Editorial,orsomething like that

Delft, october 2018 Time flies, when you're having fun. Indeed, and the fun did continue, even now I've entered my pensioners years. The concept of the Delftboys site may have changed a bit, it's still here to protect- preserve and promote queer art in all its forms. We're in the process of taking our leave from the queerart.nl and homowebmuseum.nl server, but that surely does not mean that content will be lost. Re-linking everything to new URL's turns out to be another hell-of-a-job, but it is going on. Just bear with me, as gradually all thumbnails on the previewpages will offer access to what they promiss, and mostly without a password. Some content has over the years become accessible far easier on services like Tumblr, so I can be a touch more selective nowadays, and cherrypick what is still groundbreaking, exceptional or part of a true minority fetish, though I will keep everything well within the bounaries that I, as a Dutch citizen, will have to comply with, as guidelined by Dutch and EU legislation. All recent links, that get reconnected will be anounced on the well established tablet-calendar pages here. Besides that, the Martin of Holland Brown book is still available and has its promo-and order page moved here. It remains all about realizing dreams ! Ad

Delft, another year gone by, december 2016

Another landmark for the queer cult and fetsh community, at least here: after 2 decades the funding stucture here is moving around: since the advent of gorgeously uncensored homo sex- and art friendly services like Tumblr, as well as ever more video content getting accessible through similar services like X-tube and youvideo, The financial concept was crumbling and needed revising. This means that after years of completely reliable, secure, privacy-aware and simple access administration of the rarest, highest resolution and precious Masterclass content here through the Amsterdam based Verotel company, we take our leave there.
Mind you, all this will be excecuted as smoothly and unnoticable as possible: The acess for those who have subscribed will remain functoning as it always did, for as long as the subscriptions run. But from this moment on, new Masterclasss memberships are no longer possible. The links to the Verotel subscription pages will all be taken down from the delftboys.com queerart.nl queerlog.nl and homowebmuseum.nl servers before the end of this month.
Instead of the Verotel link only a donation request will remain, which will be financially handled by Paypal. Similar to how the printed Martin of Holland Brown Book has been handled. Benefits for supporters will still include access to some unique web pages with content that is either privacy sensitive, has been requested by the autor(s) to remain accessible only to a limited and dedicated following, or that I myself consider so dear to my heart, or rare and valuable, that I can not just pass it on unlimited and freely.

Obviously, illegal materal, as defined by Dutch law and justice, was not and will not be available here. Even where I find our justice far too tolerant towards religious intolerance and in support of prude, outdated, insane prehistoric scriptures, I have to be clear: regrettably I will have to comply with Dutch law.
In verdicts of recent court cases, I find myself utterly amazed that images of Greek culture, promoting intimacy between males of different generations is condsidered historic and legal, as is Italian classic and Renaissance art, glorifying the male of all ages, including Putti (infant angels), relationships of Roman emperors and their slaves, or love scenes between Alexander the Great and Hephaistion and many very graphic depictions of horrific torture of christ and many saints.
Still, when done recently by true classically trained artists, justice came up with the claim that it was depicted so perfect and cunninly realistic, that no distinction could be made between the paintings concerned and photography, making it hard or impossible to determine if real younsters had been posing to produce the art. Obviously the argument of doubt (innocent untill proven guilty) has shamefully been used the other way around in these verdicts.
Anyway: I'm not going to dance of the edge of this vulcano, so if you're looking for such content, I can only suggest you look elsewhere.

New passwords will be given out via e-mail to anybody who asks and can provide valid reason for why he should be entitled and can substantiate that with some references. That way I do hope to strengthen direct communication with what has to become a dedicated queer erotic extreme and borderless art community.

What is coming up in january will most certainly first be behind a password, as we (fellow artists, queer culture lecturers, art historians and the guys of the Tom of Finland Foundation) plan to release the 1st ever translations in English of the earliest outspoken uncompromising homo erotic and S&M Dutch novels, dating from the 1st year of the 20-est century, by Jacob Israël de Haan, whose verse also made onto the marble of the Dutch Homomonument at Westermarkt Amsterdam.
It remains all about realizing dreams ! Ad

Delft, a new spring, may 1st 2016

Quite a while since I wrote here last. While a lot of water went under the Dutch bridges, more and more my weblog took over when I had to release my brain excrements.
Meanwhile, as the heritage/legacy of my delftboys/homowebmuseum/queerart body took hold of my thoughts and as the internet www climate changed to much more superficial phone operated media, I moved somewhat with that to more free access content on the pre/fun tablet-look pages on delftboys. That surely did not mean I had to or felt the need to shut down the password protected "safe" environment:
I insist on staying as blatantly sexually open, confronting and in-your face shocking as ever
but no longer to the cowards who only betray our coummunity.
let them join the religious fanatics and get their heads and cocks chopped off, hung or thrown down towers.
As intolerant bigot moron dorks hijacked or took over the comment sections of youtube, fuckbook, twitter I and my followers more and more sought and found some security from that on protected and moderated communities.
Especially now I have, contrary-to-the-flow, moved to publishing in print, I got loads of shit dumped on me and got actively opposed and counteracted within the amsterdam fetish community, or at least the, not too bright (visionless) parts of it that feel they own or can regulate that community. We long-time-survivors realise it will never-ever work like that and only thrive and survive with storms by us building new secure barriers and dikes after being all but washed away by unexpected springtide floods. As old allies like Nightcharm and Butt, but also the superprude IHLIA (former A'dam homodoc) just threw in the towels, new unwashed stinking mushy marshy bonds seem to be forged with the pigprod and scatboi communities, while some others, that we almost gave up on a decade ago come floating on top again, like the ToF Foundation.
Where all this is leading, I don't know, but as a sexual new spring is looming now we seem to have overcome the HIV scare, I feel new jizz, spit, puke, shit and testosteron flowing in and out of every possible orifice. Even with the new guys that seem to have taking control at +&proud NL, after hysteric and scared old leadership allied with the drugs and banks sponsomaffia to produce a"gorgeously" safe magazine, I find I can once again communicate and even fuck around within those guys' fresh hot young buts once more.

Who knows, a new spring may be luring just behind the horizon
p.s.
While some think it's wise to move traffic lights and signs to the ground as so many people walking or driving themselves in front of oncoming traffic, looking at their phonescreen, I say: just let them kill themselves. While we move back to taking time to use internet with patience and considerate mature attitude, and take time and pay for consuming quality content.
It remains all about realizing dreams ! Ad

Delft, fall, september 12th 2013
For the 1st time since I started the db/queerart project, so in fact for the 1st time in 2 decades, I took some months to catch my breath. Not that my health forced me to; I'm doing just fine, thank you very much, but I needed a period to get a perspective of where we came from and where we might be heading.

Besides that the past months old fashioned political activism in my hometown about keeping our nudebeach which we founded 3 decades ago, and about the total collapse of our communitycenter here, that failed to find feasible goals for this century. Having been part of the team that set it up I do not consider myself the person to step in and redo things I did there in the past, nor correct errors of judgement that I surely made back then. Even though they made a shambles of it thusfar, I still feel that should be left to new generations. But here at delftboys I feell I still have a mission to accomplish. Homo erotic art in my humble opinion is one of the great cornerstones and source of inspiration of our community:
As I said here before: we're designing our lives as we go: we do not have a bible, koran, talmud nor our parents to show us the way. Our art is a window into the minds of the most creative members of our community. We can learn from it, be inspired or intrigued by techniques and fetishes we never would have dreamt up ourselves. However risky, life threatening or velvety rosy they may be. Technology also helps us: 3D video, new fabrics as neoprene, sillycon (no pun), medical (bodymods/drugs), fashion, interior design, the list goes on . . . the fantasies are limitless. In coming months I will (if I have time left from the major retrospective exhibition of REX in december/january at CNCPT13 galery Prinsengracht Amsterdam) start new presentation-ideas here, allowing higher resolution images, and more audio or video content.

