Pixiq

 The conversation about 'art vs porn' is such a complex topic that almost becomes redundant once you allow yourself to think properly about it. First of all, people spend energy wrestling in conversation about 'art' and 'porn' without even first defining what art and porn are.

What is art?

 People on Phlearn during a recent discussion of 'Porn Vs Art' (here) were debating nudity in art/photography, "where do you draw the line" between what is 'art' and 'porn'? The problem is that word 'you': it symbolises so many variables that it boggles the mind, and means that the topic often becomes very opinion-heavy. People were hinging their arguments upon links to their favourite photographers' nude work as if to say "hey, this stuff is good! Doesn't show any hairy bits, it's beautiful and definitely 'art!'' First, why would finding something likeable, comfortable or acceptable, qualify it as 'art'? Art can be anything: it is something produced that becomes a form of communication, whether it is skilfully produced, successful or not, liked by you or not.

What is porn?

Then, to define porn? Porn is a display of nudity or sexual activity with the main intention of arousing the viewer, its intention being to stimulate the sexual mind/organs rather than the intelligent mind. But sex is natural, and in no way inherently 'dirty', so first we must question exactly why that is wrong - by differentiating between 'porn' and 'sexual'. Not all nudity is sexual, not all sexual images are porn/erotica, not all porn/erotica is necessarily morally corrupt. And not all porn/erotica even involves always nudity.

The real reason that most modern porn is questionable is because of the way it increasingly reduces sexuality to a detached mindless sexual organ with absence of emotion and love, encourages sex as an expression of aggression, and also the imbalanced way it is women who are routinely commodified in the imagery. Sexual activity itself is not lewd. There is nothing wrong with picturing the naked genitals, even sex acts themselves - by definition, why can that not be 'art'? In an extreme illustrative example: even if an artist chose to film an actual porn scene, does not mean the result cannot be art (for example - he/she might be trying to make a point about the porn industry.)

Like anyone else I have my own tastes in nude art: what I make, and what I enjoy of others' work. Within the 'art' world though, I wouldn't dare to try strictly define 'what is art and what is porn' determined by what I, one tiny person in 7 billion of us, would like to hang on my wall or not.

Context

The context in which the thing exists tells us a lot about whether it is, by definition of genre, 'art' or 'porn'. A Page 3 girl, or bikini-clad totty on even on the embarrassing Ryanair website (an airline!) is a form of titillation and soft porn to be mindlessly gobbled up by the (male) consumer. It is not intended to provoke thinking. It's what everyone sums up with the words "sex sells", shorthand for "capitalism's way to the breadwinner's wallet is through their pants, by serving up the opposite sex's body as prime cuts on a plate".

Now let's think to a gallery or an artist's portfolio, where there might be a photo that shows a woman completely naked, showing her breasts and even her genitalia. It is presented in an art context and it is likely that there is some kind of deeper intent to the image. But heck, the viewer might even be turned on by it (even more than any porn!) But that does not make its genre 'porn'. And the extent of the nudity, or skill level of the artist, are irrelevant. But then, even if the artist did not have a profound message, and is expressing their sexual desires - what of it? Balthus and Roy Stuart are both considered 'artists' the last time I checked.

 Something can be porn without even being nude, and vice versa. The level of nudity cannot answer the question as to whether something has an arousing agenda or not. In fact, in many cases, what we call 'nudity' in mainstream culture is actually not real 'nude' at all, but a nippleless, pubis-less cover operation. The more overtly the nipples and genitalia are obscured by the palms of the hands, by lingerie, or joke censor shapes - the more the image is set to titillate, as the question often implied is an eye-rollingly tedious "ooh, what's under there?" By 'covering up' a nude subject in this way, for whatever reason that happens, the constraint can impose the opposite effect to the liberating effect you may have wished for in choosing to shoot a nude (side note - that's why I increasingly started to avoid 'covering up' when doing nudes, in my attempt to avoid that contradiction).

But do we really know how to define 'art'?

Taking the topic to an even more mind-bending turn: I wondered, in my thoughts writing this, whether I could simplify the topic with 'all art is that which is clearly made and intended as art"? But, no: there may always some intention behind why something is made, that does not always define the way it is received. A lot of what we call 'art' was produced as something else. An example is photographer Guy Bourdin who produced photographs primarily for fashion magazines, and never intended his disposable craft to grace anything but a magazine spread - but we now celebrate his work in art books and visit his work in exhibitions. Czech photographer Miroslav Tichy took thousands of pervy voyeuristic images of women that were never intended to be viewed by anyone but himself, that now hang in galleries as esteemed as Michael Hoppen's. So, by that same token, can we call a Page 3 photo 'art'? Seems ridiculous, but if we substitute the word 'art' for 'communication' (in this case 'visual communication') then we get a sense of the semantic significance of the images that surround us every day, all made to sell or say something, but coalescing into the world and its historical archive of images, of 'visual communication', nonetheless.

In all of the images in the world and in history, stitched into society since forever is a collective ogling at the woman's body, and whether it is drawn, sculpted, or photographed, does not make a difference as to whether it can be questioned. Why do we talk about the Birth of Venus as if it is most definitely innocuous and infallible 'art', or any other representation of the female body by (an invariably male) painting or sculpting hand: what separates the adoration of the female nude figure from the adoration of the woman's body in porn? What we consider lovely nude old paintings now, were not necessarily accepted as such historically, so we also have to consider society's changing attitudes. The more I think about this, the more I realise that the art world itself is not sacred, but subject to the same values and commercial pressures prevalent everywhere.

We are taught to gaze and fantasise at women's bodies in everything we look at: not in just the single extreme of the porn world. You will find that what is of more interest when looking at a picture of a naked woman is asking on whose terms her nudity stands: hers, or a general-societal-'his'? It might involve asking: who made it, why is she naked, how is she presented? etc. The same naked woman can mean very different things from one context to another. A nice, physical analogy of this is a strip club in Brighton that threw out and banned a group of women who one afternoon removed their tops and paraded their boobs on their own terms.

Going back to the Phlearn arena, the discussions made by people generally on this debate, there is a tendency from people to get cocky about 'what is better than what'. What makes the people cooing over lovely, fluffy, safe, non-nude beautiful photos any less mind-numbed than the culture of people drooling over porno images? We sit in our seats judging what is what, as if opinion can be elected as judge, as if our personal threshold of how many tits and bums we can take can possibly define something objectively.

So now you see, at least from my point of view, that there is little point tossing around the 'art vs porn' debate. What point are we trying to make, other than to express our arbitrary tastes in armchair critic style, and also to expose how well society has taught us each to vilify the natural human body and its functions?