Brenton Parry

Diversifying

Added 2020-11-26 09:08:03 +0000 UTC

Many years ago I was chatting to the husband of a gay magazine at a function. This magazine has global distribution and I was talking about how I had aspirations (at that stage) to have my photography on the cover. He said that I needed three things in the shot, abs, eye contact and bulge. Every single cover they've had fits that criteria and I get it, gay men are thirsty. There were additional pieces of information that I found troubling and this publication is far from the only one.

I was told not to shoot a black man because when they put a black man on the cover once (still only once) sales in Australia dropped by 15% and sales in the US dropped by 50%. He went on to say don't even think about shooting an Asian guy as even the asians won't buy it.

The same sentiment has been expressed by websites as well and I find it so disappointing in 2020, with the US seeing race riots across the country this year, that this is still the attitude. People are still putting "no asians" etc on their Grindr profiles.

So while I have always been open to models of all nationalities, I'm making a concerted effort to challenge these racial boundaries. By pandering to those narrow definitions of who is beautiful then we won't break them down. Yes I'll be likely sticking to athletic, defined men but if I think a curvier guy is going to photograph well, then he's in. I'm very lucky that this isn't my primary income so I can take this stand.

Bring me your beautiful diverse guys!