Early into his long profile of Terry Richardson, Benjamin Wallace sums up why the fashion photographer holds “a singular, controversial position” in his field:
He has cultivated a reputation of being a professional debauchee, a proud pervert
who has, outside his commercial work, produced a series of extremely explicit images—often including himself naked and erect—that many find pornographic and misogynistic, and which can make viewers distinctly uncomfortable. In recent years, a number of the models in those images have indicated that they, too, weren’t altogether comfortable, filing lawsuits and, increasingly, speaking up in essays and interviews. Richardson has been called “the world’s most fucked up fashion photographer” by the website Jezebel, “fashion’s shameful secret” by the Guardian, and “America’s Next Top Scumbag” by Wonkette. Baron von Luxxury, a Los Angeles DJ, wrote a song called “Terry Richardson” with the lyrics “She’ll have a few more sedatives / I’ll have whatever comes next / And then I’ll burn the negatives.”
Callie Beusman rips Wallace to shreds for “consistently gloss[ing] over Richardson’s sketchy behavior.” Robyn Pennacchia shakes her head in disgust, and Mary Elizabeth Williams is also unsympathetic:
There are, to be fair, references to lawsuits “quietly settled” and some of the more vivid and troubling stories about the photographer, including Charlotte Waters’ account from earlier this year of a session in which “He also straddled me and started jerking off on my face. He told me to keep my eyes open super wide.” But the overwhelming image is of a man who grew up listening to his father banging Anjelica Huston in the next room and struggled with addiction, who now “meditates and attends AA meetings and exercises daily” but still “obviously misses the old Terry.” …
I find it more damning than anything else out there written about him, because it shows a man of deeply arrested maturity, a man who lives in “always the same clothing, always the same pose in front of the camera, always the same sandwich.” I don’t find understanding some of the reasons someone might be selfish and unfeeling toward vulnerable women any excuse at all; I just find it, if anything, more compelling evidence of the credibility of his accusers.
One of those accusers is Anna del Gaizo, who says she is bothered by “the fact that this man, who has announced with his actions that his desires, fantasies, and yes, his raging boner are more important than another human being’s state of mind or consequential distress, continues to be revered, hired, and supported by celebrities, professionals, and publications alike. And that’s really the problem here.” Tom Hawking, who finds Wallace’s profile “startlingly sympathetic,” doesn’t disagree:
The quality of Richardson’s art is beside the point. Throughout history, societies have been notably willing to indulge the whims of those it deems to be worthy artists, from the catankerous to the thoroughly unpleasant to the downright criminal. To an extent, this comes back to the good old question of art/artist separation. But … Richardson’s life and his art are so intertwined that it’s impossible to separate them. …
[W]e return [to] the fact that we’re talking about consent and exploitation, about a man coercing young women into situations they find threatening, and/or to do things they might be reluctant to do, or simply just don’t want to do. Richardson is a grown man in a position of power, and the accusation is that he has exploited this power to, in his own words, become “a powerful guy with his boner, dominating all these girls.” Sure, it’s perversely fascinating to know why this might be. But ultimately, the only really important question is how to stop it.
Related Dish on the conundrum of great art and its perverted purveyors here. Update from a reader:
Everybody acts like the Richardson situation is complicated, like it’s about whether or not its OK to explore sex in a passionate way, or if its OK to make art with strong sexual content. But I don’t think that’s what’s at issue here. It’s a pretty simple question of consent.
Richardson takes work situations and makes them sexual without explaining what’s going to happen upfront. He starts to shift things while the work is in progress, when the models are expected, by the conventions of their industry, to do what Richardson tells them to do. I assume it’s true that at least some women are glad to have an exciting experience, and to get really good photos from him. But it’s indisputably true that many, many other women feel pressured and uncomfortable, and in extreme cases, deeply violated by what he does.
If Richardson would fully disclose to the modeling agencies and models what he’s going to do, it would be ok. If Richardson said to a modeling agency, “Please send over an 18-year-old woman for a shoot, who is ok with my being naked during the shoot, and putting my penis in her mouth,” it would be better. If before the whole thing started, someone sat down with the young woman and said, “OK, this is what’s about to happen, we want to make sure you know about it ahead of time, and we want to be sure you’re ok with it,” then it would be a lot easier to defend.
But that’s not what he does. He takes young women who are desperate to break into the industry, starts doing a traditional shoot, and then transforms the whole thing into a porn shoot without any prior negotiation.
It’s not the sex that’s the problem. It’s ok to make porn movies, because the people who make porn movies all know what they’re doing, and go into the shoots. If someone goes to kink.com to shoot a movie, they know what they’re doing. But if, on the other hand, someone took a job as a lab technician at a pharma company, and found everything getting super freaky on their first day of work, with no prior warning or prior consent, that would be really wrong.
I’m uptight about sex, and I’m not exactly a sex positive person. But the sex life I have had has revolved mostly around BDSM, and consent is what makes BDSM possible. It’s not prudish to insist upon consent; it’s quite the opposite, because when you have clear communication and consent, the universe of what you can do expands enormously. Sexual freedom is predicated on the idea that adults can talk to one another about what they want, and ought to be free to participate or not, depending on how they feel about it. That’s what a sexually free world looks like.
Richardson acts like it’s his raw sensuality that causes all his problems. But there are lots of people making erotic images who manage to handle consent properly. It’s not like he wouldn’t be able to find collaborators in his projects who would be excited to work with him.
(Photo of Terry Richardson by Dave Tada)
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