posted
I know Hatrack is a family forum, and I promise to keep this appropriate. This weekend I had admitted how odd it was to be one of the Hatrack Porn People (there's a trio -- me, TomD, and Chris Bridges -- and we'll be headlining your local saloon and hootchie hall this coming Saturday ).
When I use the word porn, I refer to sexually-oriented material (sexual in content or context, or both) that can be expected to pique adult interest. There are so many different claims made about sexually explicit material that I find defining porn to be "that icky stuff" makes it incommensurable to use as common term. There is just too much variation between people.
So, for example, when I think of porn, I think of what I might be expected to think of, but also this, this, and this. I have chosen these to be work-safe (as far as I can tell). They are erotic photos taken by a fantastic photographer, and I consider each to be fabulous and incredibly intimate.
Is this porn to you? Why or why not? Do you agree that it is suitable for viewing by children? Even if it is erotic? (Or is it not erotic to you?)
By the way, I am committed to doing no disservice here, and if anyone finds these links or this thread objectionable, I will gladly delete. Therefore, consider it a Mayfly Thread.
I switched again while I was going back and methodically deleting CT posts. I hopped back to reply to something and absentmindedly forgot to log out and then back in again. Suddenly, "ClaudiaTherese" felt right again, so I kept it.
This has caused some sporadic consternation, and for that y'all have my apologies. Admittedly, it has occurred to me that being a committed HPP under my given name might not be the wisest decision. My supervisor, who is a remarkable and amazing man, is not someone I could comfortably discuss this topic with.
Consider it my way of protecting the delicate sensibilities of those who know me.
*grin
[Not that there would have been anything wrong with that. I do, however, have some modicum of privacy and general Catholic uptightness.]
posted
I'm not sure I have anything to add to thread content at the moment, but thank you for linking to these wonderful pictures! This one in particular... wow! (Also work safe.) Yes, I think it's erotic, in the same way that a good photographer can make a pear or a swath of cloth erotic.
In my mind, there is usually a delineation between erotica and porn, and I'm not quite sure why or if there should be. I think I'll think and listen for awhile.
Flickr.com is a moderated site that has a wide variety of photos, and although some are erotically charged, I've never found anything I would consider to be objectionable.
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Doesn't look erotic at all to me. But then, that might be because of my job. I could explain more but then someone would put me in the out of context thread and I'd get embarrassed. Hmm. I might have more to say about the subject after I think some more.
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I know what you mean. Currently I am not practicing in clinic, but doing research, and this likely affects my view of things. But even during residency, I still found some such images erotic. Only in particular contexts, though -- at work, I click into a very different mode. I never understood how someone would switch gears so thoroughly, but it is certainly true that it happens. I don't know how or when I learned the skill -- upon reflection, the transition seemed to have organically grown out of the experience.
I wonder if learning to make such separations and distinctions in our minds can kind of mess around with physicians' sense of the erotic?
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Gorgeous photos CT. The kind that you just drink in, if you know what I mean. This thread inspired me to spend the last half hour or so looking at photos of Rodin sculpture. His Danaid* is one of the most erotic and beautiful sculptures of the 19th century, I think.
*Those who are squicked out by eroticism should be aware that that photo is probably the most explicit so far linked to in this thread.
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I would love to see some of Rodin's work in real life. I've only seen photos and the occasional small reproduction.
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Noemon, I love that sculpture! A lot of Rodin's stuff is fabulous, but that one takes it just a step beyond.
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Although I love seeing sculpture "live," with something like that it would be difficult for me. I am a very tactile person -- a lot of the time I buy clothing based on how it feels instead of how it looks -- and it would be very difficult for me not to run my hands over the stone and get kicked out of the museum and/or prosecuted. I see some things better when I feel them.
[AHhhh! ElJay, this wasn't in response to you. I was staring off into space and musing on Noemon's link. Below, read "behaving inappropriately" as, say "humping." I was not thinking of a caress. ]
Now, mind you, I have no immediate impulse to behave inappropriately with that sculpture. The Danaid is quite safe from my lecherous advances. But I do recognize it as erotic, and appreciating that does put me more in the mind of seeing eroticism elsewhere. The curve of my love's foot (even in slightly worn gray cotton socks) is yet more intimate and inviting.
So, okay, I'd call it porn. (Again, though, I'd recognize that the semantics of this are complicated and far from privileged by anyone.)
posted
I prefer Camille Claudel to Rodin for sculptures. My favorite would have to be her most famous, The Waltz, or La Valse.
