Dear Lesbians, I'm Gay
Art without desire is just decoration.
Every queer artist knows the question.
“Why don’t you photograph more women?”
“Wouldn’t your work sell better if it had female subjects?”
Or, from lesbians in particular: “Couldn’t you make something for us?”
The assumption behind these requests is that art is a market product first, and identity second. But for gay artists, the act of creation comes from the same mind‑space as procreation. It’s not about choosing a subject like you’d choose a flavor of ice cream. It’s about channeling desire, intimacy, and imagination into form.
When I photograph men, I’m not just documenting bodies. I’m staging the psychic charge of queer desire — the same energy that drives reproduction in straight contexts. For me, that energy doesn’t flow toward women. To redirect it would be dishonest, a performance of someone else’s fantasy.
I have tried to make female work. The results were met with puzzled looks, as if the viewers sensed something was missing. And they were right — the desire wasn’t there. Without that charge, the images felt hollow, like a performance of someone else’s fantasy. Art without authentic desire is just decoration, and decoration has never been my aim.
And then when I do make female‑focused art, I get accused by lesbians of appropriating their culture to make a buck. The irony is impossible to miss: if I refuse to make female work, I’m told I’m erasing women; if I attempt it, I’m told I’m stealing. Either way, the accusation assumes that desire is interchangeable, that intimacy can be manufactured on demand. But art without authentic desire collapses into performance, and performance without charge is decoration. My refusal isn’t appropriation — it’s honesty.
Art and procreation both ask: What do you want to bring into the world? Straight artists may answer with women, families, children. Gay artists answer with men, intimacy, queer mythologies. Both are valid. Both are generative. But they are not interchangeable.
So when you ask a gay artist to “do more women,” you’re really asking him to abandon the very source of his creative power. You’re asking him to fake desire, to manufacture intimacy where none exists. That’s not representation — that’s erasure.
Queer art is not a market gap to be filled. It is a canon being built, a lineage of desire and imagination that refuses to apologize for its focus. If you want female work, support lesbian artists. If you want queer male work, support gay artists. Respect the difference.
Because procreation and creation are not neutral acts. They are charged, embodied, and deeply personal. And for me, the only honest art is the art that comes from the same place as desire.
