Author(s): Dian Hanson

Photography

Men love girls who love girls: 125 years of faux lesbian fantasy photography. Straight men have always had a thing for lesbians, or more correctly, for essentially straight women willing to do have sex with other women for their viewing pleasure.

The book is edited by Dian Hanson, who is an extremely experienced and acclaimed chronicler of sexual histories. She edited the book about well-known gay illustrator Tom of Finland, as well as books on Vanessa Del Rio and various body parts, male and female, that have been accompanied by long and detailed historical and sociological essays written by her. Now in her mid-60s, Dian Hanson is serious in her intent to document and chronicle a very wide range of sexual attractions, and does so in a complex way that looks at popular culture, homophobia, feminism, sexism, sociological responses and history.

The essay accompanying the book is well researched and also deals with the issues of men controlling the erotica industry, critiqueing this, but also documenting the women who take part in creating erotica for men, looking at their intentions and reasons for doing so. The essay also looks at the history of the phenomena in some detail.

When a man sees two women together there s no jealousy that another man s getting the woman he can't, as with heterosexual porn, just the joy of everything he likes times two, and the unshakable fantasy that women that wild would surely invite him to join in. Yes, it's unrealistic, but that doesn t make it any less popular, and photographers have been documenting these faux lesbian couplings for over 100 years.

Lesbians for Men is the first photo book to acknowledge such photos are created to fuel male fantasy, to explore the reasons, and to trace their origins back to 1890, and forward to the present day. Over 300 photos, in black and white and color, celebrate the obliging women who have kissed, fondled, and fulfilled men's lesbian cravings, in images created for pornography as well as fine art . Contemporary photographers include Nobuyoshi Araki, Guido Argentini, Bruno Bisang, Bob Carlos Clarke, Ed Fox, Ren Hang, Petter Hegre, Richard Kern, Will Santillo, and Kishin Shinoyama. Subjects range from simply affectionate to everything two women can do when they want to please male viewers as much as each other. Text in English, French, and German"