When the press contact for the artist and gay porn star Peter Berlin sends you a pre-9 a. Berlin starred in the film Nights in Black Leather , a deadpan German in distinctive tight leather or sailor-boy looks, the bulge always prominent, who became friends with Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol, but never rose to their level of fame. Berlin is 76, a slight man who toggles between being courtly and impatient, grandiose and self-pitying. He no longer dresses like a Tom of Finland character whom he also knew and collaborated with.
The night of the party, he carried a photo of his younger face tacked to the top of a wooden tongue depressor. You start out sort of bad, and you end up gorgeous instead. Not only the political scene but the whole mess with the warming of the planet, and the poor animals โฆ And I feel guilty! He sees the world as being robbed of pleasure by politics, jobs, and responsibilities.
So, I had a fabulous life. But it was always sex on his very particular terms โ sex as much as anything as the image of sexiness, stoking desire of himself by others. What Berlin would like most is to send us a message. With the technology, it would be possible. Peter Berlin wants to say something tomorrow at 5. What does he want to say? And all of this explains why his photographs have meant so much to his persona, his politics, and his way of life. Already a subscriber?
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