Let me illustrate how we faggots are now becoming the experts, when it comes to the business of designing new life(styles) for the 21st century, by quoting this fun passage from the mister-dating-app blog of april last:

It can be pretty mind blowing when you sync up with someone your dating or hooking up with sexually. For all the variable that go into the relationship equation, when 2 bodies together equal great sex, I'd call that a big win. Everyone brings something different to the sexual table, whether that's giving good head, good rim jobs, or being one hell of a great kisser, and this is when we can take these superlative studs and learn from them. After all sexual exploration is all about experience and gaining knowledge about what you like/don't like and learning new techniques. I would say of all the reasons to have an open relationship, bringing home something new to your skill set is one of the least discussed. And it can do wonders for your sex life.
Even as a singleton, when you find someone who's the best at what they do, it can be life changing. It had been a while since I had a great kisser in my life and recently dated someone that reminded me of how good it can be when lips works together to make magic.

some of the comments are also quite 'enlightening':
Living my youth/20s/30s in NYC during the 1970s 80s and early 90s.. and especially pre aids.. was an amazing sexually exploratory experience.. the big NY parties/baths/the "island" and more.. gave me a wide range of sexual opportunitys and experiences.. things that most of the younger generations do not experience anymore.. the butch/leather scene was in full bloom.. what more do in need to say.. it was expansive and being welcomed in it was a privilidge to remember.. thats where I and many gay men in the NYC club/gym/bath scene learned and experienced the 'art' of sex.. and the use of ones body and mind to experience full-on eros. I did lose many friends but as far as the experience of multi dimensional sex goes.. it was quite a toolkit of the art of sensuality.

It remains all about realizing dreams ! Ad

Delft, winter, december 31st 2012

This is the first year that I feel the economic crisis has hit me personally. I cannot complain too much though: My home is mortgage free; I still rent our an appartment in it, and although, through draconic cutbacks in Dutch culture, I lost my payed employment, I still benifit from one of the best social security and pre-pension platforms in the world, so I'm better off than Southern Europeans or Americans who undeservedly find themselves unemployed. I'm entitled to these benefits because I continue working in the branch as unpayed volunteer, which I do gladly, as I've always considered working in a sector that I enjoy and feel at home in and capable of contibuting something substantial and worthwhile as payed vacation. Still, my income has dropped substantially and I had to cut back on some of the regular luxuries I'd become acustomeded to over the years.

Also one of my favorite leisure passtimes, these homo-erotic webpages have experienced a substantial drop in economic health and sustainability. While in the past, the revenue enabled me to give legal support to artists who were unber threat of prosecution, aquire works and subsidise their promotion, help finance excursions to exhibitions and artfairs, this year I did not get further than financing and assisting production of the Rex exhibition atr Mr-B in Berlin. Revenue has dwindled to a trickle, hopefully sufficient to keep the existing websites and their content online for the coming years,

I could argue to myself that I have neglected stepping back from my websites taking a look at from a distance, which could have made me realise they were turning into a truly impermeable maze. I sure could do with a cocky (preferably XXL and BB top) unpayed intern like they introduced at one of my old fav websites nightcharm. On the other hand: art should not come as easy as a tasteless Starbucks coffee: at Boymans you always have to move out of the crowd line to find your own gem choices. Still, I may have left delftboys/queerart too much to its low profile over past seasons; it sure could do with some more agressive publicity.

The past months I've been wondering how I can keep the delivering what people have come to expect here. Contrary to regular musea, I've always felt I could keep all new content available indefinitely. This strategy has resulted in the amount of works online and the resolution they were presented in, has augmented annually, and with it the serverspace needed, gigabyte after gigabyte. Also regular users of the services here, also under financial stress, became aware that they could just leave for a season or full year, as the content would still be there whenever they felt like returning. This however cannot continue indefinitely:
starting in the new year, the major newly produced galleries or theme exhibitions will only be online for a limited period and will have to make room for new projects after some time. That way I hope to be able to keep the core content updated and online for another serious stretch of time and augment attention for actualised temporary projects.

Also the interaction between my weblog and the delftboys masterclass will be strengthened. Thumbnails of worthwhile art will be shown on the blog but in-depth information and the highres versions will remain within the masterclass, which will not get a weekly addition, but as daily as needed, or as worthwhile content offers itself. As far as that's concerned, there's still a huge backlog to get through over the coming months. Meanwhile news and art promotion will get more actual and adequate via the weblog. All this to enable you to find quality content at the db/queerart masterclass for the years to come.
It remains all about realizing dreams ! Ad

Delft, winter 2011

The first time it's not me talking here, but quotes from an article by UK art guru Charles Saatchi printed in the guardian last Friday 2 December, as much of it is very valid for the queer art community as well. We faggot artlovers do not operate in a friendly environment: it's overflowing with greed, false aspiration, powerplay and ignorance. And in these days of crisis, we cannot rely on the superrich that used to support it, regardless. As I already stated on the cover-splash/page of november 2011.
Still, we float along our dwindling rivers, suffering as much from global warming as winter chill and lack of fresh inspirational percipitation. Our old farts, that created our culture, gave it blood and semen and kept it alive and fucking for half a century, are dying around us, or getting older and weary of the straight and narrow that the new generation chooses to naviogate along. The old channel of printed matter has completely dried up, with the exception of Instigator magazine, the french H_R publications and the two German named companies that serve us glossy coffee table books and calendars. Nice and sometimes awesome, but due to its nature rarely coming up with invigorating new revolutionary inspiration. Online we see Butt looking for new avenues and Patrick Fillion supporting his dwindling stable of artists. Sadly the internet community, as it did with original porn, feels it can suffice with distributing amateur art for free. For a while this got us through the crisis, sure and even produced some new talent, but they soon strand on muddy the sides of the trickling creek that stopped pushing them on with financial reward and support. Internet efforts like Fillions´s, Butt, Tom of finland, which may next year start a Euro franchise in Berlin, together with undergear, kinkfashion and toy companies like RoB, MrB and many Aussie and US brands could lead us to a future, in collaboration with supplyers of dance space, booze, drugs, play area´s or specialized healthcare, if they are able to lead the stream of content to serious and securely replenishing channels.
In the old days we used to pay for our erotic content. Printing, editing and distributing was only a fraction of the cost. These days, we first got rid of the newspaperboys, then the postmen, then the magazines alltogether. Instead we pay fortunes for the machines to view it on and monthly fees 5 times larger than the old newspaper subscription to the providers fir bringing it to us. We also pay the guys, who got us enslaved to porn, the facebooks, yahoos and googles of this world, who are so clever as to lower the standards from professional to amateur, refuse to take any responsibility for quality or legality of content, even go as low as to sell our consumer-data to the highest bidding advertiser or autoritarian regimes, and by lack of quality got us sofar as to supply our own pathetic bodies to deliver the action. That way they can keep wearing suit and tie, give dinnerparties and yacht-trips with their bankmanagers and legal advisers and leave us clueless consumers wondering, what happened ?

