Robert Tennent is an artist and photographer based in New Zealand. Last year, his life changed in a dramatic way. One night, he was drugged. He awoke to find himself naked and in a strange man’s apartment. Unable to escape through the door, he had to flee using the fire escape.
Related: PHOTOS: A secret glimpse inside a gay bathhouse in Iran
After the assault, Tennent entered a period of celibacy for five months and underwent to counseling.
“Life is just going to throw whatever it’s going to throw at you,” he tells Out in a brave new interview, “but you get to decide how you’re going to cope with it.”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
As part of coping with the assault, Tennent came up with Come Back To Bed, a project documenting photos and conversations he had with 13 men following the assault.
Now, he’s turned it into a coffee table book. Available on April 11, it takes readers on a journey from victimhood to of sexual liberation in a stunning exploration of raw, human intimacy.
Related: PHOTOS: The Secret Homoerotic Lives Of Cuban Men
“The only thing I could do [following the assault] was to think, ‘Okay, how am I going to deal with this? How am I going to heal and how am I going to guide myself back?’” he says.
He continues, “It’s a very happy book, and it’s definitely a memory book of everyone that I’d been with who I trusted, and who trusted me to take the photos of them.”
Scroll down for a sampling of Come Back To Bed, and pre-order the book HERE…
jd.cali
Besides, your comment being completely insensitive…. Did you read the article?
“Robert Tennent is an artist and photographer based in New Zealand. Last year, his life changed in a dramatic way. One night, he was drugged.”
Third sentence… He was drugged. So he couldn’t put up a fight. What a stupid comment.
CastleSF
If one hangs out with the wrong crowd, why would it be a surprise that one gets drugged? Take some responsibility please, even if you are only 30% responsible for what goes wrong.
Smith David
@CastleSF…are you just being ignorant for shock value? Or is it that you were raised by Neanderthals? Because if that’s the case, then we can argue or at the very least try to understand why you would make such an ignorant statement. Ugh!
CastleSF
People who call others stupid because they can’t agree are usually limited in the scope of their intellect. You can disagree with me but you can’t attack my intelligence.
DarkZephyr
What do you mean by “the wrong crowd”? Sexual predators can lurk anywhere and be anyone. Do you deny that?
irbaboon
CastleSF do you take meanness pills before you post here?
Donston
I’m not even gonna comment on the mess that is CastleSF.
I’m not sure highlighting “artsy sexy” photos is the way to go. It kinda undermines and sensationalizes the seriousness rape/assualt/abause. To each their own I suppose. But I do appreciate people coming forward with stories. These types of things don’t have to equate to you becoming a shell of yourself, becoming a complete nutjob and/or hating all men.
Dubr1988
Be nice , all of you!
Creamsicle
Anyone can be drugged and anyone can do it. Drugs don’t discriminate. They work on you whatever your moral character. If someone drugged and raped you tonight how would you respond to a police officer asking you what you did to deserve it? Why would you want to be that person for someone else?
Troyfight
^jd.cali, one component of CastleSF ‘s argument is that we men DO need to learn how to fight physically or learn smart defense tactics when physically bullied, methinks; it’s a sad fact, but a definitely can be a benefit…..that said, in this case: you are right that Castle is predominately wrong, and worse, CastleSF is sadly apathetic in that this poor dude was drugged which left him helpless, and he didn’t see it coming. Even if the victim knew how to fight, it wouldn’t matter in this case. …ok, aside from all that debate bullshit, these pictures are awesome and looks like a great book/project.
dwes09
You really need to get out of your head and into reality. do you ever even leave your house? All of your comments reveal a troubling inability to differentiate between your assumptions and other people’s lives.
dwes09
“People who call others stupid because they can’t agree are usually limited in the scope of their intellect. You can disagree with me but you can’t attack my intelligence.”
Actually, the lack of insight, empathy and ability to accept difference in any reasonable way is pretty indicative of low intelligence.
The very notion that a victim has any responsibility at all for a sexual assault is so regressive as to be troubling to those with integrity and ethics.
dwes09
All of Castle’s comments reveal a lack of empathy for others, and an outright antipathy towards those that differ from his rigid beliefs about the world: Beliefs that seemingly spring from his imagination rather than from life experience.
