Naked All the Time: Jehnny Beth on Taboo, Trauma and Titillation

You could say that C.A.L.M. (Crimes Against Love Memories), a new collection of erotic stories by Jehnny Beth, is anti-timely. From the foreword: “For those who look for relevance as the ultimate important value in art, I would say that maybe humanity urgently needs, at this point, to keep projecting sexuality into the safeguarded space of their imagination.”

Best known as the singer of Savages, who over the course of two albums established themselves as one of the most vital rock bands of the 2010s, Beth now finds herself publishing her first book hot on the heels of her first solo album, To Love Is to Live. In both she tries on a range of volatile identities. C.A.L.M. favors narrators whose mundane exteriors barely conceal pure pychosexual chaos: a man slides into cannibalism; a woman is taken to an open field where she couples with a long line of unseen, unknown partners; another woman becomes obsessed with a glory hole until life outside the fetid public bathroom wilts.

Each story is capped with a photograph: one or two women, almost entirely nude, often clad in BDSM gear, their faces hidden. (C.A.L.M. also exists as an art book comprising seven stories and hundreds of images.) Johnny Hostile, the photographer, has been Beth’s creative and non-monogamous intimate partner for roughly 15 years. The book, conceived in 2017, marked his first serious attempt at photography.

Playboy spoke with Beth in late March and again in late May, joined the second time by Hostile. Both artists are of French origin; their accents betray the 12 years they lived in London. They spoke candidly about the book’s complexities, including the challenges of writing about trauma, the near-total absence of men in the images and the fine line between erotica and porn. And they reflected on the ways C.A.L.M. altered their relationship, sketching out modes of intimacy—daring, deeply sensual and maybe even timeless—that could be of considerable use to curious readers.

PLAYBOY: When did you know you were writing this book in this form? Did you envision it whole at the outset, or did it come to you as you went?

JEHNNY BETH: Let me try to remember. I think the impetus of this book all started with Johnny Hostile’s photography. After 12 years in London we moved to Paris and he started taking pictures of me and friends of ours in our flat, and then in different places around the world when we were traveling for the record or touring. The pictures were nude and anonymous. The people we would meet to do the sessions with became sometimes friends, or sometimes you just had a really nice time and you didn’t become friends afterward. But it was always one of those moments that puts you in the present and makes you forget about the outside world and your problems and everything. I thought the pictures were absolutely beautiful, and because they were anonymous, people who were involved felt very free to share their stories and their sexuality. I started writing because I wanted to try to portray that freedom and that place where you can be safe, and there’s no outside world.

PLAYBOY: Johnny, were you a photographer before you started working on the book?

JOHNNY HOSTILE: No. I’d never done photography before. In general, I’m a very curious person, and I try stuff totally out of my field. I’m a musician first, and I’m a music producer and a composer, but I’m very curious about other forms of creation, and photography is one. I’m also a blacksmith. I do knives.

BETH: I saw the material he was gathering, tons and tons of pictures, and I was the one who suggested making a book. I don’t think that was at all what you had in mind. You were just doing it for yourself.

HOSTILE: Jehnny and I are in an open relationship. Jehnny is bisexual as well. Not to go into intimate details, but let’s say sometimes we have naked people in the flat. I started with friends, and because we’ve got an active sexual life, we tend to meet lots of different people quite often. It’s easy for me to say, if I meet girls, “I’m in an open relationship. You can come in the flat, and I can take pictures of you. You can meet Jehnny, or if you don’t want to you won’t meet Jehnny.” It’s totally open. They do what they want to do in front of the camera. I never direct the photos. It’s always very fun and playful, with music and tea. Sometimes Jehnny is here, sometimes she’s not. And it’s a very free and safe environment. And I’m very conscious about being respectful with each one of them. All of them totally agreed to the publication.

PLAYBOY: Not a single model shows her face.

HOSTILE: It’s like some kind of secret club. Nobody knows who they are, and they love it. I love it too. There’s no pressure on their identity. Even if the book is out, a product people will buy, I still preserve what we have with these people.

