The In/visible Trouble: Robert Mapplethorpe’s Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter
By Haoran Xia
December 21, 2023
By Haoran Xia
December 21, 2023
To experience a thing as beautiful means: to experience it necessarily wrongly.
—Nietzsche
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), known for his photographic work depicting subcultures and sadomasochism (S&M) within the gay community during the 1970s in New York City, produced a significant body of representational work before AIDS claimed his life. Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter (Figure 1) is one such piece. In this photograph, a scene is documented: Ridley and Heeter are clad in full leather gear, positioning themselves calmly at the center of the photograph, implicitly suggesting either an ongoing or recently completed S&M sexual intercourse. Examining their positions, leather outfits, chains, riding crop, and the aura emanating from each figure, we learn that Ridley, seated in the leather wingback armchair with chains attached to his wrists and ankles, takes on the role of the subordinate or, in S&M culture, the "slave." Standing next to him, holding a riding crop in his left hand and wearing a police-like cap, Heeter takes on the role of the dominant subject or the "master."
The setting of the space, presumably a living room, appears seemingly normal and even slightly conventional compared to S&M culture. The features of this room include curtains, a leather wingback armchair, a vintage coffee table with a lamp, a clock and a few books on top, a large shelf with boutique vases on display, and a Persian-like carpet on the floor. The lamp projects Ridley and Heeter's shadows onto the wall. However, what is intriguing about this photograph is that, although there is no sexual act, obscenity, or exposure of male genitals, we, as spectators, strongly feel a sense of eroticism and, to some extent, a sense of precariousness. As Michel Foucault states, "sex was not something one simply judged; it was a thing one administered" (24). In a time and society where sex is regulated and supervised by apparatuses of governmentality, the extent to which sex can be performed is always limited. It is within this limitation that the act of sex and other forms like S&M remains precarious. In the case of this photograph, the precariousness does not lie in the potential 'violence' that most people assume would entail in S&M, but essentially lies in the social norms and administrative power opposed to homosexuality in the dominating heteronormative society.
Therefore, the precariousness captured in the photograph becomes a source of trouble for gay men and the public alike. It serves as a visible one, functioning not only as an authentic documentation—a 'that-has-been' (Barthes, 77)—to illustrate how gay men reacted and sought pleasure during a dark period in gay history (the photograph was taken in 1979, one year prior to the national AIDS pandemic in the USA). Additionally, it offers as an explicit aggression against heteronormativity in the form of S&M. It also serves as an invisible trouble that lies in the administration, institution, norms, protocols, morality, and sanitation associated with the power of the public imposed on gay men. In essence, this essay aims to unveil the political, historical, cultural, and photographic impact of this photograph and to explore the function of this photograph not only as a document but also as a landmark for gay men seeking to establish their world during a troubled time.
As Susan Sontag argues, 'There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera' (4). In the case of this photograph, the aggression is evident ubiquitously: the fascism-like leather outfits; the erotic toys such as chains and riding crop; the positions of the master and the slave; and, last but not least, the assertive yet almost disturbing look in Ridley’s and Heeter’s eyes directed at the camera, the photographer, the beholder, and anyone who will gaze upon this photograph, extending to a larger scale, the society. According to W.J.T. Mitchell, pictures present "not just a surface but a face that faces the beholder" (72). However, in this context, the faces of Ridley and Heeter no longer carry the function that Mitchell emphasizes. Nevertheless, it is through their gaze that this photograph 'faces' or even challenges the beholder.
When it comes to photography, there has always been a binary relation between seeing and being seen, reflecting the subject/object dichotomy inherent in the dominant Western discourse. To elaborate further, this photographic binary relation, nurtured by Western male-dominant history and culture, is intertwined with male/female power dynamics, establishing the basis for the male gaze, or, to put it simply: "men look and women are there to be looked at" (Mercer, 186). Operating like a machine, the male gaze manifests its power and achieves its penetration with the assistance of the lens, the camera. Gradually, women become objectified and fetishized as voyeuristic pleasures for men.
