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Innocent/Artistic Nudity vs Erotic Nudity


Gifted With Singleness

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Gifted With Singleness

It recently occurred to me that one of the biggest reasons I used to be in denial of my asexuality is that I happen to have an artistic appreciation for nudity. Think Michaelangelo's statue of David. That sort of thing. However, people tend to associate nudity with sex so strongly that, if you attempt to look for the more innocent, artistic forms of nudity, you can very easily end up exposing yourself to pornography. Because of my artistic appreciation for nudity (and because I'm not all that repulsed by sex) I ended up being drawn to porn for the "wrong reasons" (that is, the nudity, rather than the sex). This caused me to think of sex primarily as a naked person thing that happens to involve physical intimacy, rather than a physical intimacy thing that happens to involve nudity. In truth, sex is much more similar to making out than it is to the sort of things you might do at a nudist resort.

 

But that doesn't stop people from blurring the lines between innocent, artistic nudity and sexual, erotic nudity. And that's what I would like this thread to be about.

 

This isn't just some theoretical curiosity. It has practical implications. In the United States, for example, obscenity (which includes pornography) is not protected by the First Amendment, and in his attempt to set the standard for what counts as hard-core pornography, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart is famously quoted as saying, "I know it when I see it". Not exactly a very helpful standard.

 

The current standard used by the U.S. Supreme Court is the Miller Test. Under this test, a work is considered obscene if the following three conditions are met:

 

  1. The average person, applying local community standards, looking at the work in its entirety, must find that it appeals to the prurient interest.
  2. The work must describe or depict, in an obviously offensive way, sexual conduct, or excretory functions.
  3. The work as a whole must lack "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific values".

 

While these conditions do give a rough idea of what counts as obscene, they still seem rather vague and subjective. Sure, most people would agree that a video of two people engaging in sexual intercourse would be pornographic. But what about a picture of a naked lady doing nothing in particular? There's nothing inherently sexual about that picture, but a lot of people on the internet would readily admit to masturbating to that sort of thing. So, is that picture porn? Can something be intentionally erotic without being obscene? Is it possible to depict nudity in an artistic way that no one would find erotic? Is all artistic nudity secretly porn? Where exactly is the line? Is there even a line, or is eroticism purely in the eye of the beholder?

 

That's a lot of questions, and I'm curious to see what all of you would think about this.

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But what about a picture of a naked lady doing nothing in particular? There's nothing inherently sexual about that picture, but a lot of people on the internet would readily admit to masturbating to that sort of thing. So, is that picture porn?

Yes, and everyone who would draw/create such a picture knows it.  That's why they draw/create it, because they know it'll get attention because of it.

 

I don't care if that's what they want to do to try to get people to check out their art, but I just wish they would just be more honest about their intentions and motivations.  Let's face it, you're making art of a naked chick (and let's also face it, it'll usually be a chick, not a dude) because you know people like checking out naked chicks and you're hoping that will therefore translate to people checking out your art.  You're attempting to appeal to the same crowd of people that are drawn to porn, via more or less the same sort of imagery.  Ergo, what you're making is still porn.

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RoseGoesToYale
33 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

Yes, and everyone who would draw/create such a picture knows it.  That's why they draw/create it, because they know it'll get attention because of it.

 

I don't care if that's what they want to do to try to get people to check out their art, but I just wish they would just be more honest about their intentions and motivations.  Let's face it, you're making art of a naked chick (and let's also face it, it'll usually be a chick, not a dude) because you know people like checking out naked chicks and you're hoping that will therefore translate to people checking out your art.  You're attempting to appeal to the same crowd of people that are drawn to porn, via more or less the same sort of imagery.  Ergo, what you're making is still porn.

Are you saying that every single instance of depiction of the naked female human form, regardless of medium, is inherently pornographic? Because that's an extremely sexist thing to imply.

 

Also, artists often don't create art because they're trying to get likes or money or fame. They create it because they have an urge to create, to depict things that are beautiful to them, that give them strong emotions, or things that are interesting. The human body can certainly be interesting in form and variation without being sexualized.

 

Did Alexandros of Antioch sculpt the Venus de Milo while thinking "Dudes are probably gonna get off to this..." I'm guessing no. Was he aroused while sculpting it? Maybe. Who knows? And even if he was, so what? Nothing we can do about it now. People get aroused by such innocuous things as shoelaces. In the same token, there's no way to know if dozens of museum-goers at the Louvre aren't getting turned on by various pieces of art on display.