PLAYBOY: It’s likely that when it comes out, the books will be widely classified as erotica. Jehnny, do you see a distinction between erotica and pornography?

BETH: Well, I think parts of C.A.L.M. is pornography. Pornogra-phic. Can that be an adjective? Yeah, parts of C.A.L.M. can be pornographic, and I mean that not in a derogatory way. Some parts were deliberately written to arouse the reader. I used to read these stories to one of my best friends when they were still works in progress, and she was always waiting for the parts that were going to be the most pornographic, because she wanted to feel aroused by the writing. It was almost like she was waiting for the sweet moment, the sugar rush. Some of the stories don’t have that, or have it more lightly than others, and she would express disappointment. I had to feel, as a writer, that that was okay—that you didn’t have to be all about being excited, that sometimes it was good to just tell a story. But I was also very proud when a very pornographic moment worked. I wanted to go only all in or all out. [laughs] If I’m making a pun, sorry. But you know what I mean? I wanted to be extremely pornographic, or very romantic and poetic, or not at all. I was trying to find the extremes.

PLAYBOY: Johnny, do you see a distinction between erotica and porn?

HOSTILE: I don’t know. In the book, for instance, I’ve got a double page of a female ejaculation. But the picture was so good, I couldn’t resist putting it in the book. I do tend to choose pictures that are not too pornographic. So yes, I guess I do make a distinction because society is making distinctions. And I’m incorporating that in the choosing of the pictures——

BETH: Moments of explosion.

HOSTILE: Yeah, yeah. I don’t want to be pigeonholed into porn or into erotica, whatever. I like both worlds. I’d love to do more porn. And also I respond to the personality of the models: If they want to go pornographic, if they want to show parts of their bodies opened or wet and all that, I’m like, “If that’s what you want to do, we’ll do it.” But I’m never going to ask it. Never. If they just want to try on some lingerie and laugh and drink some tea, that’s fine. They decide.

PLAYBOY: One of the most striking pictures in the book is a woman pissing on, I think, a glass-top table.

HOSTILE: Yeah, yeah. Pissing on a mirror.

PLAYBOY: Is that a mirror?

HOSTILE: Yeah. I’m facing the mirror. What you see is the reflection of the girl. That was fun because there was a session with two girls and a mirror, basically, in our flat. And someone wanted to have a piss, and I was like, “Would you like to piss on the mirror?” She was like, “Fuck yeah, let’s do it!” The situation was so unreal that it was just so joyful and very fun. The other model was running around trying to find paper to stop the flow outside of the mirror.

PLAYBOY: It’s all the more striking because on the opposite page you have a picture of Jesus. What inspired that?

BETH: It was Brian Roettinger, the designer, I think. We gave him quite a lot of freedom in the way he would arrange the pictures and the stories, because we love his eye.

HOSTILE: Does that mean that we’re pissing on Jesus? No. In my view, I think it means Jesus would be okay with this.

BETH: Yeah. Jesus is pro-sex.

HOSTILE: He would say, “Have fun guys.” I don’t know if Brian wanted to shock, but when I saw it I thought, That makes sense. I love that.

PLAYBOY: Turning back to the stories, “The Inverted Man” is about trauma—how an incident from the narrator’s childhood goes on to define his sexuality as an adult. Jehnny, what inspired you to write a story about the trauma of a straight cis man?

BETH: The idea of the trauma in “The Inverted Man” comes from a story I was told about a kid being tied to a tree. I wanted a story that shows that trajectory into someone’s life—how something that is quite innocent, this cruelty of children tying you to a tree, has deep consequences in the core of that person. Everything will always be defined by it, and the way you live your sexuality defines your place in society. If you have a deviant sexuality, then you don’t belong; you have to find other ways to belong. That person’s life, his journey, is trying to find a way to accept himself and to belong, because those traumas, when they’re actually overcome, become part of you and make you the special person that you are. I think I was trying to write a book for people who don’t recognize themselves in the standard codes of romanticism and monogamy and family.

