A photographer who took pictures of women right after they'd had sex explained the reason why she did this and what she was hoping to accomplish.
Patricia Tio explained to the British Journal of Photography that during the pandemic she would get a message from one of the women saying they were ready for a picture and she should come round.
Tio would then go to them and take their photo as soon as possible, with her subjects asked to change nothing about their appearance as she felt it would be a more honest depiction of female sexuality.
She said: "I wanted to create an honest and untampered representation.
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"It’s not about being sexy or about underwear, nudity or trying to represent masturbation or orgasms because those are constantly exploited for male pleasure."
The photographer said she wanted to start an open discussion about female sexuality which she thought was lacking in her circle of friends.
With her images she wanted to capture a look at what that was like free of the influence of porn, objectification or hyper sexualisation, just an unadorned look at what the women in the pictures looked like after sex.
The women the photographer snapped included friends and family, and she had said she hoped their decision to participate 'made a difference' for them.
"Instead of being sexually confident and unphased by the project, many of the women I photographed were uncomfortable and frightened of what family, friends, and society might think of their participation in such images," she said.
"Because of this, collaborating with them felt special, and I believe it made a difference for those involved and hopefully future viewers too."
Tio is not the only photographer to embark on a project to capture the honest face of female sexuality, as Marcos Alberti also took pictures of women as part of a work called 'The O Project'.
The photographer, who is known for his '3 Glasses Later' work which showed four sequential photos of people as they drank three glasses of wine, took pictures of women while they masturbated.
While Tio avoided doing so as she said they were 'constantly exploited for male pleasure', Alberti had women who agreed to be pictured pleasure themselves while he took pictures of their face.
The photographer could not see what the women were doing as the camera saw only their upper body, but the lens captured the beginning, middle, end and afterwards.
He said he had been trying to capture the moment of climax 'without approaching it from a sexual or erotic perspective'.
Topics: Art, Sex and Relationships, Community
Joe Harker