I rediscovered these images which stock-taking my collection of pictures by Jonathan,
they continue the theme of 'Intruders' in recent posts
This is a relatively early image (signed JT instead of Jonathan). It looks as if an armed intruder might have stumbled on a private spanking scene. He seems to find it both interesting and arousing but naturally his arrival shocks and embarrasses the playful young men. You can also read the scene as a forced spanking performance or self-inflicted buddy punishment, having found these two in bed together. Or all three! The ransacked drawers of underwear can be taken simply as evidence of their earlier passion or of his search for something to steal..or possibly he wanted something to make their performance more interesting. Either way the white underwear certainly makes the action most entertaining and there's an unspoken question hovering of what he plans to do with them next.
This later re-working sees the intruder dishing out the spanking himself having tied up the hapless couple, whose relationship is attested by the double bed and, probably, by the melange of discarded underwear on the floor as well. (Again, it's possible that this obvious experimentation may be the intruder showing a kinky interest of his own). What is clear is that the boys are not just embarrassed by his presence, but not happy about what he's doing either, so it's probably just as well that erotic interest is largely left to us with the limited assistance of some nice, snug-fitting underwear again.
This final example is the most polished and there's a dramatic switch of emphasis with a solitary victim whose room, significantly, gives no clue to his sexual leanings (unless you take the sprayed slogan literally). Instead it's the intruder's shared glee in his helpless nudity that is most suggestive, although the visible crotch is ambiguous in that respect. Their contempt however is quite clear and powerfully expressed, not just by the slogan and their direct abuse of the victim, but more subtly in the comprehensive trashing of the young man's room and the foot resting symbolically upon his college T-shirt.
The overt bondage and nudity makes this the most striking of this group of three pictures but the intruder's smiles seem to show a malicious pleasure that makes the picture's undertones far from jolly. That intensity suggests a lot of emotion has gone into the creation of in this picture
These reappearances of the hooded villain through Jonathan's development as an artist are most interesting and it's not particularly common iconography. In the first two pictures they seem to embody the disapproval and threat that gay men and non-gay spanking fans used to (still?) face from the world at large and the need to hide what they are doing. Our ability to perceive that situation as erotically exciting (as long as it's happening to someone else) is a brilliant example of our brain's capability to rationalise our fears through the power of sexuality. The associated idea that 'they' are all secretly gay anyway, as suggested in picture 1, is a more superficial mechanism to rationalise what is essentially, irrational hatred. In the final image, full of ambiguities, there's a more positive possibility of role reversal, although sadly that can bring it's own guilt to us sensitive types! Well, sort of.
Perhaps Jonathan's art is not as frivolous as it seems!
You can see other Jonathan pictures showing 'faceless' spankers and gay buddies being arbitrarily punished in my A-Z entry on Jonathan. There's information on links there also.