Leslie Lohman Gallery - Erotic Drawing Workshops - a fascinating experience with academic CMNM

Months ago, I created a user-documented database using a Web 2.0 site called Wufoo. The point was to try to get readers of this blog and other CMNM sites to post their personally favorite locations worldwide where CMNM situations take place either naturally, accidentally, or deliberately. Not many people have responded. We're still in need of getting thousands of 'Naked Places for Clothed Men', but there have been some surprising revelations as a result so far. One of them is described below: the Erotic Drawing Workshops at the Leslie Lohman Gallery in New York City. The organizer may or may not appreciate getting some 'free' advertisement for the Workshops, but in this economic reality, I imagine he cannot complain too much.

 

CMNM Places

#18

Name of the place: *	Leslie Lohman Gallery - Erotic Drawing Workshops
Select the type of location: *	Institution/Organization (university, club, etc)
Specific category (esp, if open / public / outdoor area)	Select a category (if outdoors)
Which is most likely to happen? *	Interaction between naked and clothed men
How do you know about this place? *	I have been there many times.
Notes/Comment/Describe its CMNM possibilities:
This is an erotic drawing workshop where a model (normally a dancer or other very fit man) poses for others to draw. The models are of all types but generally very attractive and some of them get erect or even masturbate at the end of the session. Despite the intense hotness of the situation, it is very businesslike. Participants' interaction with the model is very limited and touching is strictly forbidden. In a way that just makes it hotter. You don't have to be a great artist to participate, but some experience in life drawing is required. You do also have to bring the right supplies, at least make an effort at drawing, and not be a distraction to others. It's a lot of fun if you are into being a CM and can be respectful of what's going on. You must be accepted into the program and have a reservation to attend. Call Bob Rosen at the number below.
Address	Leslie Lohman Gallery 26 Wooster Street New York,New York United States
Phone Number (if applicable)	(212) 431-2609
Web Site (if it exists)	http://www.leslielohman.org/MainPgs/DrawingStudio.html

The Erotic Drawing Workshop has five rules, which seem to be a good model for how a CMNM event might be organized. Obviously, since there may (or may not) be overt sexual behavior at other types of organized CMNM events (some of which I have attempted to set up and often discussed in blog entries here), there would likely have to be more than just 5 rules. Rules or guidelines addressing sexual behavior and the limits and bounds involved would have to be made clear with additional 'rules'.

The workshops are clearly academic sessions intended to help both novice and accomplished artists polish their skills in drawing human anatomy and the corresponding changes that occur when males (and possible females as well) are engaged in erotic behavior - either alone or in couples or groups.

  

Clearly not everyone is an artist, but there may be other forms that such artistic and academic endeavours might take that would draw upon various other skill set and aesthetic consciousness, such as 'naked chamber orchestra', musical composition workshops drawing upon nude male bodywork and instrumental use of the male human body, naked dance workshops, naked theatre workshops and nude poetry studios, and performance art installation studio that meld various aspects across multi-modal forms of artistic expressions while being centred about the role of human nudity and male sexual identity and behavior.

Note: This entry is also posted on my Kelly's Second Life (blog).
THE EROTIC DRAWING STUDIO HAS FIVE RULES. (from the Leslie Lohman website page). 

1. Artists are asked to make a reservation by replying to the email announcement when they plan on attending a session. They should also let us know if their plans have changed and they must cancel the reservation.
2. No one may speak to the model, and there is to be no interaction between the artists and the model, when the model is ON the model stand, except the one in charge of directing the pose.
3. If an artist finds the model so alluring that he cannot concentrate on drawing, he may not simply sit and gape. He MUST at least PRETEND to draw.
4. Each artist must clean up after himself, i.e., if you have left pencil shavings on the floor, please sweep them up.
5. Photography is not permitted unless a special prior arrangement is made with the studio director and the model.

Perhaps there are members of the CMNM social networking sites or other interested, and

serious men, who might be interested in attending the Workshops described above. Someone in the New York City area should contact the Studio/Gallery organizer to see if a 'special' workshop session might be organized. Perhaps there are some of the current models who would be willing to participate in a CMNM event outside the normal 'rules' that the Gallery needs to impose.

Wrestling naked: Is it male bonding, homoeroticism (CMNM), or just guys being athletic?

Is wrestling - especially naked with your buddy or team mate a type of CMNM behavior that is for male bonding, homoeroticism, or just guys being athletic?

