BS: What's the difference between porn & art

Subject: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Jim Krause
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 04:41 PM

There being well over a hundred posts to the thread "What's wrong with liking porn?" and the temptation to thread creep being hard for me to resist, I thought I'd go ahead and start the obvious.

I wish I knew my art history a little better. There is a painting by a well known European artist called "The Rape of [I can't remember who]." The painting was inspired by Greek mythology. That's art. I've seen prints of the painting. Pretty graphic stuff. Even the brush strokes look violent and one gets a real sense of movement viewing the painting. Now if that same painting were posed as a photograph, color or b&w, your choice, would that be art, or porn?

Some twenty-five years ago, I pulled off a book from the library shelf. The title was Sisters photographs by one David Hamilton. I had never heard of David Hamilton. I was surprised to find the volumn contained pictures of nekkid teen-aged girls. Nothing really dirty, no overt sexual acts, etc. Just a lot of skin, filmy lingerie, and some undies. Some of the photos reminded me of paintings I had seen by Reubens. None of it was any different than "The Birth of Venus." But Reubens and and the guy who painted the "Birth of Venus" were artists. What's David Hamilton?

Some time ago, while onstage at an arts and crafts festival, a friend who was in the audience not just dared me, but double dog dared me to sing the unexpurgated version of "Cabbage Head" (Child ballad also known as Our Goodman. I observed that there was an underage person in the audience, sitting with his parents, and I wasn't sure how Mom and Pop would take to such goings on. The double dog dare was issued again, and I said not to egg me on, for this friend knew I would not refuse the challenge. Finally I turned to the Mom & Pop and I said, "OK, [So-and-So] asked for it. You cover up that young one's ears at the proper time." Mom and Pop grinned from ear to ear and sure enough, covered up Junior's ears at the last moment. Now was that porn, or art? I'll leave you to decide. Here is the verse:

I came home the other night
So drunk I couldn't see
And there was a thing in my wife's thing
Where my thing ought to be.
I said to my wife, my pretty little wife
Explain this thing to me.
What's a thing doing in your thing,
Where my thing ought to be?
You fool, you fool, you drunken fool
Don't you plainly see?
Why, it's only, it's only a candle stick
My granny sent to me.
Well, I've travelled this world over
Ten thousand miles or more
But balls on a candle stick, I never have seen before

What's porn, what's art, 'Catters?

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: MMario
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 04:50 PM

depends on the viewpoint and it's a subjective judgement call. The naked supports of a grand piano were "pornographic" to victorians - and the areas of the body considered risque when exposed vary from culture to culture.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Troll
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 04:54 PM

Perception and intent.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Naemanson
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 05:04 PM

Well that clears that up!

Actually they are right. There might be something in the arrangement and lighting. I know most of the porn I have seen could not be interpreted as art by any stretch of the imagination. And a lot of the art (nudes, et al) I've seen could never be considered porn.

Yet, I am willing to bet many of those engaged in the creation of porn consider themselves artists.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Jim Krause
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 05:14 PM

Yeah, Naemanson, I'd have to agree. Still I wish you could have seen that David Hamilton book. I still can't decide whether that guy was trying to be a legit artist, or just a dirty ol' man photographing girlie pix. Some of his stuff was a direct copy, or at least inspired by such painters as Reubens. But somehow there was something lacking. I can't quite put my finger on it. I therefore am not quite sure it was porn. I'll bet the librarian who put it on the shelf couldn't decide either. But I did notice that a couple weeks later, it was gone. Stolen, or "archived" I didn't ask.
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: fulurum
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 05:21 PM

if its hanging on a wall its art. if there is a staple through her navel its porn.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 05:39 PM

The painting was probably "the Rape of Europa" by Titian (the painting is in Boston, I recall). Degas (who was a pretty sick puppy, but a great painter) was once asked why he painted women the way he did, and he said that he wanted them to live forever. That he was sexually aroused by them is obvious to anyone, but he was not trying to use them as mere tools for sexual arousal, he was responding to them as potential subjects of art, not merely as objects of art. Kant similarly suggests that the essence of the ethical treatment of another is to treat the other as an end in themselves rather than just as a means for your own pleasure. Appropriate sexuality presumably is one where both persons simultaneously allow themselves to be used as means to the other person's pleasure, and therefore as ends in themselves. Anything else is a kind of pornography (which suggests that there is a lot of it going around disguised!)