 

I think the line between art and pornography is established by intent. So yes, the line is going to be a little fuzzy sometimes. It's a point of contention and many a work of art has been censored for being obscene based on arbitrary values of certain time periods. But generally I can see something pornographic and know it's porn because, based on a number of elements, the creator intended the work primarily to arouse and elicit a sexual response from those consuming it, and it is only intended for that purpose. But in other works, be it art or literature or film, the artist can't account for unintended arousal. They can only make their argument.

 

Really though, I think the distinction mainly exists to protect people (esp minors) from being exposed to content they might not want to or be ready to see. But people see naked bodies all the time, even if it's only their own, and there's nothing inherently sexual there. There will always be some room for interpretation on any human works, and always some kind of censorship fight.

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25 minutes ago, RoseGoesToYule said:

Are you saying that every single instance of depiction of the naked female human form, regardless of medium, is inherently pornographic? Because that's an extremely sexist thing to imply.

 

Also, artists often don't create art because they're trying to get likes or money or fame. They create it because they have an urge to create, to depict things that are beautiful to them, that give them strong emotions, or things that are interesting. The human body can certainly be interesting in form and variation without being sexualized.

 

Did Alexandros of Antioch sculpt the Venus de Milo while thinking "Dudes are probably gonna get off to this..." I'm guessing no. Was he aroused while sculpting it? Maybe. Who knows? And even if he was, so what? Nothing we can do about it now. People get aroused by such innocuous things as shoelaces. In the same token, there's no way to know if dozens of museum-goers at the Louvre aren't getting turned on by various pieces of art on display.

 

I think the line between art and pornography is established by intent. So yes, the line is going to be a little fuzzy sometimes. It's a point of contention and many a work of art has been censored for being obscene based on arbitrary values of certain time periods. But generally I can see something pornographic and know it's porn because, based on a number of elements, the creator intended the work primarily to arouse and elicit a sexual response from those consuming it, and it is only intended for that purpose. But in other works, be it art or literature or film, the artist can't account for unintended arousal. They can only make their argument.

 

Really though, I think the distinction mainly exists to protect people (esp minors) from being exposed to content they might not want to or be ready to see. But people see naked bodies all the time, even if it's only their own, and there's nothing inherently sexual there. There will always be some room for interpretation on any human works, and always some kind of censorship fight.

You said you're interested in people's reactions to your post, and Philip gave theirs.  Are you going to complain about every other reaction?  

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Nudity is also one of those things that is extremely difficult to separate from sexuality. This topic reminds me of a thread here where instead of nudity, it was about the breasts and if they are inherently sexual or not. For some people they are not, for others - there is a certain element to it that makes them sexual.


I guess it's all a societal thing because if we were to look at several tribes in Africa, Australia and such, nudity isn't really sexual for them, you know.


 

8 hours ago, GiftedWithSingleness said:

Sure, most people would agree that a video of two people engaging in sexual intercourse would be pornographic. But what about a picture of a naked lady doing nothing in particular? There's nothing inherently sexual about that picture, but a lot of people on the internet would readily admit to masturbating to that sort of thing. So, is that picture porn? Can something be intentionally erotic without being obscene? Is it possible to depict nudity in an artistic way that no one would find erotic? Is all artistic nudity secretly porn? Where exactly is the line? Is there even a line, or is eroticism purely in the eye of the beholder?

 

 

I don't get these questions. Are you referring to a piece of art or...??

 

If it's about a piece of art then yes. It really depends on who draws it and what kind of message (it doesn't even have to be an explicit or implicit message) they are trying to convey through their art.
This could mean anything from their art-style, characters' expressions, anatomy, the atmosphere and so on.

Depending on all those factors, a picture with a naked woman doing nothing may have multiple contexts to it. The context can be anything from erotic/pornographic context to down right "psychological horror" context.


Anyway back to when that context is supposed to be more on the erotic end.

Spoiler

 

I... actually have had this exact thing happen to me once awhile ago on DeviantArt this way.


(Context: I used to have an acc there because, well, I genuinely love art and always have and wasn't even aware of the whole "fetish art" bandwagon there until after I left.)

 

The page itself had no suggestive themes, nor was it censored... hell, the women weren't naked, nor were they doing something NSFW (like really, I even read what happened afterwards), so there was literally no way for me to know.

At the time, I decided to go check the artist's gallery and guess what? It turned out to be a Hentai artist (I saw them literally stating this in the descriptions of their SFW art).

 

Thank god, they were kind enough to mark the more explicit art within gallery when I went down the rabbit hole... no pun intended. 😒

 

 

It takes some sort of training to spot porn artists especially when you are just looking into their SFW art.
And yes, unfortunately, it's much easier to spot them when they draw female bodies because 9/10 they tend to draw them with exaggerated features. And trust me, these artists get a lot of shit for that.

