Men Are Getting Real About Their Penises. That's To Be Celebrated
“I take portraits of dicks because dicks have their own stories to tell, but are still censored.” Artist-activist Ajamu is discussing Me And My Penis, a new Channel 4 documentary released this week, which celebrates his ongoing photography series – sensitive portraits of naked men – while also interviewing those involved about the reasons they may feel anxious about their penises and their bodies.
In front of his camera, men talk openly about sex, masturbation and erections, and how it feels to be a man, away from the clichés of locker or steam room banter. They tell stories of infertility, violence and sexual abuse as they pose – one wearing only an octopus to represent the shackles of masculinity. In another segment, an unnamed Asian man (all his subjects are anonymous to viewers) speaks about how he bruised his penis by attempting to stop the flow of semen in line with his Muslim teachings against masturbation. He spent his young life feeling oppressed by his homosexuality but feels validated by Ajamu’s lens.
“The film became a space for us to recognise what we all share, despite our differences,” says Ajamu of the mission statement for his documentary.
“I wanted to meet and photograph all kinds of men – the kinds of men I would not normally meet.”
Ajamu, 56, born in Huddersfield and based now in Brixton, south London, tells HuffPost UK he was moved by the bravery of his subjects. “What’s poignant is how many of them have lived with their demons and not felt able or allowed to admit to them because of being a man,” he says.
Participants, who ranged in age from their twenties to fifties, include a trans man who speaks about the power of transitioning and what their genitalia means to them, and a former member of the military whose testicles were blown off by a bomb. He still gets horny, the man says – but has no way to alleviate it.
Ajamu wants to normalise the penis, “especially the erection; by keeping it taboo we give it too...
