"Excuse me while I whip this out..."
I posted this on my journal devoted to this kind of subject matter. It has been a while since I let loose with a rant, so I thought I'd cross post this over here for your masochistic pleasure. Enjoy!
"Art vs. Porn
Recently a brilliant photographer and artist posted a response in his DA journal which once again lamented the hordes of individuals who dig through DA till they find his beautiful but admittedly erotically tinged work and then turn around immediately to post complaints that it is pornography and not art. This has happened a great deal, and he has posted several entries sharing his disgust and confusion. His work is clearly of the highest talent, and the technical skill and artistic vision it requires to create just one of his photographs is staggering to one such as I.
Traditionally, and according to Webster's dictionary, pornography is defined as a piece of work bereft of any artistic value that is meant only for the purposes of sexual arousal. Traditionally, erotica is used as a term meaning a piece of work that may be meant for the purposes of arousal but has artist merit. (although when I looked it up the one word definition for erotica was, yep you guessed it, "PORNOGRAPHY")
Well what the Hell's the difference?
I tend to agree with my eternal hero Alan Moore, who has stated that erotica is just what the upper class call their pornography. It is a bit like the Norman conquerers renaming their food they get from their poor subjugated Saxon farmers. Pig becomes pork, chicken becomes poultry, and cow becomes beef. When the gentile and elite consume something, it is rechristened and therefore transubstantiated into something subtable for their delicate and superior palates. Thus pornography becomes erotica.
And to that I say, BALLS. It is the same thing. Pornography, (literally "whore writing" or "writing about prostitutes") is depiction of sexual material, and so is erotica. The only difference is the perceived worth based on whether or not something has artistic merit or not. Now try to define art and artistic merit and you've opened up a whole other can of worms of Dune proportions. You can debate the meaning and definition of art until Jesus and His lawyers get back, but lets just use Webster again, he seems to be pretty smart.
1: skill acquired by experience, study, or observation 2 a: a branch of learning: (1): one of the humanities (2)plural : liberal arts barchaic : learning, scholarship3: an occupation requiring knowledge or skill 4 a: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced
And it goes on, but you get the gist of it. Art is skill. Art is craft. Art is something you make that requires skill and craft.
Obviously the genre of porn is no different from any other genre. It is filled with a wide array of representations of many different skill levels from the rank amateur to the sublime artiste (see Alan Moore's "Lost Girls" for example.)
The real question is not whether or not something has artistic value in my opinion, (that is a subjective thing in and of itself. My college Modern Arts teacher thought Andy Warhol was a hack, and another one who that Van Gogh was a lazy bum.) but whether or not it can be viewed as sexual at all. It is my opinion that this is the real issue for these puritanically inclined folks. I've met enough of them, and discussed these subject matters with them at length, and generally they have issues with even casual nudity. These are the kinds of individuals who in the dark ages insisted that paintings of Adam and Eve have fig leaves hovering over their privates. These are the kinds of individuals who find the human body to be offensive, and view God's creation to be one of necessary evil somehow, and not one of singular beauty and ingenuity.
So in their view, the act of love, or sex, or fucking, or whatever you wish to call it is beyond objectionable, it is evil. To depict anything sexual is evil, and thus pornography is evil. In my experience the detractors of porn (or erotica if you will) have no concern or care for how well crafted the art is, only for its subject matter. A poorly drawn kitten is better than a beatific depicted pussy, and a ineptly drawn rooster is better than a carefully crafted cock. The distinction between erotica an pornography is irrelevant in their minds. Sex is evil, art is merely a function of the acceptable and the status quo.
Obviously I disagree. Not only has pornography been with humanity since we first started drawing on cave walls and carving big-assed goddesses out of stone, but it has arguably been an effect and perhaps even a cause of civilization and evolution.
Repression in all of its forms has been utilized by societies who wish to suppress the voices and instincts of the masses, while reserving the power and pleasure for the elite. Kings and Church Leaders would fornicate with prepubescents or animals, married women, scullery maids, and groups of any or all of these categories while the peasantry was told that simple masturbation guaranteed them a special spot in hell. This duplicity and hypocrisy continues today with our own leaders, and will undoubtedly continue henceforth till we can all sensibly accept our baser desires as a fundamental and intractable aspect of our existence, and this is not an evil thing.
There are certainly potential negative effects from giving in to our hedonistic desires, which is why our imaginations can be so useful in satiating prurient thoughts without the STDs, unwanted children, or embarrassing late night visits to the emergency room. The practice of capturing such thoughts into an artistic form is not only natural, but an extension of this helpful and healthy process of using our minds rather than our bodies to experiment and explore different ways to interact with others and ourselves.