However, with the assertiveness and disturbance in Ridley and Heeter’s eyes, their gaze, as well as this photograph, challenges and interrupts traditional optic binary dynamics, or in other words, the male gaze. It is partly because they and/or Mapplethorpe sustain their subjectivity in the act of S&M—they are not being looked at as fetishized erotic objects explicitly or during their sexual intercourse, which would render it pornographic. Therefore, they grant their act absolute sovereignty internally (from Ridley, Heeter, and Mapplethorpe) and externally (as an extension of the camera—the public), eventually achieving a certain kind of ‘mastery over the beholder’ (Mitchell, 76). Moreover, it is also because, through this photograph and their gaze, Mapplethorpe invites us to see the hidden sexuality and the fetishized objects in their personal, raw, original style. He also compels us to confront the ambivalence of identity by acknowledging the so-called derailed human condition, which is homosexuality.
In Kobena Mercer’s words, Mapplethorpe based this photograph on a “strategy of promiscuous intertextuality” (192), and within this intertextuality, the gay gaze is created. The gay gaze is assertive, disturbing, challenging, and fearless. It does not necessarily care about who is being looked at or who has the power to look but focuses on whether their identity is aggressively showcased or if their hidden subjectivity is revealed through their gaze. Most essentially, the gay gaze aims to abolish the label of a faux species2 attached to homosexuals and, in return, seeks mastery over the beholder, the public, the State, and themselves.
Based on the gay gaze in this photograph, an aura is established. This aura functions as a “medium that lends fullness and security to their gaze…” (Benjamin, 515), demonstrating that the aura and the gay gaze have entered into a reciprocal relation. It is in this reciprocity that we, as beholders, are able to recognize the cultural and historical representation depicted in the photograph. On a personal level, we familiarize ourselves with the details, the excitement, the pain, and the identification within the photograph. In Roland Barthes’s words, it is the ‘studium’ (26) and the ‘punctum’ (27) that immerse us in a photograph.
The studium, according to Barthes, is an “…application to a thing, taste for someone, a kind of general…commitment…” (26), in other words, the cultural atmosphere emerging from the photograph. As he continues, “for it is culturally…that I participate in the figures, the faces…” (Barthes, 26). The punctum is “that accident which pricks me” (Barthes, 27), meaning any element that speaks to us intimately is the punctum that stands out from the photograph. In the case of this photograph, the contradiction between the normal setting of the living room and the act of S&M constructs a unique scene that resonates with homosexual fantasies: open and audacious sex not taking place in a public bathroom or an underground sauna. This fantasy or unique scene is the general studium that echoes with gay men in the 1970s, as in a world where the public owns absolute rights over sex, engaging in intimate sexual intercourse like a heterosexual couple is almost impossible. The assertive look in both Ridley and Heeter’s eyes and their determined positions, showcasing their fervency about S&M, indicates their agency in undertaking this dangerous yet thrilling journey.
Their choice of S&M, whether propelled by Mapplethorpe or not, is evidently an “accident" and a trouble. This is partly because in a dominant heteronormative culture where sexuality is demanded and regulated to be sanitized and straight, and in this context, homosexual S&M is the last thing the public would like to witness, rendering it troublesome and an accident to the public. Furthermore, the cultural and political propagation of limitation and prohibition on gay sex within the homosexual community makes sex a mirage that only exists in Sodom, therefore rendering this S&M act an accident and a trouble to the homosexual community.
With these two aspects combined, the scene of S&M becomes the punctum that pricks every gay man who looks at it, evoking their inner desire for sex and prompting them to contemplate their agency concealed beneath their identity. With this accident, this photograph not only invoked an optical unconsciousness3 but also induces a political, cultural, and bodily one. This realization levels their understanding and consciousness of their identity, turning it into an epiphany. This epiphany, stemming from the domain of sex life, extends to aspects of politics, economics, culture, law, and medical care, allowing gay men to navigate and establish their own rules. Ultimately, an accident is something shocking and disturbing, nevertheless this is also the truth of this photograph, the gay gaze, or queer photography—full of disturbing effects.