PLAYBOY: A good number of the stories are told from a male perspective. We could even add the song “I’m the Man,” from the album. Are they the result of pure imagination, or was some research involved?

BETH: I do get the inspiration from men directly, men I speak to. It’s not that I want to write about a character, and then I feel like, “Oh, I need to research,” so I ask people. It’s more like I have people around me who tell me things, and then I get inspired by what they say. But I have to admit that gender doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t feel that because I’m a woman I cannot talk about the perspective of a man. After all, it’s literature; it’s not real life. A subject is a subject, and you’re trying to do your best to get as close to the truth as we can, but we all know as writers that we can never do that. Actually, the inverted man was initially an inverted woman. I changed the gender halfway through writing the story.

PLAYBOY: What was the impulse there?

BETH: Maybe it was because I wanted to detach the character from me. I needed distance in order to feel like I was more objective. Also I felt that the trauma, talking about trauma from a female perspective, was being over expressed. The idea of the woman as a victim who needs to overcome traumatic experience with her body is, I feel, something that we talk a lot about. But I felt that putting a man in that perspective was a little bit less obvious, maybe a bit less seen, especially from the point of view of a heterosexual man—or it’s not that they’re less seen, or they don’t want to be; it’s more like I want to encourage that side and try to show that it’s okay, that you can be a happy ending, if that makes sense.

PLAYBOY: Men only show up in a few of the photographs.

HOSTILE: That’s right. I’m slowly entering that world. I love women and I’m fascinated by them. Men I’m less fascinated by, and so I tend to not take loads of pictures of them. The men that you saw in the book would be there for the girl. They would fuck, basically, and I would try to get pictures out of it. In my photos, they’re here to serve the woman. But I’m not going to go one-on-one with men, taking pictures of their bodies, because I’m not that into men’s bodies—or I would go for the cliché very muscular bodies, and I don’t want to do cliché. I don’t do that with women. One thing I’m interested in is the dick. I’m interested in the penis. That’s something that fascinates me, that pushes me in the pornographic world, I know. But that’s my entry to the world of men.

BETH: There are some men who fit, and there are very highly respectful men, but you need a certain maturity for that, and not all men have it. Especially those who are looking for a lot of sex.

HOSTILE: When I started my pictures, I did a private Instagram. I wouldn’t allow any men on it, and I did that for the first year: just women. I tried to let one or two men in, and they started to comment on the pictures. That wasn’t clever, because the men compensated for their shyness with attitude. Women have this natural connection with their body, and even if they’re shy and never did that before, they have the will to have that connection. I actually tried to reach gay men on Grindr. The discussions were so fucking hardcore. When I tried to talk photography it was like, “Yeah, but can I suck your dick first?” “No. I want to take photos.” “Yeah, but are we going to suck dick?” Like literally. And I’m like, “Okay. I’m not in the right place. Sorry.”

BETH: Art is not discussed on Grindr.

PLAYBOY: Did your relationship shift at all in the three years it took to create these books?

HOSTILE: I would say yes. Especially on my part. We’ve been in an open relationship way longer than three years, and what it added to me is that suddenly the photography gave me a sense of purpose. I think it gave me something like—this is my place. I love it. I love to watch. I’m actually embracing this open relationship even more because I can express what I see and what I live in an art form. And that’s my way of life; that’s how I am since I’m a teenager with music, and suddenly I can express what I live in my relationship. Yes, I did change.

BETH: The photos inspired me to write. The raw material is our life, and I think that’s what any artist wants. That’s where you feel suddenly grounded, and so your life makes sense, and there’s this sort of cohesive world you can share. And we’re not hiding, which is a bit scary, but it feels too weird not to share.

C.A.L.M.: Crimes Against Love Memories is out July 9 from White Rabbit. Signed special editions available from RoughTrade.com.