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 06:19 PM

A nice lady I know once told me:

"If women will stare at it, it's art. If only men stare, it's pornography."

I didn't point out that this makes a lot of naked men "art."

Sarah

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: DougR
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 06:25 PM

I believe that anyone who definitively comes up with an answer to this one, should be richly rewarded with a major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Bud Savoie
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 07:26 PM

If it gets financial support from the American government, it's porn.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 08:09 PM

in porn/eroticia, like anything else, including folk music, there is a continuum...but disagreement over lines of division. And even IF it could be defined, there remains the discussion of whether it is 'good' 'tolerable' or 'permissable'...etc.

I have seen very explicit eroticia that was VERY well done, and mild nude 'art' that was badly done and dull.

(and whatever David Hamilton was, he was smart enough to do almost all his work in Europe, particularly Scandinavia, where they take a much more relaxed view of men who make a career of fuzzy photos of young girls..)

perhaps a quote I saw once is appropriate..."Excessive sex is anyone who does it more than YOU do."

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 08:32 PM

An erection?

David Hamilton is extremely well known as are his books, as well as many others by Robert Maplethorpe, Jock Sturges, and others. Is it blatant sex? Kiddie porn? Does the "eye" and skills of a photographer make the difference? Is this the innocence, friendship, and love of two young girls......or a couple of lesbians going at it?

That last statement best defines it in many respects. What do YOU see in the photo? And like so many things, there are no blacks or whites, but rather an infinite series of greys. Does it "appeal to the prurient interests" and is it acceptable by "community standards?" Who can determine either? Who should? And why? Can we apply the same standards to violence? Would you prefer to have your child see two people engaged in some form of love making or Rambo wiping out 10 guys with a flamethrower? Or is that even relevant?

Go on with your discussion and I wish you all the best in answering these questions. The matter of choice is still a personal one and I suspect we all see what we "expect" to see in any given situation. Freedom comes in the ability to exclude what I don't like on a personal level and to allow the openness to muster together and encourage the choices.......Not because I think they are right or wrong, but so that I can be assured the same creative freedom.

If you don't like it, turn it off.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 08:47 PM

I am Art.

Porn is just a cigar.

And a cigar is just a smoke.

Ask Bill.

Art Thieme.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Naemanson
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 11:53 PM

I have a friend who talks of how she and her partner have suffered for their "art". And, she says, someday she's going to catch up with that bastard!

Anyone we know?

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Luke
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 12:10 AM

I suppose music might be considered porn if it gets one excited enough. Ihave been to some dance camps where you might think that dance wasporographic as frisky as the participants were after the dance was done.

What about carnival in Brazil? Is that porographic? Is viagra porographic? Or not because of the Dr's prescription. I think Dr's do prescribe porn if you need to go in a room and fill a bottle. What about that?

I think art is pretty darned exciting myself I gotta quit talking about it. Is porn only visual or can it be just anything that makes you erotically inclined. Man my first banjo was really a big getoff.

Maybe if it's cheap and tawdry it's porn and if it really moves you deeply it's art.

Luke

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: GUEST,Alliekatt
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 12:57 AM

I think that the real difference between porn and art, (or erotica as artistically rendered porn is called), is that when one imagines the person who is the subject of porn, it isn't really a person as much as a passive subject of fantasy meant for physical release. However, when one imagines looking into the eyes of the erotic subject, we give them a dimension of humanity by imagining a real living person there. By this definition, it seems that our personal interpretation alone is the line of distinction. Anything can be porn, and anything can be erotica.

When erotica is the subject, we don't just imagine congress with two-dimensional sources of physical release. It is more than that; the extra dimension that makes our hearts pound. We imagine a living person, someone else with their own thought, mind, emotions, loves and needs. We imagine someone else who also happens to communicate their erotic nature with a way of appearing, such as dress, body language, color of hair and eyes, demeanor, et cetera.

Even the silly and rank cartoons in mens' magazines communicate the erotic nature of the artist, the human being behind the art. He or she has a sense of humor, in itself an erotic state of being, showing the nature of the person who is communicating their sexuality.

