By Martin Sigrist, editor
Reviewer: Jerome D'Angelo
The book’s very title dares to ask the question that has bedeviled human beings since the dawn of time—or at least, since high school. Shaven or Unshaven, a collection of erotic photography focusing on both the shorn and not-so-shorn female anatomy, features a varied array of models and sensual imagery. Female pubic hair is considered by some to be unsightly or even repulsive. American men especially seem to regard the mons pubis rather negatively, as described in one of the more discouraging passages of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues.
The work of the 35 different photographers featured in Shaven or Unshaven, by contrast, attempt to display the “Delta of Venus,” as editor Martin Sigrist refers to it in his preface, in a much more positive light, and in doing so conveys its erotic effect alongside the hairless female form. Rather than simply minimalizing female pubic hair as displeasing it is better, claims Sigrist, “to compare the two approaches from photographer to photographer, from shot to shot and from model to model.”
There certainly seem to be more than just two approaches, however, as the models in Shaven or Unshaven are very different with regard to their grooming. Many are completely bare while others appear to be much more, shall we say, natural. Others, though, have their public hair trimmed, waxed, shaved into straight lines, and even shaped into arrows, hearts or diamonds—a clever little attribute of some of the models featured by artist Gunnar, formerly of Elle and Maxim magazines. Many others, closely cropped and otherwise, adorn clitoral piercings like those of photographers Ragnar Gischas of Germany and Ivana Ford of the United States.
Perhaps most intriguing about Shaven or Unshaven is not the models’ public hair, or lack thereof, but rather the genuine subtly and artistry with which most, admittedly not all, of the photographs are taken. Each artist adds their own unique touch to the images of the women they capture, utilizing vastly differing styles, lighting and themes. Girogio Barmelli shows us a rather darkly sensual side to his work, with women dressed in fishnets and metal thongs with matching corsets. Didier Carré’s photos, all softly lit black and whites look like X-rated Calvin Klein ads, featuring gaunt models with their panties down around their thighs. Manuel Laval gives us a mix of erotica and humor; models sport cherry tomatoes over their vaginas in some pictures, while in others appear before shadowy patterns which thinly drape their forms.
Other highlights include the aforementioned Ford, whose photos can be best described as intensely erotic modern pinup, including one shot of model Adriana Sage spread eagle and about to fellate a vibrator. Gischas, whose models brandish beer bottles, knee high boots, cigarettes and nipple rings, gives us what is arguably the book’s most interesting picture: a Barbie doll sits in the crotch of a woman’s cat suit with its hand reaching for the woman’s clitoral hood piercing. Second place behind him probably goes to Lars Ihring, whose photos display vaginas with lips and clits of blue, red, teal, yellow, silver and green, with at least two of those colors in each shot. Chris Grunenwald of Germany features some of the more controversial pictures in the volume. There are only three grainy black and whites where the mostly nude models hold a pistol in one, two long knives in another, and finally one where the model is leaning on an M-16 assault rifle.
Shaven or Unshaven is hardly as crude as its title or as its cover art, which is a woman wearing a shaving cream bikini, might suggest. While hardly essential to your erotica collection, Shaven or Unshaven deserves a nice long look from anyone who appreciates what the female genitalia really looks like, not just the version of it in newsstand skin rags. The celebratory way it presents the contrast between the hairy and hairless variants gives it a much appreciated progressive vibe, and certainly one with a unique portrayal of the erotic female form. ShavenorUnshaven
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