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I think porn tends to fall in the category of non-art. I'd consider non-art usually something where the person making it determines what kind of price they expect to charge for it in advance of making it. I suppose there are aspects of commissioned art that blur this definition a bit. And I don't mean to say all non-art is porn. Graphic design and crafts are worthwhile, but the point is that their worth is not inestimable.
It's like the difference between a politician voting on something because it is what he really wants for his constituents versus doing it because some lobbyist is compensating him. It gets back to the "payoff" dialog in the good and evil thread. But I wouldn't be using the terms good and evil so much as authentic vs. serviceable.
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Jimminy Cricket, there could not have been a less fortuitous juxtaposition of posts. ElJay, I was not commenting on your desire to touch the sculpture.
I was thinking about (what I take to be) the general response to pornographic material -- i.e., if we find something erotically charged, the mind goes into rut. I think this forced dichotomy between erotic and non-erotic is potentially quite unhelpful.
I wouldn't kick you out of my museum. *grin
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[I will, however, repeat myself indefinitely. Sorry for the quintuple postage -- Hatrack burped for me. *pat, pat]
mothertree, if you are comfortable with the question (and if not, feel free to ignore it! ), how would you classify the above linked photos and pieces of sculpture? Porn? erotic? Both? Servicable or authentic?
Not trying to challenge, I promise. Cross my heart most fervently. Just trying to puzzle through how this works for others.
posted
To me, pornography means something that is used to arouse certain feelings and ideas. Though there are some things (pictures, movies, what have yous) that are obviously pornography, there are some things, that are less clear. CT, you most common example is erotic literature, or erotic poetry (right?) I would say this is still pornography, though I would rank it on a different level. A lot of the things that are wrong with most porn are not in these types of things. I would say that most times people speak of pornography they’re speaking of items like what I mentioned above (explicitly pornographic material). These materials I feel are wrong for many reasons. For one, it requires sexual acts in a non-private, non married status, and I’m enough of a religious prude to say that’s wrong. Many of the productions (I have a much more detailed knowledge than I would like after having heard it intimately described over dinner at my dorm cafeteria last year ) are brutal to the people involved, which makes sense since it’s basically prostitution with a camera. Some of the woman are happy to be a part of it I’m sure, but I get the impression that a lot aren’t and are either being taken advantage of or are portrayed as being taken advantage of.
Which leads into my next point, the portrayal of both genders. Much of pornography seems to be about power and control, I would guess men over women mostly, but I’ve certainly heard plenty about the other way around. What’s wrong with that? After all, many books and certainly the scriptures have a lot to do with power! Not necessarily gender based, but still. The problem is, as I see it, that the act of sex becomes about power, one person over another. That’s what people seek, and associate with the action, that’s what they want it to be in idealization. It degrades the act, and the attitude of those who view it. When (if) they get married it is still an action inspired by power, of one person over their spouse, which is certainly not healthy. The bonding that the action is designed for, between a married couple (yes, in my opinion, this is all in my opinion ) can no longer fulfill its purpose.
Of course it also has another problem commonly mentioned: the objectification of women. Well that’s true enough, I think an effect that is glossed over but has been in my observation, more pronounced and more harmful, is the objectification of the person viewing such material. In concentrating only on creating pleasure for themselves they see both sex, and their time merely as an opportunity to have that one moment of pleasure. The more pornography viewed the more their life becomes about reaching that moment of ecstasy.
The immediate intent of pornography is of course, personal gratification. Now for me, that’s a problem in and of itself as I feel onanism is wrong, but I know that’s not true for everyone. However, personal gratification means that an act that was designed to bring to people close is now being used as self-pleasing, and when preformed with someone else becomes merely a way of two people pleasing themselves, not each other.
Now on the extreme end of pornography there is also the very serious problem of complete addiction. Pornography acts just like any drug, and its abuse can lead to a desperate search for harder and harder versions of it, in what I see as a desperate search for substance in a medium that by definition, has none. I have seen people do this, one person discovered materials so graphic and … well, graphic beyond reason, and began searching out videos of real killings, and other similar depictions. As I understand it (and this is not from personal experience as the previous example was, but just as I understand it) extreme use of pornography will often result in sexual experimentation, sometimes basically harmless with a partner, but sometimes up to the point of rape and other seditious acts. The lack of substance in the material leads the user to the obvious solution, find substance in life. But by this point sex has lost its actual ability and is no longer truly an experience between two people but mutual-self-gratification and for the user, there’s nothing left that will give reality to the experience, no matter how extreme they get.