S&M As A way of life
Despite its disturbing nature, S&M serves as a key role and main theme in this photograph. Encouraging and liberating as it may seem for gay men, yet when placed outside the context of this photograph, for the public, S&M becomes a problematic state that the government, the police, civil servants, and the State are keen to undermine and eradicate. It interrupts the organic mechanism, institutional protocols, public hygiene, and the good image and ideal representation of sex: reproduction.4
Nevertheless, all of these terms eventually trace back to a singular doctrine that the government aims to sustain and advocate: heteronormativity. As Laurent Berlant and Michael Warner argue, “National heterosexuality is the mechanism by which a core national culture can be imagined as a sanitized space of sentimental feeling and immaculate behavior” (549). Therefore, in a society where heterosexuality is regarded as the core culture, activities and acts related to heterosexuality, such as male/female sex, the nuclear family, the opposite sex as the desired object, binary gender, etc., are perceived as the norm, the moral code, the perfect way of life.
With heteronormativity being the national core culture, what Mapplethorpe depicted in this photograph is nothing but an opposition to the government. However, the compelling nature of this photograph arises precisely from this opposition. Their opposition manifests as a certain kind of marginality—the nature of a trouble—and within this depicted marginality, a politics of sexuality is recreated. This is because “marginality is a powerful experience” (Star, 102), and Mapplethorpe, as a gay man, understands this powerful experience and decides to document this moment. Therefore, by photographing the scene of S&M, Mapplethorpe brings marginality to the surface of mainstream culture and creates a space—an archive of documentation—for gay men to showcase their choice of love life, sex life, and ultimately, their form of intimacy. Additionally, what is crucial is that “intimacy builds worlds; it creates spaces and usurps places meant for other kinds of relations” (Berlant, 292). It is through this specific form of intimacy established in S&M that a world for relation, trust, pleasure, and affect is given a chance to be constructed. To this extent, S&M depicted in this photograph or this photograph itself is not necessarily sexual but political.
Moreover, if we take a step back from the photograph and examine closely the relation within S&M, there is a prevailing sense of worship, admiration, and idolization. Usually the master is the one being worshipped and the subordinate is the one who will be ‘sacrificed’. Consequently, the power relation between master and subordinate in S&M and its spiritual manifestation resonates with the dynamics observed between followers and God in religion. Furthermore, beyond the shared power dynamics between S&M and religion, they both revolve around one key theme: sin. In S&M, whenever the subordinate feels the need to confess his ‘sin’, he summons his master and receives his sexual punishment. Conversely, in the context of the church, the follower sits calmly and prays devotedly to God, earnestly desiring the forgiveness of his/her sins.
The act of confession, according to Foucault, is “one of the main rituals we rely on for the production of truth” (58). Through confession, Western men tell their sin, secrets, sadness, and sorrow, as well as mistrust and change of faith to God to conceive a certain kind of truth. Similarly, in the context of S&M, gay men turn to their master and confess their ultimate sins: being in closet, lying to family and friends, betraying their faith for God, etc., which are forbidden to disclosed elsewhere. In the act of S&M, without the symbol of God, the pure physical pain that ensues become the truth for gay men, as they are consistently emotionally anaesthetized in their public life and only in the act of S&M can they “…control and…manipulate the world beyond the self” (Bersani, 216) by being stimulated by the feeling of pain.
Therefore, if ‘in god we trust’ is the national motto for USA, then ‘in S&M/pain we trust’ emerges as the new motto for gay men. As depicted in this photograph, the pain is in a paradoxical condition: it is unseen but palpable. The pursuit of pain becomes, in a sense, the essence of this photograph, with Ridley and Heeter experiencing it as if it were a ritual where the image of God has been displaced by the master and the act of confession has become an act of sex. Extending from this photograph, Mapplethorpe reveals that gay men’s obsession with S&M, in the case of USA, is not only a problem to heteronormativity but also a problem to Christianity.
Ultimately, within the gay community, the metaphor of Jesus Christ—tribulation—has been utterly displaced by the physical pain associated with S&M. Hence, the relation between S&M and religion becomes clear: “eroticism…is something monstrous, just like religion” (Bataille, 37). This is precisely because eroticism/S&M and religion share a commonality in which they both venerate pain and tribulation, consider sin as the core culture, and baptize each member through confession. In this way, S&M profoundly becomes the new religion in the gay subculture, compelling gay men to find their own image of God in a world where they are perpetually prohibited.