Luna, yacht of multimilionair artcollector Roman Abramovic, last summer at Biennale Venice
Being an art buyer these days is comprehensively and indisputably vulgar. It is the sport of the Eurotrashy, Hedge-fundy, Hamptonites; of trendy oligarchs and oiligarchs; and of art dealers with masturbatory levels of self-regard. They were found nestling together in their super yachts in Venice for this year's spectacular art biennale. Venice is now firmly on the calendar of this new art world, alongside St Barts at Christmas and St Tropez in August, in a giddy round of glamour-filled socialising, from one swanky party to another.
Artistic credentials are au courant in the important business of being seen as cultured, elegant and, of course, stupendously rich.
Do any of these people actually enjoy looking at art? Or do they simply enjoy having easily recognised, big-brand name pictures, bought ostentatiously in auction rooms at eye-catching prices, to decorate their several homes, floating and otherwise, in an instant demonstration of drop-dead coolth and wealth. Their pleasure is to be found in having their lovely friends measuring the weight of their baubles, and being awestruck.
It is no surprise, then, that the success of the uber art dealers is based upon the mystical power that art now holds over the super-rich. The new collectors, some of whom have become billionaires many times over through their business nous, are reduced to jibbering gratitude by their art dealer or art adviser, who can help them appear refined, tasteful and hip, surrounded by their achingly cool masterpieces.
Not so long ago, I believed that anything that helped broaden interest in current art was to be welcomed; that only an elitist snob would want art to be confined to a worthy group of aficionados. But even a self-serving narcissistic showoff like me finds this new art world too toe-curling for comfort. In the fervour of peacock excess, it's not even considered necessary to waste one's time looking at the works on display. At the world's mega-art blowouts, it's only the pictures that end up as wallflowers.
I don't know very many people in the art world, only socialise with the few I like, and have little time to gnaw my nails with anxiety about any criticism I hear about.
If I stop being on good behaviour for a moment, my dark little secret is that I don't actually believe many people in the art world have much feeling for art and simply cannot tell a good artist from a weak one, until the artist has enjoyed the validation of others – a received pronunciation. For professional curators, selecting specific paintings for an exhibition is a daunting prospect, far too revealing a demonstration of their lack of what we in the trade call "an eye". They prefer to exhibit videos, and those incomprehensible post-conceptual installations and photo-text panels, for the approval of their equally insecure and myopic peers. This "conceptualised" work has been regurgitated remorselessly since the 1960s, over and over and over again.
Few people in contemporary art demonstrate much curiosity. The majority spend their days blathering on, rather than trying to work out why one artist is more interesting than another, or why one picture works and another doesn't.
Art critics mainly see the shows they are assigned to cover by their editors, and have limited interest in looking at much else. Art dealers very rarely see the exhibitions at other dealers' galleries. I've heard that almost all the people crowding around the big art openings barely look at the work on display and are just there to hobnob. Nothing wrong with that, except that none of them ever come back to look at the art – but they will tell everyone, and actually believe, that they have seen the exhibition.
Please don't read my pompous views above as referring to the great majority of gallery shows, where dealers display art they hope someone will want to buy for their home, and new collectors are born every week. This aspect of the art world fills me with pleasure, whether I love all the art or not.
I am regularly asked if I would buy art if there was no money in it for me. There is no money in it for me. Any profit I make selling art goes back into buying more art. Nice for me, because I can go on finding lots of new work to show off. Nice for those in the art world who view this approach as testimony to my venality, shallowness, malevolence.
Everybody wins.
And it's understandable that every time you make an artist happy by selecting their work, you create 100 people that you've offended – the artists you didn't select.
I take comfort that our shows have received disobliging reviews since our opening exhibition of Warhol, Judd, Twombly and Marden in 1985. I still hold that it would be a black day when everybody likes a show we produce. It would be a pedestrian affair, art establishment compliant, and I would finally know the game was up.
Charles Saatchi
Still, I think I know what gets me hard, now and in the past, and most likely in the future, and I also know I´m not pretending to be different, better or worse than anybody else. So I´m sure if I keep doing what I do and like best, and with some help do it more efficient and srteamlined and respecting the artists I like and promote, we all will sail beyond the rainbow to a better climate, and flowing rivers of semen for all of us.
Is it still all about realizing dreams ? Ad

Delft, fall november 2010

The first verdict is out: Bernard's work, or at least some of it is considerend to be child porn. Even his lover is convicted with a suspended sentence, for not reporting his husband to the police. This, for starters, means there is still discrimination in the Dutch justice system, because in a heterosexual relationship or marriage partners cannot be obliged to testify against their partners.
Of course the entire verdict is ridiculous, and the case will be appealed. If this case is held up by our supreme court (raad van state), this would mean they also have to confiscate all nude angels, intimately embracing in a multitude of baroque Roman Catholic churches. And there would be very good reason to do so, as we could assume that this kind of imagery in churches has had influence on the clergy working underneath them and may have inspired them to conclude that intimacy between or with youths may have a divine blessing.

Of course this is insanity! All the more as Bernard never had any unlawful contact with minors, nor did he have that in mind: he has had a stable relationship with an adult partner for decades. He just depicted his philosophy on the process of the moment when homosexuality is rooted in humanity, and as such posed the question visually, on whether that was in the DNA material, something deviant happening at conception, something deviant in the womb, something deviant at child birth, something in the infant years, something in puberty, or even something that can come around anytime, due to environmental influences.
If the court follows the reasoning that he paints so realistically, that it is hard to distinguish between his work and photography, than they should also prohibit all medical study books on adolescent sexuality.
That he is a very realistic , talented craftsman and artist may not be of any consequence in this verdict, in my humble opinion !

Sadly, the arguments I have been posing here, before and now, have hardly been forwarded by Bernard's defence, so I suggest he searches for a better one for his appeal.

I feel the judges have not been able to keep their distance and stay independent despite the current national outrage about a child-abuser who has been working at kindergartens in Amsterdam recently. As always in cases like this regrett a media hype if followed by a surge in hysteria, injust accusations and even violence against completely innocent persons.

What this means for now is that the independence of our justice is dangerously hampered, and regretable as this may be (just as it is in the wikileaks case) this results in further undermining of freedom of speech and thought.

Nevertheless, I must live with the reality that our once so tolerant Dutch society has taken a step further down the path of intolerance and bigotry and although this deeply saddens me, I have for the moment felt pressured into taking the artwork under discussion here, off my servers and off my pc's. I have taken the files to a safe destination (no, not to the official gay archive orgs or media, that are too coward to take a stand at this time). so I can bring them back online when our supreme court takes a more favourable decision, and will be able to accuse our justice system of being nothing better than the mobs that were infuential at the time of the iconoclasm in the 16th century in this country.

It deeply saddens me that the reputation of our once tolerant country as a safe haven for elsewhere repressed thought, art, diversity and creative ideas is going down the drain while as a result solidarity between oppressed minorities is breaking down. I could understand it if all this would lead to a safer climate for our youth, but to sentence an artist who has never had anything to do with illegal trade in imagery of child abuse, works completely the other way, and is in my opinion in flagrant opposition with the original intention of the law. The current hysteria only seeds fear in people who are working in education and hamper organisations like 'Martijn' that tries to help people who are attracted to too young juveniles how they can stay within the law and lead a positive life. On the other hand our christian governement still remains leniant to church institutions that have proved to be a far more abusive and posed a real threat to our youth for decades.

Mind you, this website and the db organisation has as goal to document and to support the queer minority culture for over 2 decades. That is why it is of utmost importance to document how tolerance in NL has been lost and severely deminished since the seventies. Not only through religious fanatic groups but also through politics and the justice system. To be able to paint an historic picture of this process, evidence of these processes may not be lost to future generations. So we strongly urge the safekeeping of the works of Bernard by ourselves or an independent archive for posterity, to enable a balanced judgement in the future. Do we not regret that the taliban destroyed valuable works of art in afghanistan and Christian fanatic hysteric mobs did the same in our churches in the 16th century? Do we reaaly need the churches to take down the naked cherubs from their ceilings as they have inspired the clergy to abuse children for centuries?