Now I know there are people here, like you CT, that can say to me that you have no problems like these with your spouse, and don’t even use those manifestations of pornography. First off, I’d like to point out that this doesn’t invalidate anything I said, the fact that erotic literature doesn’t force people to have sex outside of marriage like visual pornography does, doesn’t invalidate that argument against the pornography that does have this effect. So that while your arguments are valid for your cases, so are mine for the much more general case.
So what about erotic literature? The more “mundane” erotic literature (non-explicit, not about extreme situations) doesn’t have many of the problems I mentioned above. So yes, I would call it “better”, and put it in a different class than most of the pornography available today. Is it still wrong? Well the way I define pornography, all of it is morally unclean (I feel) even if some is better than the rest. Fundamentally anything that is used to derive onanistic pleasures is wrong. Why? Well because it takes an act and feeling that is meant entirely for the bonding of two people to one (and the conception of children) and makes it about the self. This lessens the meaning of it, and the ability for it to be used for its original purpose. Sex is a sacred thing (let me re-iterate: in my opinion) and should be put out for consumption, but shared and created in marriage only.
posted
I like Claudel's work, but I probably prefer Rodin.
Anyone else here a fan of Helenestic Baroque sculpture? I haven't found all that many great examples of the style online, beyond the incredibly well known, like The Laocoon, but if you can find offline photos of, say, the fragments surviving from Tiberius' Grotto in Sperlonga, it's well worth viewing. If you can find any detail photos of the tracery of veins on the top of Polyphemus' foot, in The Blinding of Polyphemus, it's simply breath-taking (That photo I just linked to doesn't do that sculpture justice in any way, shape, or form, just FYI).
ElJay, I know what you mean--I'm exactly the same way. I was at my local art institute the other day looking at a frieze depicting these sensuously twining Chinese dragons, and couldn't help but run my hands over it. I didn't trip an alarm, though, and there weren't any guards around when I did it, so I didn't get kicked out.
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I hope that helped CT, I know you were having trouble understanding the opposition to things like erotic literature since most of the reasons those of us religious people think porn is wrong has to do with extreme use of it, or with the more hardcore material. I tried to focus on this issue.
As for the pictures, I feel a little uncomfortable clicking on the links on the Sabbath, hope you understand.
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Of course, Hobbes. And I appreciate your very thoughtful and considerate analysis. As always, it is worth reading over many times.
Should you choose never to click on the links, I would be perfectly supportive of that choice. Sometime (if you are of a mind, but not unless so), I'd love to hear you comment on Rodin. There is the classic The Thinker as well as others, like The Danaid linked above. I don't have much problem understanding a viewpoint such as yours with regards to what is referred to as hardcore material (how's that for convoluted? ), but I don't have any idea at all what you'd say about Rodin's sculptures.
Mind you, this is the Sabbath. And you might well wish to refrain from Rodinage on non-Sabbath days as well. Such restraint would not be taken to be at all undermining of your philosophical and religious positions. Just want to be clear.
posted
CT, I would kick me out of my museum. A hundred years of people running their hands over a sculpture and its beauty would be severly diminished.
Ain't condeming Noemon, now, I'd probably do the same if I could get away with it. But I certainly understand why it's not allowed, and agree with the reasons. Intellectually.
(And I would not have taken offense at your post, CT, even without the corrections. But I think the juxposition is funny. And I was afk right after my lst post, so I didn't see yours 'til all the fixes were in anyway.)
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The part at the end about the Sabbath thing. I THINK I was thinking the same thing, that if you wouldn't do something on the Sabbath, then it doesn't seem you'd be doing it on any other day, either.
Hobbes: Onanism IS wrong, but I think only in the true meaning of the word as explained in the OT.
CT: The photos are amazing. Beautiful art. I like. Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I tried to find a link, but I didn't have any luck so I'm just gonna have to type it out. But here it goes:
In one of my classes last semester we had to read Gloria Steinem's "Erotica and Pronography" and it seemed to address the issue fairly well.
"Erotic: A mutually pleasuarable, sexual expression between people who have enough power to be there by positive choice. It may or may not strike the sense-memory in the viewer, or be creative enough to make the unknown seem real; but it doesn't require us to idetify with a conqueror or a victim. It is truly sensuous, and may give us a contagion of pleasure.
Pornographic: Its message is violence, dominance, and conquest. It is sex being used to reinforce some inequality, or to create one, or to tell un the lie that pain and humiliation (our's or someone else's) are really the same as pleasure. If we are to feel anythign, we must identify with conqueror or victim. That means we can only experience pleasure though the adoption of some degree of sadism or masochism. It also means that we may fee diminished be the role of conqueror, or enraged, humiliated, and vengeful by sharing identity with the victim.
