That’s River

Darren Ankenman shoots for Purple. Someone asked him about his work with a model named River—the concept, the meaning, what he was saying with these photographs. And he basically said: That’s River, she’s great. That was his answer.

I respect that. There’s usually so much required apparatus around photographs of naked women. You’re supposed to have an intellectual framework, a position, something that proves you’re looking for the right reasons. You need theory. You need meaning. You need to show you’re thinking and not just feeling desire.

But that’s not what’s happening. You see a beautiful woman and you want to look at her. That’s it. Desire, vision, whatever you want to call it—it doesn’t need explaining or defending. Ankenman just refuses to play the game and I think he’s onto something. All the machinery around the image doesn’t change what’s actually going on. It just makes the admission feel easier.

We like looking at bodies. Women’s bodies, specifically. And instead of just admitting that, we build these frameworks around it. All this theory, all these arguments. But everyone knows what’s happening. Everyone looks. The only thing that changes is whether you’re honest about it.