Photographer Keren Moscovitch found the subject of her series Me Into You after experimenting with her significant other. "My partner and I had been in a monogamous relationship for several years, and we were beginning to blur the boundaries of our intimate life by opening the relationship to other participants," she explains over email. "We played with swinging, kink, and polyamory, with the intention of getting closer and more open about who we each were as individuals."Moscovitch is, to say the least, a major advocate of pushing personal boundaries. She believes that going beyond your comfort zone is how you learn something new about yourself — and your lover. In her view, sexual exploration opens people up to changes that never would have occurred otherwise. Whether those changes are positive or negative are of secondary value — what matters is the newness and intimacy of the experience.
Me Into You depicts couples and groups welcoming these changes, knowing that they'll emerge with greater knowledge of themselves and those who shared their experiences. It's a powerful series of images that depicts the pain, intrigue, and imperfect bliss that accompany these lovers' run-ins with one another.
Click through to view a selection of Moscovitch's work and to read more of her thoughts on open relationships, intimacy, and love.
This month, we're sharing steamy personal stories, exploring ways to have even better sex, and wading through the complicated dynamics that follow us into the bedroom. Here's to a very happy February. Check out more right here.
"The people in the photos were my lovers and their lovers."
"We functioned as an ever-shifting web of intimate exchange, sometimes loving and pleasuring, and at other times pushing on the edges of discomfort and taboo."
"I think [open relationships] make everything more palpable, more mindful, and more conscious."
"They also uncover hidden tendencies, forcing all participants to witness themselves in new ways."
"Open relationships are just one way of seeing yourself, growing, and learning."
"They also provide a lot of people with a way to stay in committed relationships, a way to make a relationship work that in a traditional paradigm may have inevitably failed."
"Open relationships can be both healing and toxic, depending on how they are managed."
"For me, intimacy is not always pleasant. In fact, intimacy seems to expand when discomfort is introduced."
"It forces you to look at yourself outside of the safe confines of what you know, and invites the unfamiliar to reveal parts of yourself you don't normally have to see laid bare."
"My intention with this work was to show both the beauty — of the bodies, the sensuality, the closeness, the tenderness, the love — and also the pain that necessarily accompanied what I considered to be a personal and spiritual odyssey of sorts."
"Voyeurism ended up playing an important role, but not necessarily in the expected scopophilic way. The act of looking was more about learning and enduring, rather than deriving direct sexual pleasure from an object (or act) of desire."
"The camera allowed me to step back from tense moments and make something beautiful, derive satisfaction from the act of interpreting what was happening in front of me, and learn how to situate myself in relation to the emotion…"
"…Other times, there was such an immense pleasure in what I was experiencing and seeing that I felt compelled to elevate the moment to a place where others could share in that experience."
"I also wanted to affirm and uncover visuals that may be seen as taboo by society, and make a statement about the shared experience among sexual beings."
"The taboo of looking is a big one for me. I find it bizarre that it's not acceptable to discuss or show activities that are fairly universal among humans. What adult hasn't seen two naked bodies poised to penetrate each other? Who hasn't come into contact with bodily fluids?"
"I do wonder if a more transparent approach to sexuality would increase various other types of intimacy among people."
"Maybe we would understand each other better if we opened our bedroom doors with humility and grace, allowed each other a bit more access to our tenderness."
"All that being said, there should always be room left for the unknown, the unspoken, and the opaque…"
"…Otherwise, we may find ourselves without poetry. It's a balance."
"I hope my work functions as a catalyst for each person's own awakening. That sounds lofty, but it can happen in very small, subtle ways."
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