Photography and Text by Tony Ward, Copyright 2017
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THE AFTER EFFECTS OF OBSESSIONS
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During the course of publishing Obsessions, my first book of erotic photography, I occasionally heard stories from women that were the subjects of my work that their boyfriends, husbands or significant others became incensed by their cooperation in modeling nude as one of my subjects. Initially, or at least before the sitting took place their significant others often felt complimented in knowing that their lover was selected to be featured in an international photography publication. However, the reality in some cases was an emotional disaster for some men once their girlfriends pictures were seen in print. Here is an excerpt from a letter that I received from a jealous boyfriend who went to great lengths to explain his feelings about such a discomforting experience.
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To Tony,
Despite my age or experience, the following feelings which will be described as genuine, from deep inside of me.
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I am in love with a beautiful woman who you have come to know. I haven’t been in love for four years, which I find to be a long time despite my young age (24). This woman that I worship is an admirer of your work and was familiar with your photography long before I met her. I only met her three months ago, but she’s next to the virgin Mary in my heart as far as I’m concerned.
She had a dream to capture her sensuality and eroticism through your eye’s and she’s seen your work long before I met her, so who am I to ignore her dream? I feel for her because of who she is, wants and does to make her happy. I love her. My primary response – which I tried to hide – to your arrival in our fairytale was anger and jealousy. I recognized the feeling and it was much heavier that I could anticipate. I became mental over it.
The shoot happened as planned. I got over it with quite an emotional hangover. Life went on. Now, even though time has passed, I see your book again and your inscription and realized she was going to be in your next book as well. We talked things over and I looked at your book again and its hard to explain what I felt when I looked at your pictures again. My anger and jealousy reappeared. My head hurts.
Every picture showed some sort of excitement: weird, hard, play, darkness. Imagining that she was going to be in one of your new series of pictures admittedly excited me in ways I never felt. I am sure you have met a lot of jealous boy/girl friends in your line of work. I know I wanted to confront you when I met you, now I don’t. It takes time to remove the filtered image one can have when you’re in love. When she told me about the shoot and described all of the aspects, I could only here words that made me think of her having sex with another person, even though emotionally she wasn’t. I am slowly understanding her and you and I would like to thank you for giving her this experience. I also want to thank you for opening a chamber inside of my head which enables me to understand her better and even thinking of being in a series of erotic pictures with my lover. I hope you will take care of this letter. I will tell her myself that I wrote you. I hope you had a nice meal with her and your colleagues at Pasta e Basta, Amsterdam.
Yours,
John Doe
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To purchase a copy of the book of Obsessions, click here: https://tonywarderotica.com/shopping-cart/books-bonus-gift/
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To access additional diary entries, click here: https://tonywarderotica.com/diary-rooftop-view-beauty/