Caroline Tompkins probes the two extremes of sex and fear

The photographers’ newest ebook, Bedfellow, ebbs and flows although ecstasy and ache; humour and adversity; reduction and dread – echoing the rigidity she experiences in relation to sex and relationships

Caroline Tompkins refers to the photos in her newest photobook Bedfellow as “heaven and hell photos”. The scenes vary from moments of tenderness – nude figures, {couples} kissing, blissful landscapes – to these charged with a extra disturbing vitality. Leeches suck blood from a torso; a ladybird crawls between the thorns of a cactus flower; penises – many of them – standing tall or hanging limp. 

“It’s about sex and fear,” explains Tompkins. “I used to be actually concerned about that binary… I want sex, and I want males, however I’m additionally tasked with a relentless acknowledgement of the fear.” She is referring to the all-to-farmiliar precautions that ladies take whereas relationship: prolonged background checks earlier than Tinder dates, texting our pals to allow them to know we’re protected, strolling house with keys clutched between our knuckles. “It’s so commonplace, and one thing we settle for so readily, however the implication is that we’re both going to, at its worst, be killed, or at its greatest have an incredible orgasm.”

Tompkins has been engaged on Bedfellow consciously since 2018, however the earliest photos in the ebook are from 2015. “Lots of the photos are simply me making photos in my life, and realising after that I used to be working in direction of one thing,” she says. Different photos are staged, based mostly round reminiscences, emotions, or her personal experiences. After faculty, Tompkins dated an abusive man, and suffered recurring desires through which she was coated in leeches. She later realized that in the dream world, this was generally interpreted as a logo of individuals or feelings sucking the vitality out of you. Tompkins turned obsessive about making this into a photograph, so contacted all of the listed leach therapists in Brooklyn – “they have been like ‘completely not”. Finally, she turned to YouTube and studied movies of tips on how to safely place and take away leeches onto human pores and skin. She purchased her predatory worms on leech.com, discovered a keen pal, and made the picture [below]. “I stored them as my pets for a couple of months after. However they have been fairly freaky,” she laughs. 

Tompkins’ topics embrace pals, ex-boyfriends, former hook-ups, strangers – the punters of a nudist pageant she photographed for Vice – and herself. “I included the self portraits to have pores and skin in the sport,” she says. Her introduction to Bedfellow begins with an account of her subjection to revenge porn. “I kind of really feel nothing about being bare on the web now,” she says, “I really feel a bit nihilistic about it, the place I’m like ‘nicely, it simply doesn’t matter’”. 

This nihilism underpins Tompkins’ introduction to the ebook. Someplace between prose and poetry, it’s based mostly round anecdotes from her personal life – from highschool promenade, to one-night stands, and spiralling poisonous relationships. The tales are astute, revealing darkish and sobering truths disguised by jokes: “I’ll by no means be one of these girls that oozes pure sex as a result of I’m too invested in being humorous,” she writes. The tone resembles a form of feminist fatigue, elicited by a dissatisfaction of residing as a sexual being in fixed battle with the many faces of mysogyny – harassment, double-standards, slut-shaming, and so forth. “I’m concerned about the means through which girls sort of make that right into a meme now, as a means of coping with it,” says Tompkins. The photographer retains a “large archive” TikTok movies, through which a brand new era of younger girls are utilizing humour to vent their frustrations. “They counsel comebacks for catcalls. They present the black eyes their boyfriends gave them. Pleasure and hazard in the identical fifteen-second clip,” she writes. 

The introduction units the temper for the pages that observe. The sequence ebbs and flows in depth – although ecstasy and ache; energy and subservience; reduction and dread – mimicking the rigidity that Tompkins experiences in relation to sex and relationships. “When you begin serious about it, you see it in every single place,” she says. The photographer resists talking on behalf of all girls – “that is simply my expertise,” she says – however her work does really feel common. Not simply to girls, however to all sexual beings. In any case, sex and demise are two of the strongest, exhilarating and terrifying forces that outline the course of our lives. And all through any tedium or adversity, humour can grow to be our most comforting ally. 

Bedfellow by Caroline Tompkins is printed by Palm* Studios. An Exhibition of the work is on present at 10 14 Gallery in Dalston by appointment, till 25 November.