 For me, thinking of nude wrestling brings back some powerful memories. It never started out as nude wrestling, but it often turned out to become that. A college buddy - who was supposedly straight and I would always get into a wrestling match after every time we got drunk -- it might be after a Saturday night's college party (we tended to give one or go to one every weekend), or it might be on Sunday afternoon when he and his girlfriend, my dorm mate (we had tiny private rooms) and I played cards and drank wine throughout the afternoon.

Eventually, as we got sotted, he and I would challenge each other to a wrestling match that always started in our underwear (I didn't freeball then like I do now). The object of the wrestling match often was to tear off the other guy's briefs. Our spectators just cheered us on and it is truly a wonder that I didn't get caught with my a big hardon because I really had a crush on him -- but it was more like I wanted to 'be' him than just be with him sexually. So that's what nude wrestling means to me .. it's kind of homoerotic, but it's about asserting your masculinity or manhood in a strange kind of way and bonding physically with another guy - -whether he's gay or str8t doesn't really matter. Actually, I can't really say I've ever had the same feelings toward a gay man and haven't actually wrestled a gay man in the nude -- I mean --- sex comes into the picture long before we get around to wrestling.

These events happened during my junior-year-abroad in France. Patrice was studying judo at the time

so he would usually get the upper hand in our sweaty wrestling matches - so I didn't actually get to pull off his briefs or expose his cock very often -- maybe that's why I kept trying [grin.]When we had a party, I was typically the one who got the drunkest and acted rather strange (I came from a rather puritanical, family)- like taking off some or most of my clothes, or climbing trees and telephone poles. Patrice and his girlfriend were the ones who helped me get back home and I would find myself in my own bed without any clothes on later the night or the next morning.

 I always really wondered which one of them enjoyed 'taking care' of Le Petit (as they used to call me). One of the hottest (and nostalgically regretful) memories for me about those wrestling days in university (in France) was the time after one of our more intense wrestling bouts that Patrice told me privately in the dorm kitchen (where his girlfriend and my roomie could not heard) that he wanted to fuck my ass: 'You know what? - I'd fuck you in the ass.' I just joked about it, and replied that there was no way he was going to get my ass, and then passed it off as if it were nothing but I dreamed for years about what would have happened if I had taken him more seriously.

It scared me because I knew how strongly I was attached to him emotionally and how much physically attractive he was. I had just come out to myself (and to other guy - my dorm mate). Shortly after that incident, our wrestling matches ended - perhaps from our having reached some kind of irrevocable turning point, and also it was about time for me to return home.

Another memory was the time that we all went out in early May to the beach (I was studying in Montpellier), I ended up getting one of the worst sunbuns I've ever had despite it being a partly cloudy spring day -- Patrice and his girlfriend brought me home, took off all my clothes (I was conscious but in great pain), and rubbed me with burn cream and kept me warm and with plenty of liquids -- if I had not been in so much pain I would have been excited beyond belief to have Patrice rubbing my body-- as it was I was scorched and grimacing in pain - nothing pleasurable about it. I visited him in France years later - he is married, has two children and teaches English in high school. At this point, we've sort of lost contact, but this posting brought back memories of those idyllic days.

If you like nude wrestling, frottage, Spartan love and then take a look at the full site (where the pic above is hosted). http://www.heroichomosex.com/

P.S. Matt Damon stars the movie, The Good Shepherd. In it, you can see him doing some naked mud wrestling as part of a secret university club initiation rite. For more info and some screen captures, go to JustJared.com posting about it.

Scene from the Matt Damon film "The Good Shepherd". These CMNM scenes (nude mud wrestling and initiation ceremony in the Skull and Bones club) are not the main parts of the film, but do help explain some essentials of the story.

CMNM at Parties: guys often get naked for their fellow party-goers

Repressed Japanese men gone naked

Posted by: TokyoCherie on: April 27, 2009

In: Cherie's diary

 From: Erikag59 on his CMNM google group

 All over of the world and particularly during the college-age years when drinking alcohol seems to become the required form of activity in achieving social acceptance - especially in groups of male friends who have just become acquainted, the clothes come off after several bottles of beer de rigeur have been consumed. Later, these friends join clubs, fraternities, or just set up their own parties, where alcohol is the elixir of male camaraderie - which begats a whole new set of 'naked' antics. It is currently that time of year in Japan (the beginning of the school year - at colleges and universities nationwide), and since it is Easter, it's also in close proximity preceding or following Spring Break for many other campus communities worldwide.