It still is all about realizing dreams . . . Ad

Delft, fall september 2010

Recent discussions op GMBA2, a homo erotic S&M e-mail list on google, and also a few enlightening discussions with one of the first contributors to the delftboys/queerart masterclass and core artist from the very first days, Tom Jones, have made me realise it could be wise to explain a bit about how this site ticks and about the business model behind it, if we can call it that (I very much dislike high-aspiration/low-content words that come from the world of bankers and commercial investors) works. And indeed sofar we tried and managed to keep the amount of business as low as possible while maintaining the creative art turnover on as high a level as possible:
bookkeeping is kept to a minimum, and that is done by leaving all on the income side to Verotel, the company that manages access. On the expenses side the books are kept very minimal as well; a quarterly tax report, because even though we serve a purely cultural purpose and profit making nor salaries are part of that, we deliver a service and as such are not excempt of paying VAT (btw) in Holland. Other expenses are the hosting bills, and some maintenance of printed promo material, some hardware and software. That is all.
Even the travelling I did has always been done on an unpaid volontary goodwill basis, which I never considered anything other than holidays I would make anyway. And this way it remained a work of pleasure for me instead of a burden and responsibility. Besides, this project would never make enough to enable anything like a salary or extended travel expenses. Things like cameras I always considered a personal expense that I would procure anyway, even though I do use it mainly for photographing and filming art and art events, I kept seeing that as a hobby. I did try to find out if I could make my work into a profession, but that would require subsidies or me handing over the reigns to other oranisations, thus possibly obscuring my indepentence. Until now I did not find a feasible route in that direction, but who knows.

Basically the delftboys site offers an advertising window to a number of artists who have problems with maintaining that themselves. That may be because they do not want to be involved in technical stuff and focus on their art; Or because they are too controversial to be able to get their promotion done by commercial companies or lastly, because they cannot afford any other ways of advertising themselves. Delftboys offers its services to artists for free.
That is where the masterclass comes in: in return for the promotion the artists are offering some of their work to be displayed in greater depth and in higher resolution than on the free access pages that db/queerart offers. Delftboys this way acts purely as a shop-window; and does not get involved with further publishing, sales, art handling, dealerships, commissions or agent-acivity for any of the artists. The viewers do get quite a lot this way: an in depth update on what goes on in the realm of homo erotic art, a niche that hardly has a decent public window elsewhere. They get it in a nice clean designed environment, without advertising, and without the trash, bickering, and insecurity, censoring and possible deletion of material of moralising commercial hosts like yahoo, google or grou.ps where contributors mostly compress images horrubly to reduce filesize or crop images to get rid of authors signatures and change filenames to obstruct copyright owners of finding their pirated images. Still they dare to maintain that their activities "promote artists" ?¿

Although times have been hard, we managed to keep things going, only just, and hope to survive the coming years and possibly expand with the help of artists, and subscribers .
To both of those I'm eternally grateful and endebted.

Delft, spring? februari 4th '10

I've always made controversial choices in what gets published here and what not. Most of that is based on preferences and taste, as it should be. But it goes beyond that: 1st, there is stuff not necessairily my own preference, but others' and edgy stuff that is on or across the border for many often raises valid issues that should be discussed. Also my responsibility in representing and doing what is in the best interest of artists that are on the battlefront of social, political and legal evolution and renewal all around the world, I do not take lightly.

Being based in a country that until recently was known as a world example of tolerance and the ultimate safe haven for groups and individuals that were under threat of repression or prosecution elsewhere, made it relatively easy to keep on the pulse of practically everything that went on in our community and report on the visual aspects of it without feeling held back. My guidelines in this were based on 1st: my own views on morals and tolerance, 2nd: dutch law, 3rd: practicalities of publishing via a medium that crosses all borders. The last item thusfar proved to be the most restrictive; internet codes of conduct are generally enforced by the country that once set it up, i.e. the USA, known as highly prudish and for a high degree of sexual intolerance and led by institutions that do not shy away from hypocricy. For instance guidelines regarding frontal nudity, S&M, bloodhed and gore, were enforced vigorously under the past Bush administration. What consumers and internet media were not allowed in the field of glorifying violence, extreme sexuality, war and crime was perferctly acceptable in the products of major Hollywood companies.

Now the worst seems to be over in the US of A, religion based intolerance and senseless over-regulation and legislation seems to be catching on in my home country. Our once progressive and permissive parties seem to be siding with intolerant religions in an effort to gain populariry and votes with new immigrant communities. In some sections my own morals have been in agreement with legislation all along: basic limit has always been and will be that no other individuals were abused or pressured financially or physically to act in a way they were not comfortable with in the production of artworks on this website. Dutch legislation is under threat of crossing a border that goes much further. A few years ago, the age of consent has been hightened. Also the distinction between actual photographic presentation and digital fantasy work seems to hang in mid air, as that distinction, through technical advances, is ever harder to make.

Most of us will agree that the protection of those who cannot safeguard themselves, because of age, limited mental capacities or financial dependance stands without question. The distinction some countries make in this field between sexual activities and industrial (slave) labour is deplorable: appearantly major fashion companies still sell products made that way while hardly encouraged or forced to stop those practices. With that last argument I do not try to cover up deplorable sexual practices. But research or artwork dealing with the question of where in our body and at what age our sexuality and our preferences is originating, should not be hindered or influenced as once the catholic church tried to control science in the field of astronomy or biology. Scientists and artists should be free to pose questions, illustrate their arguments and also to do research as long as no actual living species are damaged in the process.

Raising the age of consent, at a time where biological puberty seems to be going down (even if that may be caused by highly questionable hormone treatment and fast growth food supplements in our livestock), is highly damaging of educating and development of personal responsibility of your younger generations and especially for our minority-culture, already under threat in so many countries and communities. Development in youth of a healthy perspective and awareness of the distinction between fact and fantasy is a good thing, which will learn them to make responsible choices and realise risks. Over-reaction to all too real crimes involving minors only encourages fear and will in fact sooner result in more risk of fatal results of these crimes than preventing them. Here I cannot do anything but warn for the dangers of this development and try to defend our own original high standards and moral values.

A tragic example of this is what has happened to featured artist Bernard, moved from South Africa to "tolerant" Amsterdam to be able to furher his artistic profession in freedom, who's now entangled in an unjustified court case which has been dragging on now for 2 years, meanwhile blocking his existance as a professional, seriously damaging his health and keeping his art from reaching its appreciative audience.

some quotes in Dutch (with translation):
"Op mijn 11e probeerde ik op de kermis volwassen mannen te verleiden. Een onschuldig bloemetje ben ik nooit geweest". At age 11 I tried to seduce men at the annual funfair like there was no tomorrow, I never was that innocent wallflower! Hans van Manen (knighted choreographer and gay)
Men liegt over pedorelaties en doet net alsof kinderen geweld wordt aangedaan. Terwijl kinderen juist onderdrukt worden. In de VS worden duizenden kinderen behandeld en opgesloten omdat ze al aan seks doen. Daar heeft de EO het nooit over omdat de EO tegen seks buiten het huwelijk is. Niet omdat seks buiten het huwelijk slecht is maar gewoon omdat deze regel bij hun christenfascistische moraal hoort. Net zoals ze vroeger homo's verketterden. En maar doen alsof ze aardig zijn daar bij de EO, het is een leugenachtige bende.
Lies about pedo relations all being damaging. The child's soul is hurt most by hysteric reactions. In the US thousands of kids are treated or locked up for being sexually curious. Our religious moral majority broadcasters never talk about that because they oppose sex outside marriage. Not because it's proven to be bad but it's in conflict with their religious dogma. Just like they got away for centuries with stigmatising homosexuals. The religious fundamentalists are the real criminals, but NO more! Hugo Camps, Elsevier Magazine (11 juni 2005)

Delft, winter december 14th '09

Just had a talk with the new ceo of IHLIA, our national gay archive, based in the gorgeous new building of the City Librairy of Amsterdam. Ressulting in the intention of getting back together in the new year to have a close look at how they handle visual art currently and where we can strengthen each other and delivere feedback and support.
One of the suggestions Lonneke gave me was to make a draft of the revised goals of the db/queerart foundation and set up a kind of blueprint to see how in some years we can all join forces to get the Dutch homo museum off the ground.