Depending on the needs and natures of any given person, every line of distinction is different. But I know that the glowing skin tones of a painted woman was made by artists with acknowledgment of her humanity, in the fashion their culture permitted. No artist can put their soul into painting another person hair by hair without drawing their soul into the canvas. I believe that I can see when artists have done that, drawing the soul of their subject into their work, or else by drawing their own soul and their urges and needs into their work. This, by my distinction, is erotica.

But for anyone who wishes to make it so, it is also porn. The human ability to mentally separate ourselves from other persons, and objectify them, is a survival instinct which works in a climate of physical or emotional survival, but it is not one which I find very erotic. I believe that all men are capable of emotional depth of feeling, and choose to have that depth in some capacity, but in our culture we tend to pigeonhole photographic erotica as objectified matter, believing it an appropriate response, and sadly treat its subjects as such.

The bottom line is whether or not a person is willing to acknowledge that porn is people.

Alliekatt

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: kendall
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 08:58 AM

Who are we to decide this question when the Supreme Court cant do it? If you ask 50 people, you get 50 different answers. How about this..if it praises the human form, it's art..if it degrades it..it's porn.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: GUEST,Audi
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 10:11 AM

I had a English Lit professor I really enjoyed who defined pornography as, "Anything that cheapens the human experience." Interestingly enough, under that definition, he could reasonably defend his argument that the movies Disney puts out are porn, especially Bambi.

I personally feel that if the person has to smear vaseline on the camera lens to make the pic bearable to look at, then it's porn. For me, if it makes me laugh, it is definitely porn. I think porn is hilarous, in my own warped sense of humor, and have a hard time understanding how anyone gets off on it.

On the other hand, David Hamilton has done a lot of black and white work, and I love all of it--I really do. (In other words, it doesn't make me laugh--LOL!) I've seen "Sisters" and (I do apologize if this offends you) to me, it is art. His work with shadows/light is incredible. One of his best photos is a picture of a woman's thigh/knee.

I'm not trying to start an argument. I guess I'm just agreeing that porn is subjective. I was gullible enough in the other thread to click on that one mistake and I just had to run away from my computer--LOL! I should know better. I even read Joe's warning and still didn't get it.

But, I did laugh at the nonsense there--and my frantic feeling of being dumped upon when I couldn't close any of those windows and had to bail out with disconnect. That was so much porn I laughed half an hour afterwards.

Audi

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: The Shambles
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 10:34 AM

Rape of Europa.

Are you sure this is the right one?

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: The Shambles
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 10:41 AM

Not this one The Rape of the Sabine Women?

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: The Shambles
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 10:43 AM

Not this one The Rape of the Sabine Women?

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: mousethief
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 01:26 PM

Funny this subject should come up. I was just reading CS Lewis's "An Experiment in Criticism" last night. Here are some relevant excerpts:

This attitude, which was once my own, might almost be defined as 'using' pictures. While you retain this attitude you treat the picture--or rather a hasty and unconcious selection of elements in the picture--as a self-starter for certain imaginative and emotional activities of your own. In other words, you 'do things with it.' You don't lay yourself open to what it, by being in its totality the thing it is, can do to you. (pp 16-17)

If this is how the many use pictures, we must reject at oncer the haughty notion that their use is always and necessarily a vulgar and silly one. It may or may not be. The subjective activities of which they make pictures the occasion may be on all sorts of levels. To one such spectator Tintoretto's Three Graces may be merely an assistance in prurient imagination; he has used it as pornography. To another, it may be the starting-point for a meditation on Greek myth which, in its own right, is of value. It might conceivably, in its own different way, lead to something as good as th epicture itself. This may be what happened when Keats looked at a Grecian urn. If so, his use of the vase was admirable. But admirable in its own way; not admirable as an appreciation of ceramic art. The corresponding uses of pictures are extremely various and there is much to be said for many of them. There is only one thing we can say with confidence against all of them without exception: they are not essentially appreciations of pictures.