Perhaps one could simply say that erotica is about sexuality, but pornography is about power and sex-as-weapon--in the same way we have come to understand that rape is about violence, and not really about sexuality at all."
Now, about the pictures. I could see how the could be seen as erotic, but I could also see how they could just be seen as pictures. I'm not so sure if I would let children see them, but then the term "children" is a very subjective thing. What age? maturity level?
posted
CT: I'm thinking over a response about the blending of art and eroticism, I'll see what I can do.
quote:Hobbes: Onanism IS wrong, but I think only in the true meaning of the word as explained in the OT.
Mack, that's a perfectly fair view; to me though, I meant how we at Hatrack normally use the word, any masturbatory activity at all. I'm not saying everyone has to agree with me, but that's what I think.
quote:What can one say after reading such a post but...Hobbes?
posted
mack: Ah. He had mentioned not wanting to click on the links on the Sabbath, and I want to be respectful of that choice. I don't practice Sabbath days, but I imagine that some who do might set it aside for reasons not understood by me. That's cool. I don't want to put any undue pressure on anyone to justify themselves to me.
Your work would be very popular on Flickr. Feel free to check out some of David's ("dbblues") contacts. Some are mundane, but some are amazing. Nice to get feedback from a photographic community, too.
Hobbes: No rush. Someday in the indefinite and potential future is just fine.
IA: I read a lot of GS growing up, as my aunt would send me birthday boxes of books about and by people in the feminist movement. GS's distinction made sense to me. However, things looked more confusing to me with the more I read about how other people slot things into those categories. It seems like the distinction she draws is one that can be made (obviously), but I'm not sure it's a useful distinction to make. In practice, it doesn't seem to make any of the murky areas any clearer, at least not for me.
posted
I'm sorry Hobbes, but I just have to correct your spelling as in this instance it pains me to read : masturbatory
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CT, unfortunately I couldn't get the pictures you linked to come up. I'm on dial-up and decided after 5 minutes that I was tired of waiting.
But, if they're in the same vein as the Rodin sculpture that Noemon linked to, I would not classify them as porn. Erotic? Yes. Sensual? Very. Beautiful? Definately yes. I would feel comfortable with my children seeing that sculpture, and would hope they could appreciate the beauty found in a human form. Neither one of my children, I'm pretty sure, would recognize the sculpture as erotic. And if they did, what a much better introduction than the bouncing boobs of Baywatch.
I'm a fan of pieces such as that sculpture, but I do admit a distaste for explicit photos and movies. I don't like my sexual buttons being pushed that easily, if that makes sense. I enjoy a more gentle sensuality, not the in-your-face type of sexual stimulus that will arouse anyone with hormones.
space opera
edit: I used the wrong word! And CT quoted it!
[ February 20, 2005, 04:42 PM: Message edited by: Space Opera ]
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When I looked at the pictures, my first thought was "the artist loves his subject" and I felt a desire to know and love the subject. I don't think this translates into a sexual desire, but it definitely translates into a desire to feel the same intimate connection that the artist has enjoyed.
I think that, for me, this love and reverence for the subject as captured by the artist, is what makes these photos art and the lack of reverence would make a photo of the same body parts porn.
On our wall at work we have a shard of a portion of a female torso. The shard includes one breast. When I first saw this shard hanging in a freind's art shop, I fell in love with it. It did not make me feel sexual in the sense that I wanted to touch it, but it seemed to celebrate my own womanhood and motherhood. My husband and I later became friends with the artist, Alex, and his wife. Alex proudly told us that his wife had been the model for the shard.
quote:But, if they're in the same vein as the Rodin sculpture that Noemon linked to
Yes -- somewhat more abstract, but I would say the same feel. Certainly not more explicit.
quote:I would feel comfortable with my children seeing that sculpture, and would hope they could appreciate the beauty found in a human form. Neither one of my children, I'm pretty sure, would recognize the sculpture as erotic. And if they did, what a much better introduction than the bouncing boobs of Baywatch.
Wow. Couldn't have said it better, myself.
quote:When I looked at the pictures, my first thought was "the artist loves his subject" and I felt a desire to know and love the subject. I don't think this translates into a sexual desire, but it definitely translates into a desire to feel the same intimate connection that the artist has enjoyed.
And again, what a wonderful and precise way of putting it.
quote:It did not make me feel sexual in the sense that I wanted to touch it, but it seemed to celebrate my own womanhood and motherhood. My husband and I later became friends with the artist, Alex, and his wife. Alex proudly told us that his wife had been the model for the shard.
posted
I don't consider those photos pornographic, but at the same time, it doesn't cause me to go "Oooo, and Ahhhhh". Sorry, just personal taste.