So, as a start, I've tried to sketch out what I think is the essence of what needs to be done. As the purpose is a national plan I first try to word it in Dutch
But as an internet product, and an ever stronger international bonding of our art community, and a museum plan directed at strengtheninging the attractiveness and re-finding our countries' pioneering role as gay tourist attraction I have also provided an English version.

It's grown into quite a hefty read, that I hope will not put anybody interested in our cultural heritage off.
I also hope the online draft will produce comments, suggestions and feedback to help us getting where we want to.

Ad

Delft, winter november 2nd '09

Just a month passed since the last entry, what happened to justify this extra editorial? We had a Dutch bank collapse comparable in scale to the USA's Lehman Brothers collapse : Our National Bank Controllers and minister of finance felt it was time to give the signal that not all banks activities could count on the taxpayers' umbrella. Also Similar was that this bank was a one man imperium, Dirk Scheringa of DSB-bank not only owned the 2009 national champion football club, he also was the main sponsor of our speed skating teams, one of the few sports where NL does generally win most olympic medals. And owned a Museum focussing on fantastic realist art. That museum was in the process of moving to new and grander accommodation. All that has collapsed with the bank. One of the other banks, involved in financing the museum, has this week confiscated the entire collection (as a thief in the night, at a moment when the DSB football club was playing in the champions league against Arsenal (of Dutch hottie Ronald van Persie fame, see my weblog 12-16-17-6 2006). Irony has it, that this other bank is ABN-Amro, too big to fail, so nationalised, and since december run by Gerrit Zalm, former minister of finance but also in between those functions 'chief economist' at DSB! Well it just goes to show how one man's drowning will result in other's survival, as demonstrated by record bonussus now payed out at Goldman Sacks, financed by struggling workers and tax payers.
anyway,
'Lehman' CEO Richard Fuld, now in jail, had more similarities with our mr. Scheringa. Both were super individualists, that did not tolerate a word of oposition. But both knew how to lure in the man of the street. Dutch art elite has been falling over itself this week exclaiming as loud as they can that mr Scheringa, who of course had veto right with all the acquisitions of his museum, had poor taste and no knowledge of art whatsoever. Fact remains his collection, like his sport sponsoring, had a huge people's popularity. The collection of Scheringa may have had little substance, it was accessible for "Joe the plumber", the same Joe who fell victim of his mortgage and insurance fraud. In this I surely must side with the people and distance myself from the art-elite. Since the arrival of photography they have declared figurative art dead. They sided with money and 'vision' instead of labour and craft: in their view accurate anatomy was nothing more than a craft, done so much better by cameras or digital technology.
It's high time this elite falls with the misguided moguls, that have trusted their advice for too long. It's time for a revolution; give art back to the people; let them be at the base of its value. We already see figurative art making a careful return.
The only field that has always kept anatony on a pedestal is our very own homo erotic art. Begun as a hobby, counter culture, just to satisfy our erotic fantasies, we were not interested and had nothing to look for at the junction of art elite and bank managers, thought of as the most dick-less part of the 'gay' community only interested in Sotheby prices and real-estate. We needed Jack-off material, always preferred Tom of Finland's big cocks, instead of the mini genitals the clergy felt too insignificant to cover up. We had the great aritsts like Michael Kirwan glorifying unglamerous Joe average. Our own cartoon industry catering for the jack off marked, were beer, cum, piss and shit splattered from orifices like eyemorgagelids to mouths and assholes.
Now it seems like even the residence of the Tom of Finland foundation has come under attack by jealous mini weener bank managers who find the foundation should step up its mortgage repayment.
They are not allowed to win! If it turns into a sperm war, there can only be one group of winners, we homos, as statistics show, have real sex twice as often as heterosexuals and up to much older age "keep the plumbing running" (Willem Oltmans' famous quote), We've been put down long enough and we're MAD as HELL!

Delft, winter october 2nd '09

Another year has flown by (didn't I start the last entries with exacltly those words?), and it's winter again! Only this year we had to cope with a world recession, caused by greedy bankers, and lame politicians who felt that people with money could always be trusted, while the whole world knows it's the other way around.
Until spring of this year this website held up pretty decently, but since this summer, the number of masterclass registrations started to decline. Even though I felt that the content flow was kept up, and still is. New approaches have been tried, like adding video and audio, and increaing grafix resolution to keep up with your screen width. But what I find most important still is to keep the guys informed of what's going on in the homo erotic universe. For which I kept on visiting the Tom of Finland artfair in L.A. and quite a few queer art events around Europe, and reported on those in video, writing and pictures. Some artists did find new opportunities, like Sean Platter, who after noticing that some of his friends from the professional movie world had trouble keeping employed, gathered the greatest talents to try his hands and perverse mind on integration of his drawings, 2D and 3D animation and real porn actors into a groundbreaking Demonic Sex the Movie project.

I myself am as resolved as ever to keep the db pages a place where you can keep up with what's best and horniest in an easy and fitting environment, without the hassle, overload, bad scanning and nagging going on at many of the e-mail based artgroups. As long as I can I will try to keep the masterclass at the low price it reached, due to the decline of the dollar value. And just hope my artists friends as well as the art consumers will come out sound and improved at the other side of this. One of the resolutions I have is to get the content database organised , but then again: I kind of like to lose the way in my favorite musea. That's what comes with submerging yourself in a tsunami of erotic fantasy and reality.

Nothing is worse then trying to fit art and new experiments into boxes and catagories; it just will not fit ! As I said on the weblog : that's called CASTRATION !

Delft, winter november 2nd '08

Another year has flown by (didn't I start the last entry with exacltly those words?), and it's winter again! Just days before the US elections. I still was expecting a third Clinton administration when I last wrote here. And we did not have a bank collapse lurking behind the horizon, although some claim they did see it coming . . .

First, before I forget, let me tell you why this site is called Delftboys, it's because I claimed this domain name before I really knew what to do with it, early nineties, before I even knew Willem Kok. I liked the name then, as it was a mix of a football club and an escort service. At that time I felt it nice to be controversial and as I was considering to start an escort site for myself I liked the thought of the confrontation it could result in with authorities, about dragging the good name of our well respected city though the mud. Well, little did I know then it would end up being on the respectable site of male erotica.

Let me take the opportunity to get you guys up to date with the views I have on this here enterprise:
After keeping up with a gruelling update regimen for 4 years, with weekly new content updates, some respite is needed. Even when I went on holidays it went on, as, inspired by television's culinairy chefs, I inserted updates, prepared, or cooked up, in advance. Not that I am in the slightest thinking of letting go, but I do, like any painter or portrait artist, need a bit of a step back, to overview what we've got sofar. Don't worry, however, that I will relax my regimen on scanning what's out there and what's coming up, what's promising, what's arousing, what has most testosterone, or other bodily fluids, oozing from the canvas, paper, screen! It all gets registered and saved and will at some point come to you in a condensed, sublime form, as you have grown to expect from db/queerart.

Besides, you may have noticed, that as the contributions to the db galleries have relaxed somewhat in quantity, quality has not suffered, and content depth, quality and filesizes have grown with the expanding possibilities of internet and new html options. Also the entries of the weblog have gone up from monthly, to weekly to daily over the past years. Masterclass subscibers may look forward to some great new methods showing works in ways where you can sit back some more while we render your screen into an ever changing frame or window on the world's greatest queer art.

