Celebrim
Legend
"I do find judging pornographic nature based on the quality of the artwork itself very subjective and hypocritical"
Well, so do I, which is why I think I'm starting to get in over my head.
The problem is that while taste is subjective, so is I'm afraid sexuality.
To pick on him, angelsboi admits to finding things to be sexually stimulating which I simply do not. What brings arrousal when viewed by him, does not bring arrousal when viewed by me. Whatever it may be, pornography is a very particular form of communication in which the author attempts to deliberately provoke certain responces and as a side effect certain attitudes towards the whole business of sex. To someone else, even the exposure of or depiction of a bare ankle or a mouth can be seen as being deliberately indecent.
The fact of the matter is that that picture on the cover of the book in question had never really struck me as all that lewd or provocative. I had never even seen it as striving to be particularly so. Perhaps it simply did not push any of my sexual buttons, but if it had have pushed my sexual buttons in ways that I feel unbecoming it doesn't immediately follow that that was the intent of the author or that it is his or her fault I find his work sexual. It is even less obvious whether the author is responcible for any perverse sexual thoughts that might be provoked (whatever you personally feel those to be), and whether he ought to be partly accountable for anything I do to act on those things.
Which is not to say that I don't believe that there are cases where people deliberately set out to provoke those thoughts, attitudes, and actions and do in fact bear a partial (albiet lesser) responcibility for the actions then taken on that account. Nor is such an arguement intended to justify those people who seem to believe or at least act like the purpose of art is to shock and offend people. If I didn't believe that, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.
On the other hand neither am I saying that the depiction of sexuality in art or even more particularly word is a universally bad thing.
What it is saying is that except in the most extreme cases, it is not very easy to come to a widespread agreement over when the artist has indeed intended to do so. I won't even try to offer up a debate on exactly what we and society should see as appropriate sexual behavior, and whether lusting after the human form is unhealthy in the first place.
The higher quality the work, the more difficult that agreement is going to be, because there will be an increasingly large number of people who are intrigued by some non-overtly sexual element of the work which they feel was the author primary intent and that the whole justifies the odd chance that someone is going to react 'badly' to the whole thing. Or at the least, it will be easier to offer up an academic arguement as an excuse to salivate over a painting/photograph/statue/etc.
Only the author really knows his intent, and unfortunately a great many of them are not honest (even with themselves).
Well, so do I, which is why I think I'm starting to get in over my head.
The problem is that while taste is subjective, so is I'm afraid sexuality.
To pick on him, angelsboi admits to finding things to be sexually stimulating which I simply do not. What brings arrousal when viewed by him, does not bring arrousal when viewed by me. Whatever it may be, pornography is a very particular form of communication in which the author attempts to deliberately provoke certain responces and as a side effect certain attitudes towards the whole business of sex. To someone else, even the exposure of or depiction of a bare ankle or a mouth can be seen as being deliberately indecent.
The fact of the matter is that that picture on the cover of the book in question had never really struck me as all that lewd or provocative. I had never even seen it as striving to be particularly so. Perhaps it simply did not push any of my sexual buttons, but if it had have pushed my sexual buttons in ways that I feel unbecoming it doesn't immediately follow that that was the intent of the author or that it is his or her fault I find his work sexual. It is even less obvious whether the author is responcible for any perverse sexual thoughts that might be provoked (whatever you personally feel those to be), and whether he ought to be partly accountable for anything I do to act on those things.
Which is not to say that I don't believe that there are cases where people deliberately set out to provoke those thoughts, attitudes, and actions and do in fact bear a partial (albiet lesser) responcibility for the actions then taken on that account. Nor is such an arguement intended to justify those people who seem to believe or at least act like the purpose of art is to shock and offend people. If I didn't believe that, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.
On the other hand neither am I saying that the depiction of sexuality in art or even more particularly word is a universally bad thing.
What it is saying is that except in the most extreme cases, it is not very easy to come to a widespread agreement over when the artist has indeed intended to do so. I won't even try to offer up a debate on exactly what we and society should see as appropriate sexual behavior, and whether lusting after the human form is unhealthy in the first place.
The higher quality the work, the more difficult that agreement is going to be, because there will be an increasingly large number of people who are intrigued by some non-overtly sexual element of the work which they feel was the author primary intent and that the whole justifies the odd chance that someone is going to react 'badly' to the whole thing. Or at the least, it will be easier to offer up an academic arguement as an excuse to salivate over a painting/photograph/statue/etc.
Only the author really knows his intent, and unfortunately a great many of them are not honest (even with themselves).
)
