The Proper Use of Nudity in FRPG Art

[J.Quondam]

That's true. The irony is, I've actually gotten more nasty and unsympathetic with age.

Yeah, me too. I'm aging like cheese rather than wine.

And I hate cheese.

 

[Orius]

Honest erotica in and of itself doesn't bother me. However, I roll my eyes at gratuitous sex and nudity. I pretty much felt the same way when this thread was new. It's IMmature and puerile to me. Back when Dragon was still in print and they still ran RPG reviews, Rick Swan said it best in the introduction to one of his monthly review columns: a half-naked woman on the cover of an RPG was a good as putting a label on it that said: "WARNING: CRAP AHEAD".

Starship Troopers and Showgirls are both crummy movies but their defenders like to tell me it's satire as if I didn't get it. Satire isn't a defense.

IIRC, the problem with Starship Troopers was that the writers/producers/whatever on that film didn't like Heinlein's worldview and went out of their way to paint him as a fascist. Showgirls was just another lame attempt by a child/teen celebrity to prove they're all grown up by doing something with a lot of excess sex and nudity. And in the end, the result is nearly always the same: the sound of a toilet flushing in the distance signifying what has just happened to their career.

 

[Blue Orange]

IIRC, the problem with Starship Troopers was that the writers/producers/whatever on that film didn't like Heinlein's worldview and went out of their way to paint him as a fascist. Showgirls was just another lame attempt by a child/teen celebrity to prove they're all grown up by doing something with a lot of excess sex and nudity. And in the end, the result is nearly always the same: the sound of a toilet flushing in the distance signifying what has just happened to their career.

Heinlein was a leftist in an open marriage (Stranger in a Strange Land was one of the big early polyamory texts) who later became a antiracist libertarian militarist on marrying an ex-military officer with a background in biochemistry. (Virginia Gerstenfeld was more or less a real-life Heinlein heroine.) He's kinda hard to pin down.

 

[Blue Orange]

Honest erotica in and of itself doesn't bother me. However, I roll my eyes at gratuitous sex and nudity. I pretty much felt the same way when this thread was new. It's IMmature and puerile to me. Back when Dragon was still in print and they still ran RPG reviews, Rick Swan it best in the introduction to one of his monthly review columns: a half-naked woman on the cover of an RPG was a good as putting a label on it that said: "WARNING: CRAP AHEAD".

I do find it kind of amusing they pulled the nudity in the late 1980s in response to Christians and then in the 2000s in response to feminists. The side of attack is different, the result is the same.

I think Americans just don't like sex. (And I am one!)

 

[Orius]

Oh yeah I know that. The people who did the Starship Troopers film evidently didn't.

Radical feminists and conservative Christians have this odd alliance going in opposition to porn.

 

[Blue Orange]

Oh yeah I know that. The people who did the Starship Troopers film evidently didn't.

Radical feminists and conservative Christians have this odd alliance going in opposition to porn.

There were actually huge intra-feminist arguments over the porn thing (the 'feminist sex wars' of the 1980s)--there were sex-positive feminists who wanted to make feminist porn, decriminalize prostitution, and the like. I think the big names were Susie Bright, Gayle Rubin, Ellen Willis, and Carol Queen, though I only know about this peripherally.

From what I gather it was kind of a draw but with the rise of the internet porn got very hard to regulate so there was a big anti-porn backlash.

 

[MNblockhead]

I do find it kind of amusing they pulled the nudity in the late 1980s in response to Christians and then in the 2000s in response to feminists. The side of attack is different, the result is the same.

I think Americans just don't like sex. (And I am one!)

Nah, was like that in the 80s. There was a big anti-porn and anti-adult video/sex store movement at the time and about the only time I can remember seeing right-wing "moral majority" christians and left-wing feminists on the same picket line.

 

[S'mon]

Reading the OP, I have to kind of wonder why 1e AD&D should be the measure of all things.

I like cheesecake, but it can be done badly, or put in an inappropriate context. Conanesque settings should have plenty of cheesecake and beefcake art. Lord of the Rings really should not -
I'd like to see a lot of art variety tailored to different settings and styles.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Like everything it depends on the context. Nudity can be fine in art or storytelling in a visual medium. The society may not wear much clothes, or it is a logical progression to the story. But partial armour annoys me as i have stated in the original go around of this thread. If you can make chain why would not wear a full chain shirt that covers everything.
Why would you order an expensive plate harness and leave a boob window in it?

 

[Blue Orange]

Like everything it depends on the context. Nudity can be fine in art or storytelling in a visual medium. The society may not wear much clothes, or it is a logical progression to the story. But partial armour annoys me as i have stated in the original go around of this thread. If you can make chain why would not wear a full chain shirt that covers everything.
Why would you order an expensive plate harness and leave a boob window in it?

The novel Azure Bonds (which later became one of my favorite goldbox games) actually had a whole justification for it as I recall in terms of the plot--the main character was being dressed for sacrifice by a villainess.

OK, I actually agree it makes more sense for adventurers with monsters swinging at them to be fully enclosed in plate. (Even Conan dressed practically most of the time.) I just find it amusing how this country finds justifications for the same foibles from each end of the political spectrum.