I do hope that this year I will meet some of the great artists again at another erotic art fair in LA and at IML, as the USA, under a new administration and many hypocrites out of the way, will have found its way to a sunnier economic and cultural climate and will finally have lifted the ban on HIV + tourists.

Delft, winter january 31st '08

Another year has flown by, and, amazingly, our museum website seems to be recovering from the slight recession we got into 1½ year ago. At a moment when the US$ is at an all time low, that is a surprising result for a site that has 70% of its userbase in the USA. Within a community of artists, that is not primairily geared to optimize communication and interactivity, that is an amazing feat. Our options to improve awareness of this site are limited. Things like Google Adwords just don't seem to work (yet) in this nice market. So, as yet, we just have to rely on our reputation as a treasure trove that is extreme value for money, and the very much appreciated promotion, done by some artists and websites we've worked with.

The artists have experienced that we are a trustworty organisation, that has no other goal then to promote their work and their status as respectable craftsmen. Websites, like nightcharm, adonis-art, Lesley Lohman, have found out we indeed do deliver a knowledge base on homo erotic art around the world and its history that is not rivalled.

our plan is to go on along this path of maintaining, enlarging and deepening the collection. The option of broadening it has been considered, but we do not think there is a future for us if we steer an even more middle-of-the-road course. That niche is currently sufficiently covered by gay magazines, emerging gay-tv and the websites they exploit. Nor do we want to get into competition with other more commercial sites.

If there is a wish left for the future, then it is for an international master-organisation that could coördinate international communication and coöperation. Especially the Tom of Finland foundation, that at first I felt should take on that role, just does not seem to be capable of getting that part of its task together. Their website leaves a lot to be desired. Links of artists and fellow organisations are very poorly maintained, and nobody seems to take on the task of international coordination. After having attended their artfair in LA for a few years, I don't see signs of improvement yet. Now do not misunderstand me on this: I think the foundation does a tremendous job in maintaining Tom's heritage and that of many other great artists, and also does a lot to promote affiliated artists, but the reach sofar is very much limited to the western USA and, expansion to the eastcoast and Europe, Australia and the new emerging markets of Asia and Africa is practically non existent. I am very much hoping for new initiatives there and am ready to go when it comes to implementing improvements.

Finally I do hope that this year will result in a new administration in the US that will succeed in getting the US economy in shape again, and will not be based on a corrupt and religion based party.

Delft, fall september 21st '07

In the age of super interactivity, we here at db/queerart cannot but be in the front seat. A museum cannot just lean on the views or experiences of its curator: he has to base his selection criteria on the opinions of the most outspoken and critical of his cliëntèle (oops, not too sure about the spelling of that word in the 3 surrounding languages). For the past years we trusted our good old community page and the corresponding e-mail communication to give us some sense of direction for the strategies of this web collection. With the number of options in getting close to your base community doubling each year, we start to doubt if all these options really get us any closer to the wishes of the true queer art lover. If he really wants all these options, he will already be a memner of about 20 newgroups, 5 yahoo maillists and 3 MSN groups, at least, not to foget he also will b registered at myspace as queerart afficionado, have a multitude of RSS feeds of his favorite artists websites, not to mention his regular updates of over a dozen artist's weblogs. All in all, this will take the average keyboard champion over 4 hours a day. Of course you are not that insane. You expect us to do that for you, and WE WILL, as long as you keep on giving us a general idea of what you want and what you do not want. We have already gathered that you do not want us to just go along with what the neoreligious world thinks is good for us. If we go along with the pope and George W. who just want us to abstain, you will take your leave from this site. So we did the opposite: we made a special section where all the doubtfull material is based, which may not be your cup of tea, but at least it enables you guys to make up your own mind about good or bad, morals, preferences.

Still in the past season the community page seems to run dry, not in the least because e-mail is functioning less and less, thanx to inadequate measures worldwide to control spam. So one of the things we'll do in the coming season is to add a few points on the site(s) where you can leave comments and critical remarks. No, we don't want you to react to each image with "hot, give us more", like what's happening on most yahoogroups, leaving visitors with no other choice then filter out all messages without attachments. No,we just would like your serious idea's to improve our selectivity at finding the essential artists and works.

Personally, I feel we're not doing such a bad selection job sofar, but there is always room for improvement. So look forward to a first comment option below the light guy on the news page.

Delft, winter january 31st '07

After a few months of serious access trouble, originating from server firewall changes at the hosting company of the original Delftboys site, we once again can usher a sigh of relief. It took me a month or two to find out the problem did not lay with the Verotel boys, but at the hosting company. So I set out to move the whole masterclass section to a new server. Which went fine, but then again, to my disappoint I had to move the access routine to a different server, which amounted to setting up a new account at Verotel. Sadly this meant it had to be vetted all over again, so despite the capable service and technical knowhow of the Verotel staff, it took another month. I know that I have very few options to shop elsewhere for my access handling services. At least this company falls under Dutch law, and does not judge or meddle with the content of the site, although they still do have to comply with the restrictions proclaimed by the Bush gouvernerment and enforced through the creditcardcompanies of the United States.

These regulations fall into two parts: the first bit deals with $18 of U.S.C. 2257, which states that I have to keep records of persons depicted on this site to prove their identity and their age, as to control that they are of a legal age, that being 18 in my country. As my website does not deal in what is the bulk of adult web-content: actual, real life guys engaging in sexual activities, I feel I do not have any problems there. There is however another rule that states : no adult website shall display images that depict "bloodshed and gore". In my opinion that regulation is also intended to keep website content producers from getting their living models into situations that could actually endanger or mentally harm them, or where, through bondage or other forms of restraining, it is made to look like activities that are not entered into voluntarily. But the enforcers have taken that to also include fantasy works on paper, canvas or digitally rendered, where nobody has actually entered into the activity depicted. They even considered linking to other websited that show this type of content as not permitted.

Although I strongly disagree with and protest against these rulings, the USA has such a dominant position in the internet world, that I have no choice but to comply.

Luckily, the restriction does not have an effect for websites that have no access control, supervised by creditcard companies. I still cannot link to them, but do have to mention that they include respectable institutions and charities like the Tom of Finland Foundation in L.A. and the Lesley Lohman institution in N.Y.C. So the weird thing is that as a result those companies (and myself, via a separate unlinked website) have placed that content on free access or unpayed password control access sites, which ironically only makes access to minors much easier, which is just the opposite of what we and even George W. want.

Another institution, the Greasetank website, set up by Ron, gave a platform to a group of artists that focussed on S&M and aggression in male art. Sadly, the group moderator gave way, as he wanted to move on to other subject matter and could not at the same time hold the fort against hostile and hypocrit attitudes in his native country. This website does support the alternative web home that has been set up for this community since, although we are not at liberty to mention its web adress, we are confident that you will be able to find it through the services of google and others or through mailing me.

After the demise of the above mentioned website in september '06, the art section of Nightcharm in '04 and Museo del Gayo in '03, I'm afraid Delftboys/queerart is the only website left that tries to keep up a service giving a broad overview of almost all that comes around in the field of homo-erotic art and male physique. I do hope that with the upturn in economy and the prospect of a more tolerant administration in the USA, the future of this website will brighten up.

Delft, summer 2006

While the world football championships rage on in Germany, a lot of us enjoy the great bodies of the competing teams that flow into our livingrooms in abundance. A lot of guys of the homoseksual persuasion however do not have a lot of attention for this and many other sports. Only a few sports have that special touch to make them attractive to gay men. To watch I only name swimming, gymnastics, rowing, wrestling, weightlifting. To do themselves most stick to volleybal over here, some indeed swim (like me), but most don't go any further then some obligatory excercise at a gym. Luckily some take this a lot further to make their bodies a work of art for all to enjoy. I also feel that performing in porn movies can be considered a healy sport, if performance and shape enhancing stimuly are kept to a sensible level.

