According to recent studies, right now is high time for love making. Maybe it’s the chilly weather, or those chestnuts roasting on the open fire, but an increased number of couples tend to get in on in the days proceeding Christmas than most other times of year. This holiday season, Italian still life photographer Massimo Gammacurta presents the KamaSugar, a set of lollipops that double as a guidebook of sexual positions.
For each naughty and nice coupling, Gammacurta created his own edible confections from hard ball candy, food dye, and gel, working with a mold and intentionally adding drips and aesthetically intriguing flaws to heighten the allure of the imagined rendezvous. These fissures in the candy, which serve to make it all the more ambiguous where one figure ends and the other begins, are created by alternately introducing hot and cold elements to the candied couples.
Gammacurta’s positions are not a literal interpretation of the Kama Sutra, and most of the positions are dreamt up by the artist himself. He photographs each pop because— much like a spontaneous steamy moment— they don’t last as long as we might like them to. Because of the delicacy of the hard ball candy, they tend to melt within a period of only a few days, although Gammacurta has started to preserve them in epoxy resin. When asked whether the final product is edible, Gammacurta simply notes, “I do taste them while I am working on it, but I wouldn’t call it FDA approved.”
All images © Massimo Gammacurta