Real appreciation demand the opposite process. We must not let loose our own subjetivity upon the pictures and make them its vehicles. We must begin by laying aside as completely as we can all our own preconceptions, interests, and associations. We must make room for Botticelli's Mars and Venus, or Cimabue's Crucifixion, by emptying out our own. After the negative effort, the positive. We must use our eyes. We must look, and go on looking till wee have certainly seen exactly what is there. We sit down before the picture in order to h ave something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.) (pp 18-19)

From the example of the man who uses Tintoretto as pornography it is apparent that a good work of art may be used in the wrong way. But it wil seldom yield to this treatment so easily as a bad one. Such a man will gladly turn from Tintoretto to Kirchner or photographs if no moral or cultural hypocrisy prevents him. They contain fewer irrelevancies; more ham and less fill.

But the reverse is, I believe, impossible. A bad picture cannot be enjoyed with that full and disciplined 'reception' which the few give to a good one. This was borne in upon me lately when I was waiting at a bus stop near a hoarding and found myself, for a minute or so, really looking at a poster--a picture of a man and a girl drinking beer in a public house. It would not endure the treatment. Whatever merits it had seemed to have at the first glance diminished with every second of attention. The smiles became waxwork grins. The colour was, or seemed to me, tolerably realistic, but was in no way delightful. There was nothing in the composition to satisfy the eye. The whole poster, besides being 'of' something, was not also a pleasing object. And this, I think, is what must happen to any bad picture if it is really examined. (P. 20)

-------------

Putting all these together I'd venture the following definition: pornography is work which can be used to tittillate, but which does not hold up as good art under close scrutiny.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 02:24 PM

What's the difference between porn and art? You're not allowed to jerk off in an art gallery.
Seriously though, this might just lead into one of those "what is art?" discussions... possibly as tricky as "what is folk?". I think troll's on the right track, the eye-of-the-beholder-type-thing.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: GUEST,khandu
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 04:00 PM

My son owns an art gallery; Franklin's Fine Arts.

I have never jerked off in his gallery.

khandu

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: The Shambles
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 04:08 PM

You can masturbate
In the Tate
But it's not rational
In The National.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 08:41 PM

"Venus de Milo, was noted for her charms,
(But strictly between us,
You're cuter than Venus,)
And baby, you've got arms!"

...old pop song which I've forgotten the rest of

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Matt_R
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 08:47 PM

I don't know...have you ever seen Ingres nudes? or some of the Pre-Raphaelite nudes? Mmm mmm mmm...

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: The Shambles
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 08:50 PM

I have just remembered. It may not be rational in the National, but that's where 'The Rape of the Sabine Women' is. I grew up with it and was very fond of it. It probably explains quite a lot about me?

Not that I ever did THAT there. I was not that fond of the painting and too much of THAT, over the years makes it difficult to make out the paintings. Or so they say?

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 09:27 PM

I seem to remember giggling with a friend over a B&W photo of the statue "The Lovers" in my encyclopaedia at about 11 yrs...*sigh*

........ "Doing 'that' will make you go blind"

"Well, how about if I just do it till I need glasses?"

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Hutzul
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 01:39 AM

In the words of the late, hilarious Southerner Louis Grizzard:

"Naked is when you ain't got no clothes on. Nekkid is when you ain't got no clothes on and you doin' somp'in."

Best of the Season to all you 'Catters.

Hutzul

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 05:45 AM

You know, this thread relates to the calendar thread. Would a calendar of naked Mudcatters be art or porn?

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 07:54 AM

I was wondering... if porn is sexually explicit material, then surely porn and art aren't mutually exclusive - a picture could be porn and also art...? Of course, that's back to defining porn and I'm perhaps I'm being a bit too general.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 10:39 AM

So... what IS folk music anyway?

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Matt_R
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 11:03 AM

But at least here no one jumps on your case if you think modern porn is better than 100 year old porn! I can see it now...old crusty guy "All this modern porn is total drivel! It's all about commercialism and money! Back in the good old days, it was about gettin' off! No one seems to remember that nowadays! Thank goodness there's some folks still out there making good porn that's based on the old values instead of all this soulless rubbish...."

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: The Shambles
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 11:59 AM

Is this the time we bring horses in to the discussion?

No maybe not?