So what does quality have to do with it? Is the Mona Lisa fine art? Absolutely. Is it better than your child's crayon scribble magnetized to the refrigerator? Well that's up to you. Likewise the importance of quality of erotic work is a matter of taste and subjectivity.
I personally think the work of Willem De Kooning is horrid.
http://www.ticket.it/newyork/immagini/Willem%20de%20Kooning%20Woman%20and%20Bicycle.JPG
Take that painting for instance. It appeals to me about as much as a dumpster dive for dinner. Yet Mr. De Kooning's work is widely regarded as one of the great examples of contemporary art.
Norman Lindsay in contrast is a footnote at most in the annals of the Fine Art world, but I find his work to be sublime.
http://www.jnanam.net/golden-ass/goldass/crete.jpg
You will not find Norman Lindsay in your average Fine Arts text because his work is not regarded to be as important or ground well crafted as the works of Willem de Kooning, who you almost certainly will. In a thousand years it might be different.
In a thousand years it may be that the pages of Hustler and Jugs are regarded as the paragon of our cultural fruits. Does that sound far fetched? Well just look at the erotic vases of ancient Greece and the Venus of Willendorf. These were common works owned by common people. They depict the human body in a sexual manner. Hell the ancient Egyptians used to routinely adorn their homes with massive and very pornographic work. Yet these cultural forms are every bit as important and valuable as their aristocratic counterparts.
So if you want to call my own work pornography, don't be surprised if I don't flinch. Virtually every great artist has at least dabbled in explicit erotic art (just look at Klimt's own pencil sketches of his models masturbating in his studio) and many of them had erotic aspects to much of their work. (See the vaginal work of Georgia O'Keeffe for example)
Now I don't post sexually explicit material here at DA. I don't think this is a good place for it, mostly because there is a poor filtering process to keep underage users from material marked mature, but also because it is the wrong environment for it. However I don't have a problem with explicit or truly deviant work, (Just check out my HF gallery) but I think its a false argument to attempt to define work as porn and some as erotica, some as high art, some as low art, and using that as a distinction for worth.
A lot of people called Lindsay's work pornography. Give me that porn over de Kooning's "Fine Art" any day. You want to call me a pornographer? You mean a pornographer like Norman Lindsay, Oscar Wilde, Alan Moore, Aubrey Beardsley, and Gustav Klimt? Fine. I'm a pornographer. And I'm in good company."
"Art vs. Porn
Recently a brilliant photographer and artist posted a response in his DA journal which once again lamented the hordes of individuals who dig through DA till they find his beautiful but admittedly erotically tinged work and then turn around immediately to post complaints that it is pornography and not art. This has happened a great deal, and he has posted several entries sharing his disgust and confusion. His work is clearly of the highest talent, and the technical skill and artistic vision it requires to create just one of his photographs is staggering to one such as I.
Traditionally, and according to Webster's dictionary, pornography is defined as a piece of work bereft of any artistic value that is meant only for the purposes of sexual arousal. Traditionally, erotica is used as a term meaning a piece of work that may be meant for the purposes of arousal but has artist merit. (although when I looked it up the one word definition for erotica was, yep you guessed it, "PORNOGRAPHY")
Well what the Hell's the difference?
I tend to agree with my eternal hero Alan Moore, who has stated that erotica is just what the upper class call their pornography. It is a bit like the Norman conquerers renaming their food they get from their poor subjugated Saxon farmers. Pig becomes pork, chicken becomes poultry, and cow becomes beef. When the gentile and elite consume something, it is rechristened and therefore transubstantiated into something subtable for their delicate and superior palates. Thus pornography becomes erotica.
And to that I say, BALLS. It is the same thing. Pornography, (literally "whore writing" or "writing about prostitutes") is depiction of sexual material, and so is erotica. The only difference is the perceived worth based on whether or not something has artistic merit or not. Now try to define art and artistic merit and you've opened up a whole other can of worms of Dune proportions. You can debate the meaning and definition of art until Jesus and His lawyers get back, but lets just use Webster again, he seems to be pretty smart.
1: skill acquired by experience, study, or observation 2 a: a branch of learning: (1): one of the humanities (2)plural : liberal arts barchaic : learning, scholarship3: an occupation requiring knowledge or skill 4 a: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced
And it goes on, but you get the gist of it. Art is skill. Art is craft. Art is something you make that requires skill and craft.
Obviously the genre of porn is no different from any other genre. It is filled with a wide array of representations of many different skill levels from the rank amateur to the sublime artiste (see Alan Moore's "Lost Girls" for example.)
