminist, I believe: Pornography benefits women, both personally and politically. It provides sexual information (dare I say education) on at least three levels:

• It gives a panoramic view of the world's sexual possibilities. This is true even of basic sexual information such as masturbation. It is not uncommon for women to reach adulthood without knowing how to give themselves pleasure.
• It allows women to "safely" experience sexual alternatives and satisfy a healthy sexual curiosity. The world is a dangerous place. By contrast, pornography can be a source of solitary enlightenment.
• It offers the emotional information that comes only from experiencing something either directly or vicariously. It provides us with a sense how it would "feel" to do something.

Pornography allows women to enjoy scenes and situations that would be unattainable to them in real life. Take, for example, one of the most common fantasies reported by women - the fantasy of "being taken." The first thing to understand is that a rape fantasy does not represent a desire for the real thing. Why would a healthy woman daydream about being raped? Perhaps by losing control, she also sheds all sense of responsibility for and guilt over sex. Perhaps it is the exact opposite of the polite, gentle sex she has now. Perhaps it is flattering to imagine a particular man being so overwhelmed by her that he must have her. Perhaps she is curious. Perhaps she has some masochistic feelings that are vented through the fantasy. Is it better to bottle them up?

Pornography breaks cultural and political stereotypes, so that each woman can interpret sex for herself. Anti-feminists tell women to be ashamed of their appetites and urges. Pornography tells them to accept and enjoy them.

Pornography benefits women politically in many ways. Historically, pornography and feminism have been fellow revolutionaries. Although it is not possible to draw a cause-and-effect relationship between the rise of pornography and that of feminism, they both demand the same social conditions - namely, sexual freedom.

Pornography is free speech applied to the sexual realm. Freedom of speech is the ally of those who seek change: it is the enemy of those who seek to maintain control. Pornography, along with all other forms of sexual heresy, such as homosexuality, should have the same legal protection as political heresy. This protection is especially important to women, whose sexuality has been controlled by censorship through the centuries.

"Scratch most feminists and underneath there is a woman who longs to be a sex object. The difference is that is not all she wants to be." - Betty Rollin.

PORNOGRAPHY = DEGRADING

Pornography is degrading to women.

Degrading is a subjective term. I find commercials in which women become orgasmic over soapsuds to be tremendously degrading. The bottom line is that every woman has the right to define what is degrading and liberating for herself.

Degradation is often linked to the "objectification" of women: that is, porn converts them into sexual objects. What does this mean? If taken literally, it means nothing because objects don't have sexuality; only beings do. But to say that porn portrays women as "sexual beings" is less logical. Usually, the term sex objects means showing women as body parts, reducing them to physical objects. What is wrong with this? Women are as much their bodies as they are their minds or souls. No one gets upset if you present women as "brains" or as spiritual beings. If I concentrated on a woman's sense of humor to the exclusion of her other characteristics, is this degrading? Why is it degrading to focus on her sexuality?

Feminist Positions

Liberal Feminism

Liberal feminism is a continuation of 1960s feminism that called for equality with men, who were not oppressors so much as partners to be enlightened. Equality did not mean destroying the current system, but reforming it through such measures as affirmative action. The liberal principle "a woman's body, a woman's right" underlay arguments ranging from abortion rights to lifestyle freedoms like lesbianism. The stress was upon the act of choosing, rather than upon the content of any choice.

Liberal feminists share the general liberal bias toward free speech, but they are in flux on pornography. Some liberal organizations like Feminists for Free Expression (FFE) have consistently opposed censorship in any form. Some liberal feminists like Sallie Tisdale (Talk Dirty to Me) have defended sexual freedom. But many liberal feminists commonly reason as follows: "As a woman I am appalled by Playboy ... but as a writer I understand the need for free expression."

Such arguments are not pro-pornography. They are anticensorship ones based on grounds that a creative culture requires freedom of speech.

Pro-Sex Feminism

Over the past decade, a growing number of feminists - labeled "pro sex" - have defended a woman's choice to participate in and to consume pornography. Some of these women are current or ex-sex-workers who know firsthand that posing for pornography is an uncoerced choice that can be enriching. Pro-sex feminists retain a consistent interpretation of the principle "a woman's body, a woman's right" and insist that every peaceful choice a woman makes with her own body must be accorded full legal protection, if not respect.

Pro-sex arguments sometimes seem to overlap with liberal feminist ones. For example, both express concern over who will act as censor because subjective words, such as "degrading," will be interpreted to mean whatever the censor wishes.

Anti-Porn Feminism

Page Mellish of Feminists Fighting Pornography has declared, "There's no feminist issue that isn't rooted in the porn problem."

She considers pornography - in and of itself - to be an act of sexual violence. Why is pornography viewed as both the core issue of modern feminism and an inherent act of violence? The answer lies in radical feminist ideology, which is referred to as "gender feminism."

Gender feminism looks at history and sees an uninterrupted oppression of women by men across cultures. To them, men construct women's sexuality through the words and images of society. After such construction, men commercialize women's sexuality and market it back in the form of pornography. In other words, through porn man defines woman sexually - a definition that determines every aspect of her role in society.

Feminism-Sex War 2010

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The Sex Wars

During the 1970s, much of the discourse in the feminist movement was dominated by discussions of lesbian feminism.

Toward the end of the decade, however, the conversations within feminism began to focus on a new topic: sexuality. This included sexuality of all types, not just lesbian sexuality. Included in the discussions and debates were heterosexuality, pornography, sadomasochism, butch/femme roles, and prostitution.

One of the issues, pornography, was quickly taken up by some in the feminist movement as a central issue, and so the anti-pornography feminist movement was born. Very soon afterward, there was a reaction against this movement, a reaction which is termed “pro-sex” feminism.

The two sides of this debate quickly became heated and passionate, thus became the Sex Wars.

Key Issues of the Sex Wars:

What is the fundamental nature of sex and sexuality?

Is pornography an issue of violence against women or an issue of free speech?

Which kinds of sex are appropriate and politically correct and which are not?

Who gets to decide?

How did each side of the debate characterize themselves and how were they characterized by their opponents?

In what ways did the debates around sexuality affect lesbian women?

How are people still being affected today?