The sword has a classical association with traditional masculinity, a weapon to be welded in battle, to be thrust into something, an object of power. We’re taking it here and playing with it, queering it. Play fighting, power exchange, fucking with the sanctity of the idea of a serious and sacred masculinity. In Japanese a common way to refer to someone who is bisexual is ryōtōdzukai “user of two swords“.
In the Tarot deck, the suit of swords is ruled by air, ever-changing, ever moving, nebulous, perfect for this blurry, hot and sweaty flip fuck.
An ancient symbol of the divine masculine, the sword = cock symbolism isn’t exactly subtle here. Recreated with some of the director’s favourite sexually charged tarot imagery from the suit of swords under glowing neon red light. An occult homoerotic Bacchanalia ritual or a sweaty 3am club fuck.
“Bishop and Matt have been friends forever and I’ve known them about as long too, we all had our misspent youth in the same sweaty goth clubs of London and it was a dream to reunite and capture some of that ‘in a club corridor grinding into a stranger’ energy. Their intensity was infectious, I couldn’t believe it when I found out that they hadn’t actually fucked before this!
We shot this dark and dirty red light scene at 9am (!!!) in a local bar of ours being interrupted – in an incredibly cliche porn moment – by someone coming in to fix the dishwasher. Bishop and Matt are angels, laughing and joking around the whole time, taking turns picking each other up and throwing each other around, I wanted this shoot to have some joyful, manic energy and they delivered it so effortlessly.
–Vex Ashley (performer, director, editor and producer at the Four Chambers project).