I rarely have seen artists who draw men with exaggerated features (they tend to lean on the Yaoi side tho).

 

Either way, regardless of what kind of art they are doing, artists always draw because they genuinely have passion for drawing stuff you know. I have rarely seen artists who are doing art simply because of the fame and/or the money.

 

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everywhere and nowhere

When it comes to other people, I don't mind even erotic nudity (although, obviously, I don't want to be in sexual situations with anyone, so I'm not going to see it up close). However, I am personally extremely nudity-averse and circumstances don't matter to me in the slightest. I'm sex-averse (mostly) because I'm nudity-averse, not the other way around. The idea of being seen or touched naked is terrifying to me and it really doesn't matter whether it would be sexual or not, I just can't let anyone see me naked.

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Are you saying that every single instance of depiction of the naked female human form, regardless of medium, is inherently pornographic? Because that's an extremely sexist thing to imply.

Not just female, but yeah.  It'll still usually be female though, for the same reason lesbian porn is more popular than gay male porn.  I didn't dictate that particular predilection, but artists in general that would make this kind of art are fully aware that it exists, even if they don't want to admit out loud that they're trying to pander to that particular crowd.

 

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Also, artists often don't create art because they're trying to get likes or money or fame.

Highly disagree.  Do you usually just do things for no reason or reward?  Additionally, do you think it's easy to get by as an artist whose work isn't popular?

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11 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

Highly disagree.  Do you usually just do things for no reason or reward?  Additionally, do you think it's easy to get by as an artist whose work isn't popular?

When they are arts and crafts related, yes I do. At least if likes, money and fame are the only rewards we are talking about. The reason I do it is that I enjoy doing it and the satisfaction I get from having created something with my own two hands. That is the only reward I need. I have never sold a single piece of my artwork, and I have no interest to. That's what my job is for. Also if I were to calculate a fair price for the things I make that gives me a decent hourly wage, no one would pay that anyway. 

I'm not saying that there aren't artists who follow the demands of the market to pay their bills, but dismissing all nude art as just a way to gain popularity and make money is ridiculous.

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I have never sold a single piece of my artwork, and I have no interest to. That's what my job is for.

That's good for you that you're in the position to be able to regard your art fully as a hobby.  Not everyone is that fortunate.

 

Still doesn't change the fact that I fully believe "artists often don't create art because they're trying to get likes or money or fame" to be an incorrect statement.  Most people want these things out of anything they do, not just art.  If it's not ticking any of those boxes, it's usually being done as a favor to someone specifically.  Again, people usually aren't inclined to just do stuff for no reason.  Just because exceptions to the rule might exist doesn't mean the rule doesn't usually apply.

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Now, that I think about it, I will have to agree with Phillip here.

 

I follow several SFW artists and the only thing I can say for them is that they pretty damn good.

That being said... I have very negative opinion on the Art Community as whole and it really has nothing to do with the porn.

 

I have seen plenty of professional artists who ain't going to move even a finger if you were to ask them to make art, unless you pay them for it of course.

I have seen plenty of artists, both on Twitter and YouTube, complaining about people asking them for "free art" or the dreading "it's for exposure" thing.

 

Oh, and if you are a famous person who showed their fan art in a video? You better give credits to the artist (who probably didn't even bother to sign the damn thing or even say that their art piece isn't an official art) unless you want the entire Art Community to call you an art-thief and get cancelled or whatever. I mean look what happened to MatPat and Game Theory back in April.

 

At worse case scenario, they could just claim your video with their art on it and take the money anyway (yes, they could technically do it, similarly to how big corporations target content creators on YouTube) and nobody is going to bat an eye for it because "artists need to pay their bills and food too".

 

Scenarios like this really just makes me want to stay away from Art Community and their art as a whole.

I'm better off drawing the whatever idea I have in mind myself than asking an artist (who is probably going to make it look 10,000x more epic) to do it for me.

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The main point of art is self-expression. Of course, professional artists will want to get paid for their work. Who wouldn't? Just because I might do work that I enjoy, and may be willing to volunteer in select cases, I'm not going to give my work out free to just anyone who comes along and asks for it if it's my livelihood.

 

Nudes in and of themselves are not porn. In many cases they are done as a way to learn human anatomy. They aren't all depictions of nubile young women. Nor even just good-looking people in general. In other cases they are done to express beauty or other qualities of all sorts. It may be for aesthetic reasons rather than sexual ones.

 

Personally I am not into depictions of genitals, for example, but generally don't consider nude art to be pornographic. Some of it may be erotic to some people, but that may be in the eye of the beholder rather than the intent of the creator of the art. And I wouldn't say erotic and pornographic are the same. By definition intent makes a difference between the two, for example. Of course, the artist's intent may be for their art to be erotic, but even then it wouldn't necessarily be pornographic, in my opinion.

