Recently my photography was at the center of a right-wing media campaign.  Matt Barber of Concerned Women for America alerted Christians across the nation.  The fake news site World News Daily had their porn truffle hog Chelsea Schilling  ask "Is Wikipedia wicked porn?" (clever); the next day she reported that the FBI was investigating her "Will somebody please think of the children?" effort to attract readers.  Porn king Michael Lucas sent out a press release in support of my work.  It was a pretty nutty time.

Dashielle Bennet over at Fleshbot (using my photo without credit, which is against its license) correctly stated that my work was not pornographic (those guys should know).  On the other hand, former gay porn star turned right wing journalist Matt Sanchez (World News Daily and Human Events) in a lengthy e-mail debate insisted the photos were porn; I raised better arguments to show that they are not.  Sanchez was more intellectual than the people who started spreading libelous rumors about me and Erik Moeller.   And the cherry on top was when the satire sites Wikipedia Review and Encyclopedia Dramatica called me "Wikipedia's pornographer."

I have thousands of photographs on Wikipedia, 99% of which are uncontroversial (Madonna, subway stations, Martin Scorsese, the Temple Mount, etc.)  Yet some people perpetuate a myth: that I am Wikipedia's pornographer.  Out of thousand of photos, less than 20 have nudity:  My Tara Subkoff Imitation of Christ series; my body parts series; and, well, my adult film series.

20 photos are barely a grain of sand from the roughly 4,000 articles I illustrated on Wikipedia, but I had reasons for doing each one.  First: they were photographs that are difficult to get a hold off.  Imitation of Christ is an influential fashion line—-Chloë Sevigny and Scarlet Johansen have both been involved with it—-as much known for their shows as they are known for their designs.  In the one I attended in 2002 there were "shows" throughout the Maurice Villency furniture store over on the East Side of Manhattan.  One showed women vacuuming in only their panties and high heels.  Artnet, Conde Nast's Style.com, and others all reported on it.  I was there; I took photos.  You can see one of them on Subkoff's article.  If you look on the Talk page for the article, you will also see most of the page is full of an editor's lengthy diatribe against me. 

Those were my most controversial photos...until I photographed the human body.  I have a good friend who is a male model and personal trainer.  There was a problem to address:  Every dude and bro who just learned how to masturbate or had recently started going to the gym would take a photo of whatever and put it up on Wikipedia.  You can imagine why:  "My chest is the definitive chest for what pecs should look like!" (cue bragging rights at the kid's high school.  This was a problem: photographs of underage teens in various states of undress or totally nude.  That's not to speak of how the annoying parade of cameraphone cock shots and scantily clad thirteen year olds trying to look sexy.  I called my friend and I asked him if he would mind if I photographed his body.  Every inch of it.  And I did. It was an attempt to create shots of the body that were encyclopedic and high quality.  They were meant to be "stable" photos not to be lightly replaced by blurry teen pics, which causes legal problems.  Did I succeed?  I don't know.  I have been told they are too artistic, too explicit, too boring, too everything.  You can be the judge (though not every photograph is in this gallery).

Those photos were my most controversial...until I photographed the man The New Republic's James Kirchik dubbed "Gay Porn's Neocon Kingpin," Michael Lucas.  Believe it or not: I could care less about porn.  Except for an old "Bang Bus" sitting around on my hard drive, I did not own any.  But because my stalker hated Michael Lucas, as a farewell F.U. to him Michael and I decided to collaborate and produce some high-quality photos of what goes on during the making of an adult film.  Out of roughly 400 shots, I uploaded eleven.  Only one shot does not have the cameras, lights, operators, etc. in the shot (and that one is not explicit).  Most of the shots do not show genitalia. 

Those are my reasons.  I'd be interested to hear what people think about all of this.  Am I "Wikipedia's pornographer"?  Were these photos wrong to take?