Working with your eyes, hands and brain to produce artwork does not do too much for the physique, sadly. Also it is not very rewarding as a professional sport, unless you have the good fortune to work for a major publisher or have the talent and communicative skills to sell to the open market, be it through e-bay or galleries or through a dedicated website. Most of our talents are less fortunate, though. Some are even working in a social climate that is downright hostile to what they do.

The homo-web-museum foundation is finally in a situation where it can support some of those endangered talents. It already has motivated one of them to return to the easel, as soon as surgery to his disabilitating shoulder injury is completed.

The funds generated with the masterclass subscriptions are used solely for that purpose. The board guards that the statutes are carried out as they are drawn up.

On behalf of all artists that have already benifitted and will in the future, I'd like to thank you for the support.

Delft, april 14th 2006

Since november of 2005 the responsibility for this website has effectively been taken over by a foundation. The reason behind this are the following: The website finally did make a bit of profit. That is, the collected access fees finally grew above what was used to maintain it. I started this website 5 years ago as a tribute to a dearly missed artist friend who'd passed away, and having a totally different profession, the main object never was to generate money. It was at the advice of David K, the wellknown editor and founder of nightcharm that this website did get a paying donators section, in an effort to keep control of dataflow and keeping the website online securely and without downtime as a result of uncontrolable free access. This was also done in an effort to keep in contact with the gay art community in other ways than through the commercial channels, set up by Yahoogroups and Microsoft Networks, that both proved to be all but open about their aims and were more and more showing signs of following Bush's policy of cracking down on adult content.

When the site first offered this option, I only expected it to be enough to cover expenses. But nevertheless I did remark that all profits, if and when there would be any, would be directed to the community of artists. And indeed, in the first years some small amounts did get payed for commission work to enhance the site's appearance. All this time I knew that if indeed a charity to promote an un-biassed approach to homo erotic and the community that produced these works would be the base of the website, I should get a group of artist friends, politicians and legal experts to set the organisation up.All this has been worked on over the past year and is now firmly in place. As the foundation is based in the Netherlands the statutes of it are in Dutch, but an exerpt of them in english is available here.

At the end of the year I hope to be able to give a first report on our accounts here and show in what ways we've been able to further our goals.

Delft, october 12th 2004

This website is based in the Netherlands, known for it's tradition of tolerance. I would very much like to keep it that way. But I'm afraid on internet, a bordercrossing super-international medium, some things are not that simple:

With that in mind I tried to implement our tradition on this website, in the modest Dutch way, we as a small country are so used to; showing respect for others culture, traditions and values. Not trying to push things; ramming our ways across others' porcelain cabinets: I know the Chinese have different ways of approaching homosexuality, so do the peoples of Saoudi Arabia and of the United States of America. I also know that however different life may be around the globe, there are homosexuals in each and every culture and society. I would like to adress them in as much an open and uninhibited way as possible and share with those who appreciate it some of what makes it so beautiful to me. I do with all that is published here stay firmly within what Dutch law has decreed. It is founded on what legislators that I and my countrymen have elected thought best. I respect their judgement, even if I do not always agree. Realising that laws and customs in other countries may be different, I have on critical points placed warnings, so that guys who are not used to our liberal thinking will not be hurt or offended.

Unfortunately the current US governement feels it has a mission to export and even impose the values it holds on all other nations around the globe. They have pressured creditcardcompanies to play the role of censors to this site. For the moment I will yield to their power. And place the content they feel should not be on this site on a free Dutch webservice. It is ironic that instead of keeping the alledged undecent content under lock and key, this action in fact makes it easier accessible.

So from october the 15th some pages will no longer be accessible here. I canot even place a link to where they will be moved. I can only say, mail me for details. If you feel with me this is an unwelcome infringement on your personal freedom, you do know what to vote in the coming US presidential election, to help gain respect for for your country and make it less hated around the world. I really do hate as a foreigner to interfere with your elections, guys, but as your current president tries to rule things we'd much rather decide for ourselves, and were doing in agreement with all others countries perfectly nicely for 500 years, so long before your country even existed, I'm left with no choice.

Do previous lines imply we Dutch never disagreed or were at war with other countries? Hope not, that would be historicaly incorrect.

Delft, march 21st 2004

I know there is a limited use to these pages, and there are fields where it's wiser not to tread. So, I warn you in advance: I'm stepping into a minefield again, but a guy has to do what a guy has to do.

I'm not in the habit of commenting on colleagues, operating in the erotic-art field, but our friends over at the Male Art Toons Yahoo-site are stepping down some dangerous paths. I hear you say: direct your comments to them, and members of the group can confirm, I tried to do just that, but if the moderators of the group are painting you into a marginal corner, ridiculing serious and well meant critique, not only mine but others too, I must look elsewhere to vent my comment.

Some artists have expressed a wish not to be shown on these free groups, and the moderators have placed them on a banned list, which they try to adhere to as good as they can. So far so good. A discussion however has cropped up about the rights of artists to decline free distribution channels. And terms are used that show very little respect for these artists. The guys scanning and copying about on MAT feel it is their good right to distribute, while clearly it is not. Some even go about saying: it may be illegal, but catch us if you can. All of this sends them down a path of ever decreasing respect for artists and with it they cut off the hands that feed them. The climate on MAT has grown very aggressive of late and I fear for my own activities now: I have been warning a lot about the directions they're taking, but mass-group-psychologie works in dangerous ways: we all know the messenger gets blamed. And if soon yahoo takes action on behalf of artists who feel they are wronged, they will certainly come around blaming me. Let me tell you here and now: I will NEVER initiate such actions, as long as there is still ONE good willing person left in that group. in Yahoogroups the moderators make the rules and it's: like it or leave it. I can live with that. The last straw that made me opt for leaving is the following: The moderators have decided they are the autority on what is art and what is not and also have set a standard to what is child porn and what's not. Their standard is not mine. Little boy angels on church ceilings are not child porn, nor are depictions of the beauty of awakening sexuality in young guys. We may tread on a slope here, but by no means did we fall into the ravine:
In my book there is no talk of child porn when artwork shows images of mutually consenting guys in a respectfull way. Bernard does just that in an amazing graphic style and deserves our admiration for doing so. His work should not be pulled into the realm of criminality and mis-use of minors that rightfully are considered illegal. I only do not like a witchhunt, based on histeria to start. We have all seen in history they do more damage then good and will only appear to solve things: Art suffers, freedom suffers, rational thinking suffers and the real criminal is just going one step more underground. My friend Bernard has moved from Africa to the Netherlands because he expected the climate to be more tolerant here. I wish it could stay that way. Gay groups moving ever closer to the opinions of religious right are not helping, and I feel it is they who are getting dangerously near the ravine. Adjusting your own rules to survive mass hysteria did not prove to be a usefull strategy in the first half of last centure. Even more distastefull is pointing your finger to guys within your own minority saying: they are worse than me. It will not work this time either.

Ad

Delft, januari 9th 2004

The last words written here 3 months ago:
oh well, just never mind,
I already decided to keep things within NL.

But as things were going nice and smoothly, I did not do much about that. Knowing that it was still a US company that processed the financial transactions. Also knowing how the US web-industry has tightened its rules last year and tried to enforce the us standards on us all. It was to be expected that things could not go on this way and, as David K already predicted, indeed the company blocked new payments from januari 7th.
Now let me first say, before I anger some people unnecessary: I do respect the fact that the US tries to make this world a better and safer place, athough I do not always agree with some of the ways they go about it. Freedom of speech and thought however is a great good, which should not be thrown overboard in efforts to make things safer.
We know that the anglo-saxons have a much more prudish attitude towards sexuality as us continental europeans. As I try to understand the feelings and beliefs of the English speaking world, I do also ask for a bit of understanding in return from you guys on the other side of the Atlantic for the more liberal approach we here treasure and hold dear.