When S&M becomes a challenge to both the dominant heteronormative culture and Christianity, gay men are compelled to construct their way of life elsewhere. As a gay man, Mapplethorpe understands the difficulty of building a life elsewhere hence he takes on his camera and documents the multiplicity of gay men’s life, and as seen in this photograph, S&M is one major part of their life. What sets this photograph apart from other S&M-themed photographs by Mapplethorpe is the absence of a direct clue regarding the roles of master and subordinate. Although the roles can be inferred from the outfits and positions, it remains uncertain whether the subordinate will ultimately assume the role of the master. In this photograph, Ridley, the subordinate, sits in the armchair as if he is about to be served, while Heeter, the master, stands next to him like a guardian, a protector, a partner. Therefore, within this context, the relationship between the master and the subordinate is constantly evolving.
According to Mapplethorpe himself, in an interview conducted by Dominick Dunne for Vanity Fair in 1989, he said: “It was giving pleasure to one another. It was not about hurting. It was sort of an art…For me..It was pleasure, even though it looked painful.”5 This statement makes it evident that his intention was not to depict a form of extreme pain, but rather to create a new form of pleasures, and even a new form of campy art. This form is new partly because, unlike traditional ways of sexual intercourse, “it is the real creation of new possibilities of pleasure” (Foucault, 165) and also because it is a “strategic relation” (Foucault, 169) that seeks to generate sexual and bodily pleasure by rendering both parties in the sexual act fluid, transparent, vigorous, much like Ridley and Heeter. Consequently, in this strategic relation, the paradigm of a sexual binary relation—male/female, top/bottom—is utterly diminished.
Therefore, S&M functions as a creation of pleasure and serves as an invention for gay men to exercise their identity, power, and agency freely and arbitrarily. Moreover, in the act of S&M, due to the fluid power relation, there is constantly a sense of resistance to obedience—and, consequently, to power. In reality, this sense of resistance extends to that of heteronormativity and Christianity, subverting the hegemonic power wielded by the government and the Church over homosexuals. Hence, there is no doubt that the resistance is not only sexual but also politically and ontologically inherent in the behaviour, choice, value, act, and attitude of gay men.
As Leo Bersani robustly argues: “It is no secret that many homosexuals resisted…participation in "a subversively political way of life," to being…de-homosexualized…” (205). It is precisely through resisting to become politically subverted that gay men aim to change the status quo of the power relation imposed upon them, thereby creating their own framework of politics, law, protocol, norm, and most importantly, a way of life. The process of resistance and the creation of their way of life typically commence with gay men objectifying themselves as the “trouble” in the society due to the hegemonic power of heteronormativity and Christianity. After undergoing the painful experience of self-ratification, they internalize this “trouble” within their ontology and eventually come to see themselves as they truly are: human beings.
Foucault once said: "I think that's what makes homosexuality "disturbing": the homosexual mode of life, much more than the sexual act itself.” (137). In resisting any hegemonic power imposed upon them, and by being politically and culturally indifferent to mainstream norms and regulations, gay men embrace their trouble and construct their own world in a strategic relation where pain and pleasure coexist.
Conclusion
Photography always says about what has been. Taken nearly five decades ago, this photograph lets us into a painful world where gay men were at their darkest, being accused as the ultimate trouble. However, it also provides a window into a different world—a world where gay men endure the suffering from being the “trouble” and invent their way of life by participating in the act of S&M.
By photographing this fragment of time, Mapplethorpe reveals the rebellious gay gaze, marching in an invisible and intangible way to overthrow hegemony. He generates a precious memory by creating an archive for the “inter- and trans-generational transmission of traumatic knowledge and experience” (Hirsch, 106) of his time. This ensures that gay men in his time, our time, and in the decades that follow will always remember their pain, suffering, pleasure, and their somehow wrong yet beautiful way of life.
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