Ezekiel‘s London apartment is covered in erotica. A vase of wilting flowers balances on books by Nobuyoshi Araki and Nan Goldin, and an issue of BUTT magazine. The Japanese edition of Madonna‘s 90s photobook Sex is stacked beside seemingly endless piles of vintage porn. On the wall is a quote by the Chinese photographer Ren Hang: “I feel the real existence of people through their naked bodies,” taped beside iconography of the Virgin Mary — a nod to Ezekiel’s Filipino-Catholic upbringing. It’s a glorious shrine to sexuality in all its forms.
A lot of what Ezekiel has collected over the years — from cult bookshop Donlon Books, the UK Leather and Fetish Archive at Bishopsgate Library, or eBay — have inspired their new photobook, Smut Volume I: Transgressions, an erotic fashion-documentary journey that traces the lives of women working in the adult sex industry. Art directed by Aiden Miller, it features artist and “semi-retired stripper” Samantha Sun in her pole-dancing studio, stills from a 12-minute video of a woman pleasuring herself (inspired by the work of Beautiful Agony, a project that explores orgasmic facial expressions alone play in sexual titillation), and Ezekiel’s close friend, the cam girl Sasha Swan.
Ezekiel started Smut Volume I when they were 21, studying Fashion Photography at London College of London, where their dissertation dealt with the cultural shifts in pornography away from the male gaze. By analysing the work of Black female directors, they began questioning their own “queer gaze” and “whether I can undermine the standard depictions of women and female sexuality in hardcore pornography”.
It also functions as a celebration of the sex work many of Ezekiel’s friends partake in, and a homage to erotica from its pre-internet golden age. Back then, there was a softer side to sexuality than is shown in modern porn: “It wasn’t as commercialised or in your face because pornography wasn’t the mainstream,” they say. “It was an underground thing. It was an art form.” Mainstream porn, in comparison, is “so capitalist and commercialised and very bland,” they say. “There’s no sense of the reveal. There’s no intimacy or secrecy that gives that erotic flair.”
The cover of Smut Volume I shows Sasha extending a lacy leg over the arm of the mid-century modern sofa, where she does much of her work. Sasha got into cam-girling when she was 19 and had no money. She needed cash for a festival, so tweeted about a ripped pair of tights that she wanted to sell. A guy replied saying he’d pay her £50, not for the tights, but for photos of her wearing them. “I was like, ‘I could do this’,” she says. “I’m out here sending nudes for free; I’d do it for some money.” Six years on, over 40,000 people follow her on Twitter — and it’s been harder graft than her critiques might think. “If I didn’t put a lot of money into marketing, or networking, I would make literally no money at all.”
The book starts and ends with editorials of Sasha, who Ezekiel befriended when they were 12 years old, on MSN. These editorials play with ideas of “being hidden and being seen.” The last story in the book is a shoot they made when Sasha returned from a stint in Australia, documenting her second boob job. It’s captured in the style of a traditional side-profile portrait. Ezekiel captured something “quite soft but very real,” Sasha says.
The intimate relationship the photographer shares with their subjects comes across in the images. “A lot of the women that are in the book are my friends,” Ezekiel says. “We’ve all dabbled in [sex work] or been part of it. There was a time when I lived in a house with just sex workers. It was really normal, and it still is. Especially within the queer world.” That said, “consent is obviously such an important part of photography,” they add. “Sometimes you feel like you have this phallic power over the people that you’re shooting because the camera is quite a heavy, big thing that you’re putting in front of someone.”
“I’ve never really classed myself as male,” Ezekiel says. They grew up in an open-minded family (“My mum had girlfriends growing up back in the 70s, which was really cool. My dad has gay siblings, I have a trans nephew”), but at the same time, the photographer doesn’t pretend to understand their subject’s feelings completely. Instead, what Ezekiel hopes to show is women with sexual agency.
Ezekiel has already started casting for the next issue of Smut, which will be released in September 2023. “Without giving too much away,” Ezekiel says, “Volume one was for the girls. Volume two is for the gays.”
‘SMUT, Volume I: Transgressions (2022)’ is available to purchase here.
Credits
All images courtesy Ezekiel