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 05:02 PM

LMAO, Matt! You hit the nail with that one.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Wavestar
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 06:16 PM

Actually, Matt, I'd say that about porn, but not about music. Most modern porn sucks. The Kama Sutra, or ancient oriental erotic prints... now that's interesting and intense. The models look like they are having fun! Which is more than I can say for Penthouse, or even Playboy most of the time.

-J

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Matt_R
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 06:30 PM

Did you ever see that Hokusai print with the girl and the 2 octopuses? Oooooo....

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Wavestar
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 07:20 PM

Dunno about octopi.

-J

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Matt_R
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 07:44 PM

Aw, but it was a play on words! Octopuses! Get it? Get it? Maybe not...

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Wavestar
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 07:47 PM

Oooaaawwww... Matt! That was awful.

Look, I'm tired, okay?

-J

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Matt_R
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 07:58 PM

I know...but you could have seen what them octopi were doing...yeeesh.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Matt_R
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 08:22 PM

BTW if you want to SEE it, it's right here.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: mousethief
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 11:36 PM

This is interesting and apropos the subject. It is from the introduction to Ed Cray's "The Erotic Muse: American Bawdy Songs." This man is clearly no prude; he gives fully unexpurgated versions of some very "dirty" songs. Here is his take on pornography: (warning! dirty words!) (2nd edition, hardcover, pp xxviii - xxix)

Sexual intercourse, often in heroic bouts; penises of equally heroic proportions; cunts worthy of such cocks; seduction of the innocent but agreeable maiden -- this is the stuff of bawdry.

It is also the stock material of that which, for lack of a better definition, is labeled "hard-core" pornography. There is one major difference: pornography is rarely humorous. Indeed, if it has any distinguishing characteristic, it is this lack of humor. Pornography is grim in its detgermination, its single-minded insistence upon clinical detail.

Not so the bawdy song, which rushes to climax the scene in laughter; the pornography meanwhile grinds relentlessly for tumescence....

The pornographic world is preeminently a sexual Schlauraffenland, the erotic pervading the fantasy, fantasy pervading the erotic. The people of Pornographia are capable of unending sexual bouts, only now and again fortified by aphrodisiacs.... The men ejaculate in super-human streams, again and again, past all limits of known capability. The women are pliant, cardboard receptacles whose response -- how different from the real world -- is invariable, predictable, oriented to the gratification of their partners, male or female. Sexual intercourse results in no untoward effects. The female is rarely impregnated, despite the interminable coitus. Veneral disease goes unmentioned. Nothing, not even an incidental menstrual period, is permitted to intrude upon paradise.

Above all, pornography is a male-oriented art form. It is loveless, mechanistic, centered upon the act itself, not upon the emotive aspects that women in Western European cultures demand of sex. Its concern apparently is to provoke the reader to potency....

That folk balladry and pornography have some similar traits is accidental.

------------

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: Grab
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 06:59 AM

Wavestar: Kama Sutra (or versions I've seen) are about as erotic as a cookbook. Which is what some of it was - it was originally a book about how to be a good wife, IIRC, and the sex bit was just part of it (but the famous part and the one that gets printed now). Loads of descriptions of different positions, but that's that. Even the (later) artwork ain't that hot.

Spaw: Shades of grey, certainly. At one end, there's things like the one love scene in Terminator - beautifully shot, essential to the plot, good actors, and no-one other than an extreme prude would label it porn. At the other end there's ppl just going through the motions in front of a video camera, which are undoubtedly porn. Somewhere around the border are the many Sharon Stone kit-off films - no-one could call them good films, but they're not exactly your typical cheap thrills material either.

Could we just go for the folk-music-type definition? Pornography is what ppl making pornography produce.

Grab.

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: GUEST,Audi
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 02:00 PM

Yes, Grab. As Abraham Lincoln said, "For the kind of people that like that sort of thing, it's just the sort of thing those kind of people would like."

(This was quoted from memory and might not be exact--but it's very close.)

Subject: RE: BS: What's the difference between porn & art
From: GUEST,BopP
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 02:24 PM

Some would say that what Hefner sells is art, what Flynn sells is porn.

One of those two became a role model, the Chicago city council last year named a street in his honor. The other never pretended to be anything you'd ever want to name anything after.

Thanks, Larry.

I always hoped Chicago would name a street to honor Steve Goodman, now I think his memory is better served just by remembering to sing his songs.