 

I'm reminded of some conservatives in the US who have put cloth or other coverings over "naughty bits" in some statues at times. Also makes me think of men who can't be alone in a room with a woman (like our current VP) because of the risk of lustful thoughts or whatever. Because women are temptations? And nudes in art are as well?

 

Yeah, my opinion is not all nudes in art are meant to arouse prurient interest.

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7 hours ago, Sally said:

You said you're interested in people's reactions to your post, and Philip gave theirs.  Are you going to complain about every other reaction?  

huh? I think I missed something.

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RoseGoesToYale
4 hours ago, Philip027 said:

Do you usually just do things for no reason or reward?  Additionally, do you think it's easy to get by as an artist whose work isn't popular?

Yeah, literally all the time. I bead, I draw, I write, I make memes or collages and posters in Photoshop. I do them because doing them makes me feel good and purposeful and I enjoy seeing the end result of an idea.

 

Creating art doesn't have to be way of making a living. For many it's only a past time. Look up the life of Vincent van Gogh. He had to borrow money from his brother, struggled with mental health and was basically a nobody. His paintings reached the height of fame after his death. Nonetheless, he painted.

 

There are many other more reasons to create art, as well... self-improvement in a skill, spiritual connection, coping with difficult emotions, even boredom.

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Mackenzie Holiday

Personally, I think that porn does have artistic merit. Most of the time, the point of art is to provoke a reaction: it could be an intellectual idea, it could be an emotional reaction like joy or sadness, it could be a more primal reaction like fear. I don't see any reason why sexual feelings should be excluded from the reactions art might seek to express or provoke. The thing that has the most significant impact on the artistic integrity of pornography, for me, is that so much of it is so commercial. The point of most porn isn't to express the eroticism or experiences of an artist or to provoke a deep and genuine feeling of eroticism in the viewer in the same way most art tends to approach other feelings; the motivation for making porn is usually to get as much traffic as possible, erasing the elements that could make it profound in the process. But I've seen things that seemed like they were overtly sexual in their motivations that I would still consider to have a lot of artistic integrity in how that sexuality was expressed.

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Disclaimer. The rant below is coming from a gray-A so it may not reflect the opinions of the general population.

On 12/19/2019 at 7:16 AM, GiftedWithSingleness said:

But what about a picture of a naked lady doing nothing in particular?

Since I was a child I have always liked women esthetically because of their motherly characteristics. Around 13 years old I visited some great musea in Paris where I was a big fan of the greek (naked) sculptures and old nude paintings. Since then I like male bodies as well because they have different characteristics. There was nothing sexual in there. I really wish that other sexual people could appreciate these without being 'assaulted' by the sexual aspects of these artworks.

 

I believe that puritanism is counterproductive because it does not help dissociating the image from the act. So when people are confronted with nudity they never learn to have sexual restraint, loose self-control and sometimes respect towards the individual. Rape is not more common in countries with mixed schools and naturist saunas. I think that victim-shaming and censorship go hand in hand. They are not solutions to low morality. Instead we definitely need a positive sexual education.

 

On 12/19/2019 at 7:16 AM, GiftedWithSingleness said:

a lot of people on the internet would readily admit to masturbating to that sort of thing. So, is that picture porn?

I don't think so. Who knows what other people are masturbating to? Some people masturbate to very pure novels or lovesongs. Fetichism is a thing as well. If you start caring about it your censor radar may become crazy. Pornography is not bad as long as it consensual and not meant to inspire people to perform horrors in real life.

 

On 12/19/2019 at 7:16 AM, GiftedWithSingleness said:

Can something be intentionally erotic without being obscene? Is it possible to depict nudity in an artistic way that no one would find erotic? Is all artistic nudity secretly porn? Where exactly is the line? Is there even a line, or is eroticism purely in the eye of the beholder?

In short, you can try to depict things in a way that is not deliberately exagerating sexual like fanservice. It is not easy and there will still be people seeing it in another way. In my opinion, a talented artist putting some efforts on story/composition/colours/technique will produce an artwork. If you are impressed by these aspects, the sexual nature of the work may be overlooked or may be perceived as 'eroticism' instead of 'porn'.

 

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I dont think all nudes are porn. But, people may still use them as such. Artists often depict nudity without sexually being into it - a gay male artist may draw a naked woman out of aesthetic appreciation because the light struck her skin in a specific way or whatever. 

