Insects

Photographs by me, Masks by Keko Hainswheeler and Jewellery from Mavi Power Staiano.
With thanks to Matthew Josephs and Jess Dubeck.

As a child I associated death with animals, and animals with men.
Early on I decided that I would never eat animals as it felt like I would be eating a dead boy and I was above such things. I am still surprised today when someone tells me that their pet is a female, I will still refer to it as a he and I still refuse to eat animals.

Insects however were fair game.
I would catch spiders and pull them apart eat them and look at the chewed parts.
I loved to sit for hours in fount of my house and watch the ants, when I fully realised the intricate homes they occupied, I would nip indoors boil the kettle and pour the boiling water down the holes until they would drown and float out. The water never needed to be boiled it just seemed to add assurance to me that they would die in it.
Id watch flies suffocate and pour the collected winged insects into my bath while I cleaned myself watching their life fade away.

I feel it may have been a precursor to sexuality. My single need to control life.
Of cause it would later manifest its self in manipulation and creation, with less obvious destruction. For the female adult alone can cause both devastation and creation simply by living.