Encounter

Image: Subjects and photographer unknown.

See also the previous posts:
• Merman – I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII
• A Merman Named Eric
• Poseidon

Merman VIII

See also the previous posts:
• Merman I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII
• A Merman Named Eric

Related Off-site Link:
From Mermaids to Mermen – AnyNewsBD.com (2014).

Merman VII

Image 1: Kristi Sutton Elias
Image 2: Source unknown.
Image 3: Source unknown.

See also the previous posts:
• Merman I | II | III | IV | V | VI
• A Merman Named Eric

Related Off-site Link:
From Mermaids to Mermen – AnyNewsBD.com (2014).

Poseidon

See also the previous posts:
• Merman
• Merman II
• Merman III
• Merman IV
• Merman V
• Merman VI
• A Merman Named Eric

Image: "Poseidon" by James Lyons.

Merman VI

Image 1: Bruce Lennon.
Image 2: Rusa.
Image 3: Bruce Lennon.

See also the previous posts:
• Merman
• Merman II
• Merman III
• Merman IV
• Merman V
• A Merman Named Eric

A Merman Named Eric

Note: The following is written by Elise Solé and was first published April 3, 2013, by Shine.

Like any other 22-year-old Floridian, Eric Ducharme loves to swim, except when he dives into the water, he trades his swim trunks for a floppy tail.

Ducharme is a self-proclaimed merman, a mystical male counterpart to the mermaid. As the legend goes, these seductive sea creatures with the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish, make themselves visible to ships during thunder storms and would lure the opposite sex into the water with their siren-like singing.

According to a story in The Daily Mail, Ducharme says he eats, sleeps, and breathes mermaids and mermen and tries to impersonate them whenever he can. "It's a lifestyle. It's a path in life that I have chosen," he says during a Wednesday night episode of TLC's My Crazy Obsession, a reality show that follows people whose adoration for objects has become an obsession.

His love for all things mermen began as a child when, according to his website, his grandparents took him to an underwater theater and a woman in a mermaid costume swam by blowing kisses to the audience; at age six, Ducharme's father hired two mermaids to swim up to a dock where the boy was eating his birthday cake. When he was 13, Ducharme created his company Mertailor, LLC and sold his own handcrafted tails made from garbage bags and various fabrics. Three years later, he put on his first show, swimming as the mermaid prince in the Weeki Wachee Springs Little Mermaid show. "Eric is obsessed with mermaids," says his mother Candy Ducharme. "We have our own passions. That's Eric's life."

"It's taking me a really long time to kind of understand my place in life," Ducharme says of his obsession. Three times a week, he slips into his shiny handmade fin to swim Florida’s natural springs, an hour and a half drive from his home in Crystal River. He calls it "mermaiding" a time to escape the pressures of the real world. "When I put on a tail I feel transformed," says Ducharme, who can hold his breath for four minutes at a time. "I feel like I'm starting to enter into a different world when I hit the water."

And although his boyfriend Matthew Quijano was initially shocked, he's accepted the mermen lifestyle. "When I first met Eric, I was introduced to the subject of mermaids, on our first date," he says."Your jaw just kind of drops and you're just like, 'wow.' When we go swimming I don't even see him because he swims off to his own little corner, it's all about getting away from the rest of the world…Sometimes we have to ask people what's with the scolding looks because they're just like, 'why is there a guy in a tail? It's supposed to be a girl,''' Quijano says, shrugging. "Haters gonna hate."

No matter. Business at Mertailoris booming. His mermaid and mermen wet suits (made from silicone, urethanes, and latex rubbers in different colors and textures of scales and fins) range from $185 for the spandex tail to $2,759 for the silicon version and there's even a kid's tail priced at $169. The tails have been featured in photo shoots on Germany's "Next Top Model", in advertisements for Skittles and on "Saturday Night Live" in the music video "I'm on a Boat" featuring T-Pain. Ducharm's client list even includes Lady Gaga.

Ducharme's mission is to make his costumes available to "every aspiring mermaid and merman who dreams of life in the sea."

See also the previous posts:
Merman
Merman II
Merman III
Merman IV
Merman V

Merman V

Image 1: Artist unknown.
Image 2: DeZarin.
Image 3: Christina DeHoff.

Merman IV

See also:
Merman
Merman II
Merman III

Merman III

Image 1: Artist unknown.
Image 2: Lanisaz.
Image 3: Elf-Fin.

Merman II

See also the previous post: Merman.


Image 1: Jade N. Bengco.
Image 2: Artist unknown.
Image 3: Frank Gembeck.

Merman

Introducing a new series that explores and celebrates artistic depictions of a unique form of male beauty: the merman.

______________________________________

Mermen are mythical male legendary creatures who are human male from the waist up and fish-like from the waist down. They are less commonly known than their female counterparts, mermaids.

In Greek mythology, mermen were often illustrated to have green seaweed-like hair, a beard, and a trident. In Irish mythology, mermen are described as extremely ugly creatures with pointed green teeth, pig-like eyes, green hair, and a red nose. In Finnish mythology, a merman (vetehinen) is often portrayed as a magical, powerful, handsome, bearded man with the tail of a fish. He can cure illnesses and lift curses and brew potions. But he can also cause unintended harm by becoming too curious about human life. The river dolphin (or boto) of the Amazon River regions is described according to local lore as having the ability to take the form of a human or merman, also known as encantado (“enchanted one” in Portuguese), and the habit of seducing human women and impregnating them. Chinese mermen were believed to only surface during storms or, in some cases, were believed to have the ability to cause storms.

Much like sirens, mermen would sometimes sing to people and enchant them, distracting them from their work and causing them to walk overboard or run their ships aground. Other stories have them squeezing the life out of drowning men while attempting to rescue them. They are also said to take humans down to their underwater realms.

The actions and behavior of mermen can vary wildly depending on the source and time period of the stories. They have been said to sink ships by summoning great storms, but also said to be wise teachers, according to earlier mythology. A merman, like a mermaid, attracts humans with singing.

– Source

Image 1: daekazu.
Image 2: Artist unknown.
Image 3: Artist unknown.
Image 4: The Ban Bana.