 

But people use a lot of things as porn that arent meant to be. Fully clothed regular pictures. Pictures of people's feet. Pictures of people doing chores in pajamas. Whatever. It can and will be used as porn by someone if they stumble on it on the net and it turns them on. 

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But people use a lot of things as porn that arent meant to be. Fully clothed regular pictures. Pictures of people's feet. Pictures of people doing chores in pajamas. Whatever. It can and will be used as porn by someone if they stumble on it on the net and it turns them on. 

Something doesn't become porn just because someone gets off to it or whatever.  That's not the deciding factor.  As you more or less state, people can potentially get off on anything.

 

Fully clothed "regular" pictures, by definition, could never be porn.  Otherwise you've got some odd ideas on what either "fully clothed" or "regular" means.

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5 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

Something doesn't become porn just because someone gets off to it or whatever.  That's not the deciding factor.  As you more or less state, people can potentially get off on anything.

 

Fully clothed "regular" pictures, by definition, could never be porn.  Otherwise you've got some odd ideas on what either "fully clothed" or "regular" means.

Ever seen a niche porn site dedicated to certain fetishes ? My friend once opened a porn site that was tarantulas crawling on people as joke when we were sitting around talking. It wasn't even naked people. Just... close ups of tarantulas on arms, legs, etc. You could pay to access more of this porn page to get whatever your fetish was. Mostly to do with animals, I think. But... yeah. It was marketed as an adult site specifically for masturbatory purposes, they were meant to be erotic to people with those fetishes. Just looked creepy to me, made my skin crawl cause who would want a huge spider crawling on their arm or stomach *shudder* 

 

Webster's defines it as erotic depictions meant to cause sexual excitement. But, people find different things erotic. You find nudity by default erotic. The spider fetish people found a woman in a tank top letting a spider crawl on her erotic. I know someone who finds their gf dressed in sweat pants and top erotic. 

 

Erotic is defined as tending to cause sexual arousal or excitement 

 

By definition ... if you have a folder, or site, or whatever aimed at causing sexual excitement that is your pornography collection. It doesn't matter if its nudes or pictures of people in PJs just lounging in their house watching TV. If the intent of having them or selling them is sexual arousal, by definition, that is your porn, when you speak of common definition. 

 

Now. Legal definition differs because obviously child porn and such needs to be closely defined in order to protect minors from sexual exploitation. And in that, nudity will fall into it as porn. In most cases. Non-sexual nudity has actually become legal precedent as not pornography in various areas. Then, that picture of you (generic) bathing with your butt exposed that used to be a trope among old movies / tv shows of how to embarrass your son when his gf visits has been declared porn in some areas. So. Really what is porn depends upon where you live, legally speaking. 

 

But, it is generally widely accepted that there is nothing sexual about the college class on the human form that requires drawing a nude to learn how to properly draw human anatomy. Universities and artists dont tend to think of a professional development course that they require as pornography ... and only very conservative types tend to sexualize it. Same as doctors dont sexualize when their patients have to strip for medical reasons. Nudity isn't inherently sexual. Even though it often sparks that reaction from some people, since it is taboo in the U.S. A journalist documenting Woodstock for example isn't out to make porn just because the photos have some boobs in them, they are documenting a historic event. A documentary creator who is filming a tribe that doesn't wear clothes isn't making a porno, he's studying and documenting another culture. 

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I don't understand (or have) fetishes.

 

What I do know is that I am far more behind the legal definition here in this case.  Because again, if we're going by a "standard" definition, literally anything can be "porn", which makes the term completely useless.  Kinda like how asexuality stops meaning anything once anyone can say they are asexual.

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27 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

I don't understand (or have) fetishes.

 

What I do know is that I am far more behind the legal definition here in this case.  Because again, if we're going by a "standard" definition, literally anything can be "porn", which makes the term completely useless.  Kinda like how asexuality stops meaning anything once anyone can say they are asexual.

Which legal definition though? It varies by country and state! We really dont have one singular porn definition even in conservative areas. For example, I can take a child to a nude art exhibit because it's not porn legally. I can let my kid watch R rated movies. But, if my kid accesses the same images from the movie, just posted online stand alone, it is suddenly underage porn viewing. Makes no sense, does it ? 

 

But yes a lot of stuff can be porn.. kinda like a lot of stuff can be partnered sex. Basically, porn is by common definition "anything you use to cause sexual arousal / excitement to aid in orgasm". While sexual acts are "Anything you do with someone to cause sexual arousal/ excitement with the goal of sexual pleasure and / or orgasm" 

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Well the lingerie section of clothing catalogues were never intended as porn, but in the days before the Internet, if peeps were too young to by a magazine it may have been the only thing they could use... :P

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