For the moment I cannot process any new passwords, but I did take steps to get a Dutch firm to process the password-payment-routines. Details will be online on the entrypages as soon as they're operational. Of course the current visitors of the masterclass will continue to have unrestricted access and nobody will get struck off untill the new routines are settled in, even if the registration may have expired (so something good comes out of this if you registered in the past 2 months).
Also new content will continue to be added in the way you regulars have come to expect.

have a fantastic erotic and safe 2004

Delft, october 1st 2003

The last 2 editorials had a depressing undertone, Today, I'm much more triumphant. It has been an "I told you so" month, as both Yahoo and the MSN network clamped down on their free services. Forced by the US moral majority and Whitehouse campaigns to enforce the family values of Mr Bush and friends down the throat of the rest of the world, and thus making the USA a very questionale and selective defender of fundamental freedom.

Yahoo and MSN cannot do much about it I'm afraid, apart from advising you not to vote for hypocrits in the future. Why is it that Hollywood is allowed to export idealised violence and aggression while when I try to get a US based company to take care of my password and payment administration I get this:
Dear Webmaster,
The following page about Oliver Frey is not in compliance with our AUP. Unfortunately we cannot bill for sites that display bloodshed and gore in any medium. If you are willing to remove the offending content we can install the billing software on your site.
Thanks, etc.

Now I ask you?
1st:
We let the US export movies showing practices in nice detail of guys like Jeffrey Dahmer? what's the problem then with fantasy depictions of the beauty of voluntarily S&M acts?
2nd:
The billing company does not make the rules, so maybe I should not be too harsh, but they are setting the fine line: by keeping my kind of content (showing the diversity, beauty and extent of fantasy) out they defend the regular content: bigdicked US hunks getting it off with each other is fine, they're promoting the quality and quantity of proteine and hormones in US meat. That kind of male video product has obviously established itself as a legitimate part of the Hollywood package and must be defended by keeping out guys who might throw new oil on the moral indignation fire?
3rd:
thought I was dealing with guys who are familiair around Adult sites, The irony is they made a problem about a page where Oliver Frey (cute, sweet, vanilla, eh well, artist) and his problems with UK's censorship in the eighties were discussed. Even more insane: The images concerned were made in Frey's pre-gay period, when he worked for the computergame magazine Crash, which was AIMED at KIDS, and nobody objected then! If they would have objected to RJ Blake's genitorture, Willem Kok's extreme sm, Martin's dirtywork or Bernards too young and too erotic angels I wouln't have agreed, but they would have had a point. But objecting to the gladiatorscenes in Frey's images?

oh well,
just never mind,
I already decided to keep things within NL. and don't mind not having to share the revenue; if they don't want it?
So remember: these pages come from Continental Europe!

Delft, august 1st 2003

The strartup editorial had a bit of a depressing undertone, like 'the introduction of a pay-password on the site was inevitable' It's still online below here, as it is the best way I can put a policy statement for the website across. Here I'd like to chat a bit about a more casual issue, important nevertheless:

Screen resolution:
We've all learned to live with varied screensizes. Some of our tv channels (like the BBC) have changed fully to widescreen (16:9) while others (CNN, discovery) stick with the old format (4:3). The result is that widescreen viewers get a lot of black bars at the sides of their screen and oldscreen viewers have a lot of them above and below. Of course there are ways around this, but they still have a lot of side-effects that bother the critical user, like the distortion of the image with automatic sizing, where heads at the side of a screen get incredibly fatty.
Anyway, with pc's the options are even wider than the two resolutions broadcast tv now has. Desktop screens have over the years grown from 10 " to 21 or 23 ". Where a few years back most people were behind a 14 " screen it is now mostly 17 ". If you check the old pages I made 4 years ago you'll see the images were a lot smaller. I've no intention of redoing all old pages however; the site is a living/evolving project, but the newer pages do try to adhere to what is the norm now, but have even gone beyond:
This week I reformatted the C-drive of my main workstation and started out with the old resolution of 1024 pixels width. Which is the most used width worldwide. I must say that a lot of new pages do require a lot of sidescrolling, although most images DO fit if you hit the F11 key. I do want to give the accasional treat to my elitist, but dearly treasured, large-screen-user friends of an impressively detailed image going way past the average screenlimits. So please accept my appologies for the laptop users or the visually handicapped.

Delft, july 1st 2003:
Why should I pay for this site while I can download a lot of the images here for free at MSN- or YahooGroups? I hear you ask . . .

Well for one these groups are not really free, they serve an awfull lot of commercials before you get to the artwork, and your service-provider, i.e. you yourself, does pay for the dataflow that induces.
Further they do not care about the art treasures we cherish and delete files when serverlimits are reached leaving you without any control.
And most important:
These companies are the most modern way of American Imperialism: they export American, or Anglo-Saxon morality, to us Europeans who much rather do without, thank you very much.
We here are pretty fond of our laid-back approach to sexuality and are appalled by the hypocritical, neurotic, crime inducing double standards we get imposed on us from across the ocean.

Not only through multinational (web)companies we get US standards forced down our throats: The whitehouse managed to convince our governement that the age of people being photographed nude should be 18. The Dutch age of consent being fixed at 16, we now have the weird situation that we are allowed to have sex with a guy of 16 but not to photograph him.
This would never have happened if Pim Fortuyn had not been killed and was prime minister here. The most outspoken gay politician èver invited Maroccan boys who asked if his crotch was as cleanshaven as his skull on primetime-tv to come check at his bedroom if that was the case.

anyway,
It would be nice if this website works as a barricade against this form of self-denial and filter through all the good stuff some great minds in the US still produce that has every reason to be exported across the Atlantic.

A donation not only gives you access to huge fast-loading art-archives without a single ad, it also helps us to make a stand.

I have always felt access to art, even, or especially, homo-erotic art, should be free, but as most musea and all websites have abandoned that credo, it's like me trying to be more catholic than the pope: the idea has become irrealistic.

It's june 2003 and another set of changes need to be made. Not taking away from what I said earlier about ripping off and honesty, the db-site cannot continue to grow and expand if it keeps the semy professional status it now has. For the first time I feel I no longer have to shy away from the word museum. The homo-art collection keeps growing and it seems that's what you all want to see.

David K, editor and brain behind nightcharm, the commerial homo site I admire most, had this to say:
One thought I had while perusing the areas of your site that are password protected, is that you should DEFINITELY set things up differently with your online projects; so as to accept credit card payments, etc (as I do w/the Inner Circle). You're doing way too much work, and have waaaaay to much to offer folks. If you give away so much for nothing or very little, people won't appreciate that. What you've collected is astounding; truly -- and serves as a fantastic form of queer art appreciation and history. Rethink your sites and start CHARGING !

So it is time to take the final step: on july 1st '03 the free access password will be phased out, the previewpages will expand and the masterclass will get a professional entrance with options for direct creditcardpayment (some weeks later), the content will be structured clearer, navigation more functional. As I knew, or loved some of the artists personally, or have gotten to know 'm through this project, respect and admiration for those masters with incredible gifts to visualise erotic fantasies of yours and mine stays the fundament on which the site is based.

respect for artists also means that if we want them to keep producing fulltime they must be able to live respectfully. And so must I: now research, selecting, adapting, editing, presenting, administrating this operation is gradually becoming (more than a) fulltimejob. Sure you can get stuff for free on the web, but then you take the innundation with pop-ups, advertisement, spam for granted. On db there's just the artwork, displayed in web-optimised formats that you will not find anywhere else.

It still is all about realizing dreams . . .
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