The real question is not whether or not something has artistic value in my opinion, (that is a subjective thing in and of itself. My college Modern Arts teacher thought Andy Warhol was a hack, and another one who that Van Gogh was a lazy bum.) but whether or not it can be viewed as sexual at all. It is my opinion that this is the real issue for these puritanically inclined folks. I've met enough of them, and discussed these subject matters with them at length, and generally they have issues with even casual nudity. These are the kinds of individuals who in the dark ages insisted that paintings of Adam and Eve have fig leaves hovering over their privates. These are the kinds of individuals who find the human body to be offensive, and view God's creation to be one of necessary evil somehow, and not one of singular beauty and ingenuity.
So in their view, the act of love, or sex, or fucking, or whatever you wish to call it is beyond objectionable, it is evil. To depict anything sexual is evil, and thus pornography is evil. In my experience the detractors of porn (or erotica if you will) have no concern or care for how well crafted the art is, only for its subject matter. A poorly drawn kitten is better than a beatific depicted pussy, and a ineptly drawn rooster is better than a carefully crafted cock. The distinction between erotica an pornography is irrelevant in their minds. Sex is evil, art is merely a function of the acceptable and the status quo.
Obviously I disagree. Not only has pornography been with humanity since we first started drawing on cave walls and carving big-assed goddesses out of stone, but it has arguably been an effect and perhaps even a cause of civilization and evolution.
Repression in all of its forms has been utilized by societies who wish to suppress the voices and instincts of the masses, while reserving the power and pleasure for the elite. Kings and Church Leaders would fornicate with prepubescents or animals, married women, scullery maids, and groups of any or all of these categories while the peasantry was told that simple masturbation guaranteed them a special spot in hell. This duplicity and hypocrisy continues today with our own leaders, and will undoubtedly continue henceforth till we can all sensibly accept our baser desires as a fundamental and intractable aspect of our existence, and this is not an evil thing.
There are certainly potential negative effects from giving in to our hedonistic desires, which is why our imaginations can be so useful in satiating prurient thoughts without the STDs, unwanted children, or embarrassing late night visits to the emergency room. The practice of capturing such thoughts into an artistic form is not only natural, but an extension of this helpful and healthy process of using our minds rather than our bodies to experiment and explore different ways to interact with others and ourselves.
So what does quality have to do with it? Is the Mona Lisa fine art? Absolutely. Is it better than your child's crayon scribble magnetized to the refrigerator? Well that's up to you. Likewise the importance of quality of erotic work is a matter of taste and subjectivity.
I personally think the work of Willem De Kooning is horrid.
http://www.ticket.it/newyork/immagini/Willem%20de%20Kooning%20Woman%20and%20Bicycle.JPG
Take that painting for instance. It appeals to me about as much as a dumpster dive for dinner. Yet Mr. De Kooning's work is widely regarded as one of the great examples of contemporary art.
Norman Lindsay in contrast is a footnote at most in the annals of the Fine Art world, but I find his work to be sublime.
http://www.jnanam.net/golden-ass/goldass/crete.jpg
You will not find Norman Lindsay in your average Fine Arts text because his work is not regarded to be as important or ground well crafted as the works of Willem de Kooning, who you almost certainly will. In a thousand years it might be different.
In a thousand years it may be that the pages of Hustler and Jugs are regarded as the paragon of our cultural fruits. Does that sound far fetched? Well just look at the erotic vases of ancient Greece and the Venus of Willendorf. These were common works owned by common people. They depict the human body in a sexual manner. Hell the ancient Egyptians used to routinely adorn their homes with massive and very pornographic work. Yet these cultural forms are every bit as important and valuable as their aristocratic counterparts.
So if you want to call my own work pornography, don't be surprised if I don't flinch. Virtually every great artist has at least dabbled in explicit erotic art (just look at Klimt's own pencil sketches of his models masturbating in his studio) and many of them had erotic aspects to much of their work. (See the vaginal work of Georgia O'Keeffe for example)
Now I don't post sexually explicit material here at DA. I don't think this is a good place for it, mostly because there is a poor filtering process to keep underage users from material marked mature, but also because it is the wrong environment for it. However I don't have a problem with explicit or truly deviant work, (Just check out my HF gallery) but I think its a false argument to attempt to define work as porn and some as erotica, some as high art, some as low art, and using that as a distinction for worth.
A lot of people called Lindsay's work pornography. Give me that porn over de Kooning's "Fine Art" any day. You want to call me a pornographer? You mean a pornographer like Norman Lindsay, Oscar Wilde, Alan Moore, Aubrey Beardsley, and Gustav Klimt? Fine. I'm a pornographer. And I'm in good company."