Hobbes, not to be critical, but if you aren't going to click on those on the sabbath, you probably shouldn't click on them later (cause if you are going to get impure thoughts today, no difference for tomorrow, dude). Sorry to derail, but is it because you are trying to keep the sabbath day holy?
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I think the distinction Irish posted is highly valuable, but since not everyone uses those definitions they don’t work too well in reality. However, it does illuminate part of the problem in discussions about whether porn is, by nature, “bad.” If you define porn as the bad stuff and erotica as the good stuff, then porn is, by definition bad. If though you define porn (as Chris Bridges has in these discussions) as any sexual material, then you have “good” and “bad” porn.
(Replace "good" and "bad" with whatever describes the distinction earlier refered to for you. I think most of you can figure out what I’m trying to say here.)
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quote:Hobbes, not to be critical, but if you aren't going to click on those on the sabbath, you probably shouldn't click on them later (cause if you are going to get impure thoughts today, no difference for tomorrow, dude). Sorry to derail, but is it because you are trying to keep the sabbath day holy?
T, I think the idea of judging if something is pornographic or not just doesn't seem like something to do on the Sabbath, just as playing games is something not to do on the Sabbath because it doesn't help with the correct attitude. I have no problem playing volleyball come Monday, but I wouldn't do it on Sunday. I don't really have much issue with clicking on something CT (and everyone else) seems to think is perfectly safe, but I feel strange about doing it on Sunday is all.
Dana, I know -- GS pinpoints what I think of as wrong about some things. Definitely, spot on. But it's the same basic reason I find some photos of graphic violence wrong. At the base, it's the same -- and even so, some violent images in a different context or photographed in a different style would not be offensive to me.
I'm thinking of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning photo of the napalmed child* in particular. As part of a video game, I would find it appalling. As a documentation of human suffering in a time of war, I find it unforgettable and important.
This suggests to me that it is likely more about what we bring to the image than the image itself. I think. Although that isn't really straight-forward, either. But it's enough of a problem that I've become willing to throw up my hands and just equate "porn" with "sexually-oriented material (sexual in content or context, or both) that can be expected to pique adult interest."
It's a compromise. I'm still all muddled about how to make sense of it, but this feels most useful way to approach it for me. However, it is definitely a matter of personal preference.
*[warning: graphic. It's a well-known photo that you probably have already seen, though -- certainly if you are of a certain age.]
quote:As a documentation of human suffering in a time of war, I find it unforgettable and important.
That's so much what art can be, a documentation and expression of human nature at that moment in time from both the artist's perspective, as well as the person viewing the art. Art can tweak out different bits of human nature, light and dark, softly or harshly.
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Hobbes, I'm sorry but I see that as a bit illogical on your part, and your reasoning. I do respect your decision to do so, since I am not you nor the judge of your character, so I won't push this further.
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Those were beautiful pictures. I like graceful and erotic pictures that seem to celebrate the beauty of the human form. Porn, for the most part is rather boring and lacking in romance and beauty...But, there is something oddly beautiful about two men kissing........*trailing off*
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Hobbes, sugar, anything you choose about this sort of thing is fine by me.
If it helps to know in advance (for later), the photos I linked to are as follows:
1. Shadowed skin in black-and-white. I think it is an unclothed woman [maybe a man without chest hair?] with her arm obscuring her breasts, but I'm not sure. Quite abstract.
2. A closeup of more skin, but in color this time. A flexed ankle mirrored by a thigh as the person (apparently -- it is a heavily cropped close-up, so also somewhat abstract) squats down. Taut thigh with light gold downy hairs, darker gold-brushed dirt on the heel.
3. Another color shot, also quite cropped. The valley of a lower back (I think male, maybe female?) silhoutted against white.
Noemon linked to a Rodin sculpture which has as its subject a nude woman on her knees, arms and head flung forward onto the ground. You see the curve of her neck and spine, splaying up to her hips. The edge of one thigh is visible. Only her back view is present, as she is sprawled forward on her arms.
Thanks, guys. I'm off to do more mundane stuff, but I'll keep an eye on the thread. Anything untoward and I'll delete the whole thing with impunity. (fair warning!)
quote:Hobbes, I'm sorry but I see that as a bit illogical on your part, and your reasoning. I do respect your decision to do so, since I am not you nor the judge of your character, so I won't push this further.
It might be illogical, I don't know. When I thought about clicking on the links I felt uncomfortable about doing so on the Sabbath, and so I didn't, which is really the bottom line for me.
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I fixed it for you. 
