Text · Living Sculpture · October 2026

Whose shame is it?

I eat in front of you. I drink in front of you. I go to the toilet in front of you. You accept that. Some even find it brave.

But my body does more. It becomes aroused. It gets hard without asking me. It comes to orgasm, it ejaculates. I am 64 years old, and my body still does that – like yours.

We keep silent about it. We talk about hunger at lunch, about digestion at the doctor's, about death at funerals. We do not talk about desire. Not because it is unnatural. But because we were taught that it is.

An old man with desire is seen as ridiculous or as dangerous. So it disappears. It does not become less. It just becomes invisible. And a part of me disappears with it.

What we accept

We have learned to accept war. We watch on the news as people are killed and whole peoples are driven out, and we eat dinner while we do. Governments expect us to go along with it, and we go along with it.

Images of the dead run at prime time. A naked body that feels desire is pixelated. Violence is considered acceptable. Desire is considered obscene.

We declare the killing of people necessary. We let ourselves be trained out of our own bodies and their reactions until we deny them ourselves.

I consider this order perverse. Not my nudity.

I am no longer going along with it

If you look at me and feel shame, then look closely – not at me, but at yourself. This shame is not in my body. I took it off, together with my clothes.

It belongs to you.

Achim Mentzen · Living Sculpture