One of the first posts he made on this site advanced the notion that older gay men were sadly mired in sexual perversity, and that “his generation” (millennials) was here to change that and rid the gay community of improper sexual contact an non-monogamy. That gives some insight into his mind.
dwes09
I find great offense in his posts as he seems unable to even conceive of opinions or experiences that differ from his that are valid. He seems to think he already has the wisdom of a sage with the experience of an adolescent.
But there is the possibility that he is “on the spectrum” as they say. There are a lot of people like that in SF now, and that would explain a lot.
ChrisK
@dwes09. CastleSF is also Danny595. He’s been preaching the same bulshit for many years now.
Complete freak.
dwes09
Are you certain of that? Castle’s posts are pretty distinct stylistically and for their amazingly strange content. I don’t recall anybody here quite as clueless in quite the same way. A lot of people here assume sock puppets where probably none exist.
Kangol
I appreciate these photos’ attempts to show the aftermath of trauma and recovery. The effects of the kind of horrible violation the photographer suffered won’t go away anytime soon, but in sharing his experience and trying to make sense of them through art, he’s creating a visual language for others who’ve experienced something similar to what he did and the means for others who didn’t to understand what he went through and his journey back to intimacy.
dwes09
I have not seen the whole book, but do not find these images bring the aftermath of sexual assault/abuse to mind for me, though they are interesting. I will say though that he owes a great debt to Nan Goldin, and her huge ground breaking photographic opus “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” which chronicles her friends’ and family’s struggles with sexual abuse, drug addiction, dysfunctional relationships as well as their loves, loyalties and redemption and involves gay, straight, bi and trans folks. Also Larry Clark who documented the underground culture of teen sex workers as well as the seething sexual desires of teen boys with both empathy and unashamed voyeurism. Both achieved fame in the 1980’s.
s-betta
@dwes09 — just to jump off of your analysis: I also haven’t read the entire book, but I don’t think that these images are even meant to serve as representations of straightforward recovery narrative. i think that these photos are meant to be evidence of a reclaiming of sexual agency. if you think about it, the photographer (and assault survivor) is completely in control of what is going on around him (his return to intimacy, so to speak): he positions himself vis a vis his subject, just as he positions the subjects themselves. in so doing, the narrative of recovery is introduced into these photos by implication, rather than straightforward…representation… it’s not very eloquent but, that’s my two cents.
Kangol
@dwes09, funny that you mention Nan Goldin, because I thought of her since her influence is clear, and Mark Morrisroe, another gay photographer from that generation whom AIDS took when he was still starting out, and younger photographers like Lyle Ashton Harris, Ryan McGinley and Paul Mpagi Sepuya, among others. I see the fragmentation of body parties, the faces turned from the camera, the uneasy superposition of limbs, the signs of submission or self-protection, etc., as representations of the aftermath of violence and the difficulty of connecting amid what’s also a strong, ongoing desire for intimacy. I definitely want to see more of this photographer’s work.
djmcgamester
Yes, and all women who are drugged when someone drops something into their drink at a bar are to blame as well. That’s basically what you’re saying.
Cylest Brooks
I deleted CastleSF’s comment, which also deleted all of the replies.
Replies not on that subthread but directed at CastleSF were also deleted.
I think we can all agree that what he said was some top-notch garbage. But if your comments are a personal attack against him, I have to delete yours too.
Let’s get back to the topic, which is this very beautiful and meaningful art series. Thanks all!
Troyfight
It’s a beautiful project, the pictures, the book, the interviews. You deleted my comment, too, but that’s fair. Still, Cylest, I do think men should learn how self-defense.
Cylest Brooks
If your comment was a reply to someone else, and I delete THEIR comment, it also deletes the replies. 🙁 Sorry about that.
DarkZephyr
Excellent work and thank you!
Curtis359
Be honest how many of you guys clicked because of the hairy pits?
jay_kay
Its a work of art , so what is wrong with people these days