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OutUK: So what would say the essential differences are between the erotic images you create, and the kind of images people are used to seeing on the net?
Tom: What we're doing is combining two kinds of things....What is physically considered erotic material on the web is pretty programmatic and formulaic. It's boys that are groomed in a certain way to repeat certain things endlessly (laughs) Look at one more topiaryed pubic haired crotch..one more buff boy striking attitude ..and it finally becomes like watching a freight train go by. Every so often something breaks out, something fresh. You know there was all that Czechoslovakian stuff Bel Ami stuff..then there's another strain which is like real life stuff that was produced by amateurs on a level of aesthetic terribleness. It was potentially erotically interesting but it was so often so ugly and badly produced. It could be charged and sexy but I missed a sense of elegance and intelligence. What we're doing is exceeding the qualities of the best produced erotic material and have it be real life at the same time. The people who are involved in this project as models come as unpaid participants. It gives them an opportunity to play with their sexual fantasies and have it reproduced as a class act and not something sleazy or cheesy. OutUK: Why a couch? Tom: Initially that sofa was in my lover's New York apartment and I was just testing a couple of models on it and it suddenly occurred to me what a cool stage. If you reduced the whole universe down to that couch ...then as an artist the question becomes how much can I have happen on that little spot? And it turned out to be the perfect metaphor. Look there's so much dysfunction and shame in our community. People getting involved with drugs to help release their sexual energies. What if we looked everyone in the eyes and said this where I am with this and this is what I find beautiful...so it's on the couch in the sense of on the analyst's couch. A great place to reveal everything. OutUK: Do you regard that couch now as a photographer's prop or will you be putting it back in your living room? Tom: It's in the living room..that's exactly where it is... OutUK: ..so you still use it everyday... Tom: Oh yeh ... It's already been suggested we should sell it in pieces on eBay... OutUK: You have all kinds of props round the couch..flowers particularly...did that come from your models? Tom: That's the way our house looks..we have a garden and big florist's bills...
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