Gay men draw vaginas

GAY MEN DRAW VAGINAS gushes with pages of full-color vag drawings—perfect for dignified dinner parties or that special holiday homecoming. Included artwork comes from average Joe Homos and fine artists from all around the world, laying bare the vagina of the collective gay male mind. Gay men and vaginas -- historically, the two are worlds apart. So what happens when you ask a gay man to sit down and draw one?

This is the question that led Keith Wilson and Shannon O'Malley to curate an ongoing public art project and upcoming picture book called "Gay Men Draw Vaginas.". They have been collecting them for three years. The drawings display a range of skill so as to lay bare the vagina of the collective gay male mind. Many of the drawings came out of art booth. GAY MEN DRAW VAGINAS is a book of bizarre, beautiful and diverse vaginas drawn by gay men.

Perfect for dignified dinner parties, or that special holiday home. O'Malley asked Wilson, a gay man, to sketch his own version of a vagina on their paper tablecloth. Wilson obliged, only to be critiqued and ridiculed for his laughable illustration. It includes realistic, conceptual and un-categorizable drawings credited by men from around the world, collected over the span of three years. After Keith drew his vag, everyone at our table came over to gawk and laugh at it.

His creation sparked a totally fun vaginal conversation.

This one appears to have

For the first time ever, we were looking at two vaginas drawn by gay men. After the fun of drawing vaginas for dinner, we acknowledged that our little art session had surfaced some interesting reactions and questions. But how could we answer these questions with only two vagina drawings -- a scientifically invalid sample size?

The only way to set forth on our path of inquiry was to get more vag drawings. So we set up art-making booths in places where gays congregate -- gay parks, gay sidewalks, etc -- and got them to draw vaginas. For three years we operated a roving vagina collection laboratory furnished with a table, crayons, pencils, markers, and blank paper. Part anthropology. Part relational art. Part performance art.

Part party. All different sorts of people came and asked if they could draw vaginas for us.

These art booths harvested hundreds of drawings. As did our call to friends and networks to let people know we were collecting vaginas. And it worked: people sent us vaginas through the Internet. They handed us vaginas at parties. They even mailed us vaginas. Politicians, cultural critics, journalists, educators, medical professionals.