Porn Or Art? The Debate Rages On

well damn thats nice…art,porn..its all the same.I think gthe original defineition of pornography was “the writing of harlots’.

who cares?

OK, now you’ve done it, Fleshbot, you’ve lured me into this discussion. As a former art-historian, I am going to invite you to look at a painting by Neoclassical painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres from 1862 called “The Turkish Bath”: [en.wikipedia.org]

Now, bear in mind that Ingres was a god in the art world. His paintings were hung in Paris salons and collected by the wealthy. Even Picasso & Matisse consider Ingres to be influences. Bear in mind, color photography did not exist. To have a lifelike image of naked women to masturbate to, it would have to be a painting.

Now is this porn? Is it art? 146 years later, of course Ingres is “art”. But send Reverend Robert Falwell back in time to 1862 and he would say the painting of naked women in a Turkish Bath is “porn”.

Erotic themes and imagery permeates throughout human civilization and artistic expression. On my trip to India I saw temples thousands of years old with stone carvings of males & females doing hot & sexy things.

The Victorian Era brought about a puritanical vision of sexuality and ushered forth the effort to label sexual images as something dirty (pornography). But it was also during this era when technology like film & photography came about. This enabled mass production, distribution, and consumption of images. (Today we have DVDs & Fleshbot & iPhone crotch photos sent via IM.)

What’s the upshot of all this? The Art vs. Porn conflict is actually a product of Victorian thinking in which visual expression is divided into “good” (art) & “bad” (porn). This is a trap. There is no actual conflict because art & porn are all “media”. The conflict is only “moral” – the Victorian legacy of repressing the mass consumption of images that would erode “moral” life.

I’d say that Porn is a *subset* of Art. Artistic expression is the communication of ideas in media (stone carvings, oil-paints, photography, video, etc.). Those ideas communicated could be political, romantic, ideological, natural, etc. Pornographic expression is the communication of *sexual* ideas in media (stone carvings, oil-paints, photography, video, etc.). All pornography is a form of artistic expression. Whether it’s GOOD ART (to be shared & enjoyed) or BAD ART (walk out of museum immediately) depends on your moral basis. Same thing with Good Porn (share & enjoy on Fleshbot!) and Bad Porn (hit delete button now).

I will say, however, that any image depicting something criminal (kiddie porn & animals, for instance) is NEITHER art NOR porn. Those are recorded images of crimes (perpetrated against kids and animals) because the depicted actors are not capable of consent. People collecting that stuff are collecting criminal evidence.

The rest, “good art vs. bad art” and “good porn vs. bad porn” is all up to you. Find art that you enjoy & stimulate you, just like finding porn that you enjoy & stimulate you. Just keep in mind that there’s lots of art that is disgusting (i.e. painters who use their own body fluids & excrement) and there’s lots of porn that’s disgusting (snuff & scat).

I agree with piggythewonderdog. Time will tell! Anyway, where’s the photo from?