 Thanks to Erikag59 for sending out these photos to remind us of how nudity figures into the male culture of student university life. I'm sure many of you have similar experiences. Write in and tell us about When I was that age, I had a stark revelation -in both the meanings of the word. My strict Protestant parents had forbid me to drink (smoke, dance, play cards or have premarital sex too - of course - religion was a package deal for them -- all or nothing - intended to prevent one from sinning (LOL). Fortunately, that helped me avoid or curb most of the seven deadly sins, but it also stifled my social development to some degree as a high school teen.

 Anyway, I dreamed of escaping these 'moral' restrictions. During my freshmen and sophomore years at the local state university, I lived at home, studied a lot and also worked part-time, so I was well behaved in their eyes. But when the opportunity to study abroad came up, I jumped at the chance to participate in the Junior Year Abroad program, choosing to spend 10 months at a university in southern France. Sure enough, one of the first memories is having an alcoholic drink (chantilly -a simple beer cocktail (draft beer mixed half & half with Seven-Up (or limonade as they called it there. ) It was delicious and slightly 'dangerous' and made a nice buzz. Later, I graduated to red wine and started attending (and helping organize) parties along with my new found French friends, and also other American / British students who were also studying as exchange students at the Faculte de Lettres (College of Humanities (Literature, Languages, and Arts).

 To make a long story much much shorter, I would get drunk and start removed my clothes. Eventually, I would end up inebriated and either passed out or asleep and naked. Along the way, we would be playing the typical games and antics -- along with just some plain old full. Although was surely attracted to the men around, I had not actually ever had sex with a guy (except for one furtive blow job with another anonymous (and faceless) student in my university library back home. These photos - some of them - bring back memories. Others certainly conjure up fanatasies. 

 

Some times I wonder how many of today's university & frat parties are just precursory semi-erotic experiences for younger guys who will later (or not) affectionately recall their naked antics in college life when they reach middle age.The big domestic news of the week was the arrest for public indecency of mega-star Tsuyoshi Kusanagi on Thursday. Tsuyoshi Kusanagi is one of the most charismatic members of the SMAP boys band that has been popular for as long as I can remember (to be specific, 1990).  Kusanagi  was reportedly found nude at a park in 3am drunk, completely wasted.

I can’t believe it! I can’t believe that

1. it is the biggest domestic news of the week since last Thursday and that most Japanese news stations would discuss this incidence ignoring the swine flu,
2. he is called “crime suspect” and no one shows sense of humor. He has been criticized widely for his behaviour and dropped from commercials and advertisements by various corporate sponsors (for God sake, he just got drunk, that’s all!),
3. his nudity picture cannot be found anywhere on the internet, no where to be seen!!!
4. getting drunk and stripping is not a peculiar behavior in Japan. Many Japanese men (not women lol) strip down to underwear when they get intoxicated.

The fourth point is most surprising to me. I have actually heard from my friends and family that they have seen such behavior in various places including college drinking parties, wedding after parties, and even in office parties! Apparently, these people habitually strip themselves when intoxicated.

For example, my friend’s boss is known for this behavior and, everyone in the company knows about it and whispers “he’s gonna get naked again tonight” every time there is an office social event. Another friend of mine was a member of golf club in university, where several members were regular strippers when it comes to drinking party (nomikai). For every drinking party (nomikai) there was, they would come prepared to get stripped, by wearing fundoshi, traditional Japanese underwear for adult males, made from a length of cotton and looks like a thong.  It is certainly not an appreciated behavior for everyone, but people generally accept these strip shows in the basement.

Always for a laugh. At least, no body would report them for harassment! 

What is up with this behaviour?

I asked my Japanese friends, my father (who has worked in a Japanese company for years) , and my sister (who went to Japanese university and has seen such strip boys) and they all gave me the same explanation, that they strip out of repression. These  men are repressed in the Japanese society and they can only free themselves when they strip off their business suits and reveal their true self. Under family stress, school stress, work stress, social stress, and even stressed in dating scene, they can only release their frustration by stripping off their armor and show their peers who they are. You see, the point is that they strip in front of their peers, colleagues, team mates, or school mates, and not for strangers.

So… Kusanagi stripped in a park for the public, people who has been idolizing and worshiping him, hoping to liberate himself from repression. The most we can do for him, is to laugh and put the pictures up for the public eyes so he can relieve his stress.